Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/391

 ii s. i. MAY u, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

383

the need of some such compilation while giving lessons ; and it must be admitted that, thanks to these selections, to Baretti's Italian dictionary and to his ' Easy Phrase- ology ' an admirable book still for getting a good Italian vocabulary the numerous students of Italian at the end of the eigh- teenth century were far better provided with tools than are the few who learn that lan- guage in England to-day. Now that Italian can be offered for the Civil Service examina- tion, we may at least hope that better days are before it in this country.

LACY COLLISON-MORLEY.

MAY DAY CELEBRATION AT BRIGHTON. Being at Brighton on 1 May, I was struck with the extent to which May Day was celebrated for purposes of monetary collec- tion by the poorer children there, though, as the date fell this year on a Sunday, the celebration took place on 30 April and 2 May. These children, in bands of five, were to be met in almost every street, bedecked not only with brightly coloured paper garlands, but with paper flowers liberally attached to' every part of their outer garments. Halting at intervals, and four solemnly walking round and round their companion stationary in the centre, they sang a curious compound of old melodies and new, passing abruptly from a sweet air dealing with that which is " underneath the trees n or " under- neath the ground " to

John Brown's body 's on a sour apple tree, As we go marching around ;

and then to what sounded very like a rhymed invocation. The version seemed common to all the quaintly dressed little bands ; and it would be interesting to have it fully recorded and to learn from some veteran Brightonian how it has evolved to its present shape ; for the introduction of " John Brown " with the wrongful assignment to the victim of Harper's Ferry of the fate threatened to "Jeff Davis" by tens of thousands of Federal soldiers as they marched to battle in the American Civil War is a striking touch of modernity amid much that appears distinctly old.

A. F. R.

KITE OR DRAGON. How did a boy's kite come to be called a cerf -volant in French ? It has not the slightest resemblance to a flying stag. Littre gives no clue. But in Provencal it is serp-vouldnto, the flying serpent, showing the same idea as in the Scots " dragon." The term must have come

to Northern France from Provence ; then it was probably confounded with the name cerf -volant - applied to the long-horned or stag beetle.

Now comes the question why a kite should be called a flying snake or a dragon. The reason was probably that shooting-stars were called dragons, and the kite was likened to one of those meteors. The name applied to the shooting-star arose from the myth of the carbuncle. It is believed in India that when a cobra, burrowing in the ground, finds a buried crock of gold, he curls himself upon the gold, and broods there until the gold becomes concentrated into a gem, the mdnikam, the carbuncle (" whiche by nyght shyneth as a cole brennyng," quot. 'N.E.LV). The cobra then takes the mdnikam in his mouth and flies away to bathe in the sea. A shooting-star is the brilliant gem shining; in the cobra's flight.

EDWARD NICHOLSON.

Paris.

AVIATION AND LICHFIELD. At a time- when two " aviators n in succession have flown from London to Lichfield, the accom- panying excerpt from The Times of 28 April may perhaps find place in ' N. & Q. J :

Sir, The following coincidence may have some interest for your readers. To-day, when this town has had the honour to receive Mr. Grahame- White on his descent from the clouds, I fell upon the following paragraph in the ' Letters ' of Miss Anna Seward, the Lichfield blue-stocking and the friend' of Dr. Johnson :

" Lichfield, Nov. 7, 1784.

" The fame of Lunardi's aerial tour must

have reached you Infinite seems the present

rage- To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence about

This pendant world.

But unless these adventurers can acquire the power of steering their buoyant bark the experi- ment is as idle as it is dangerous."

The history of a century and a quarter ago- repeats itself. Truly yours,

A. M. SPOER, F.R.S.G.S. Lichfield, April 24.

It is true (like Ingoldsby's "Monstre"' Balloon described in "the thirties") the vehicle was not an aeroplane ; but the retrospective glimpse is still interesting.

R. B. Upton.

BOOKS IN WILLS : NATHANIEL BRADING. All readers of * N. & Q.' are more or less interested in books, so a few notes may be acceptable at times regarding curiosities of private libraries. On several occasions,.