Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/239

 n s. x. SEPT. 19, 1914.] NOTES AND QUEEIES.

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will give an English version also, the original one having been in Dutch. He evidently knows English better by ear than by eye, as may be seen by the little slip, on p. 496, note 2, of mentioning the yew tree as " the dismal or fatal ewe." Incidentally, many interesting matters are touched upon, such as equivalents for inheritance by Borough-English, and a Periplus by Wulff- stan, of about 880 A.D., in Anglo-Saxon.

ROCKINGHAM. Boston, Mass.

SEMAPHORE SIGNALLING STATIONS (11 S. x. 12, 77). There was formerly a semaphore signalling station on Honor Oak Hill (over- looking Peckham Bye), but both semaphore and the oak (called Honor Oak because Queen Elizabeth used to go maying there) are now gone. The old oak was a landmark from Knockholt Beeches and the country around. JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A.

"ASCHENALD" (11 S. x. 49). Towards the end of his account of the town of Ponte- f ract John Leland wrote :

" The Castel, Town and Landes about Brokcn- bridg longgid afore the Conquest to one Richard Aschenald. Richard had Ailrik, and he had Swane, of whom cam Adam, of Adam cam 2 doughters, wherof one of them was maried to Galfride Neville, the other to Thomas Burge. But nother of thes 2 had any part of the Quarters of Brokenbridg." ' Itinerary,' bk. i. f. 43.

The statements that Richard Aschenald possessed, before the Conquest, the town of Brokenbridge, usually known as Pontefract, with the surrounding lands, and that he was father of " Ailrik," are devoid of founda- tion. They were, as MB. A. S. ELLIS has pointed out, accepted by Camden, and since his day have been repeated by many other writers. Apart from the improba- bility of Elric the Englishman having for his father a man bearing the hj'brid name of Richard Aschenald, the fact that the manor of " Tateshalle," now Tanshelf, within which Pontefract lay, was, before the Conquest, in the hands of King Edward, appears to be fatal to Leland's statement. AlriV, or Elric, held fourteen or more manors in the neighbourhood of Cawthorne at that time. At the date of the Survey he and his son Swane had not only retained most of these manors, but had acquired several otluT-; in addition, such as Brierley and Denby.

Leland's account of the descendants of Adam, son of Swane, son of Alric, is also incorrect. At the beginning of the second

volume of the Chartulary of St. John of Pontefract the late Mr. Richard Holmes has given a fairly correct table of the descendants of Alric ; but he, like Leland, fell into error in identifying Mabel, the wife of Geoffrey de Nevill, as Mabel, sister and coheir of John Malherbe the younger, he being son and heir of John Malherbe the elder by his wife Matilda, daughter and coheir of Adam, son of Swane, and relict of Adam de Mont- begon. Mabel, the sister and coheir of John Malherbe the younger, married William de Lamare, and it was their only child Mabel who married Geoffrey de Nevill.

W. F.

" THE D D STRAWBERRY " (11 S. ix. 293 ; x. 30). The story, as I recollect it, is this. A man whose head had often suffered from his convivial habits was advised that a strawberry in his wineglass would act as a preventive against intoxication. He tried the experiment and failed egregiously, attri- buting his discomfiture, not to the amount of wine he had drunk, but to "the single d d strawberry that remained at the bottom of the glass the whole evening." I do not remember any reason being given for the device recommended. The anecdote, which I read many years ago, was vaguely associated in my mind with an alderman ( ? at a Lord Mayor's dinner) and with Horace Walpole's letters. A cursory exa- mination of Mrs. Toynbee's edition has failed to unearth it. Is it in the ' Facetiae Cantabrigienses ' ?

DEVOTIONS ON HORSEBACK (11 S. x. 171). Probably the most famous of such prayers is that of Leopold Fiirst von Anhalt-Dessau before the battle of Kesselsdorf, 15 Dec., 1745, in which he defeated the Saxon army under Rutowski. The " old Dessauer " and his horse, as they appear in Adolf Menzel's illustration of the scene in Kugler's ' Geschiehte Friedrich des Grossen,' are unforgettable. The raciness of the old soldier's words would be spoilt if one at- tempted to quote them from memory. The term that he applied to the enemy is one of the camp rather than the Court. Carlyle, if I remember rightly, had an eye for the incident in his ' Frederick,' and was not entirely taken up by the fact that the Saxon commander was a son (one of the three hundred and sixty-five children) of his favourite villain, that " gay eupeptic son of Belial," Augustus the Strong. I hear that Leopold's prayer has been referred to lately in the daily press. EDWARD BENSLY.

Reydon, Southwold, Suffolk.