Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/303

 n s. i. APR. 9, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

295

illegible inscriptions on crumbling tomb- stones, he made his discovery that the four persons named above had been followers of Bruce in 1306. W. SCOTT.

"MALLAS RIGG " (11 S. i. 128). There is a peculiar use of the word " rig n in Canada, which is not owing to derivation from any native Indian word, but seems to be due to the transplantation from Great Britain, at some time in the past, of a provincial use and meaning of the word. A " rig n in Canada is a carriage. What we should call a carriage and pair an Ontario Canadian calls a rig and team. The word seems to have the meaning of apparatus. Prof. Skeat in his ' Etymological Dictionary l does not definitely include this meaning ; nor does he exclude it. It may perhaps be included in his reference to the harness or covering of a horse.

As to the word " mallas," I find in Kersey's dictionary (1708) that the word mala in old records has the meaning of mail, which is a trunk or bag for carrying letters. and gives its derivation. I do not know what the postal arrangements were in country districts in old times. Is it not possible that some official connected with the delivery of letters, &c., had certain rights, at cross-roads leading to villages, in a postal pparatus a sort of primitive letter-box ?
 * Prof. Skeat refers to the word in this sense

dare not sign my name. F. P.

As a pure guess, I suggest that ' ' mallas igg " may refer to " marie -right," the right f digging marie in another's property.

R. S. B.

STEERAGE ON A FRIGATE (10 S. xii. 470 ; 1 S. i. 77). In ' Sea Life in Nelson's Time,' t>y John Masefield (Methuen & Co., n.d.), here is a detailed description, with section, )f a ship of war of the late eighteenth cen- ury. It is there stated (p. 20) that the orwiird bulkhead of the (captain's) cabin vas pierced with a door amidships, which jpened on to the half -deck, the space covered by the quarter-deck :

The half -deck was also known as the steerage, I'-uu the fact that the steering wheels and tinnacle \\cre placed there, under the roof or p of the quarter-deck planks."

T. F. D.

SWIFT ON EAGLE AND WASP (11 S. i. 8). This tale is clearly a variant of the fable of the Eagle and the Beetle, which in the Greek legend was told by JEsop to the Delphians, when, after being condemned by them on an

unjust charge, he was being led out to execution. See Aristophanes's ' Wasps,' 1446 sqq., and the scholia on that passage.

The story is again referred to by Aristo- phanes in 1. 124 of the ' Peace,' where the scholiast tells it in the following form. The agle carried off the beetle's young. The beetle rolled the eagle's eggs out of her nest. This went on till at last the eagle brought her complaint to Zeus, and he bade her make her nest in his lap. But when the eggs were there the beetle flew about Zeus. The god, forgetting what he was doing, sprang up to scare her away, and broke the eggs.

Erasmus makes his treatment of the fable in his ' Adagia ' (' Scarabseus aquilam quserit,' under the main heading ' Ultio malefacti') the vehicle of an extraordinary practical joke. He expands the story in a discursive manner to an enormous length over the columns of ninety lines apiece in Gryna3us's edition of 1629 and explains at the end that he has done this for the benefit of those critics who had complained of his being poverty-stricken and jejune.

La Fontaine has* made use of the story, ' Fables,' ii. 8, ' L'Aigle et 1'Escarbot.*

EDWARD BENSLY.

SWIFT AT HAVISHAM (11 S. i. 8, 135). Is it absolutely certain, from the subsequent correspondence referred to, that " Havis- ham n was in Kent ? If so, the chances are surely in favour of Faversham, one of places mentioned by MR. ELRINGTON BALL. But if Collier, Swift's friend, had been a schoolfellow of Philips at Shrewsbury, may it not be Evesham that was intended ?

N. W. HILL.

New York.

KING'S PLACE, CROWN COURT, OR PAVED ALLEY (11 S. i. 30, 74, 92, 153). About thirty years ago many of the shopkeepers in this court or alley let lodgings in their upper stories, and these were occupied to a great extent by officers, home on leave, on half-pay, or retired. They were, as a rule, none too well off, and wanted cheap rooms in the immediate vicinity of their clubs in and around Pall Mall. It was the best situation to be had at the price.

This has no direct bearing on the subject under discussion, but may be of interest as a side-light. FRANK SCHLOESSER.

THREE CCC COURT (11 S. i. 31, 74, 92). It is not surprising that difficulty is ex- perienced when an attempt is made to bring into line statements of different writers upon