Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/495

 11 8. XL JUNE 26, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

485

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1915.

CONTENTS. No. 287.

NOTES : The Interpolations and Dislocations in ' Widsith, 485 Folk-Lore of Cyprus, 486 Holborn Charters, 488 Walton-in-Gordano Parish Register William Cobbett, 489 Rectory House of St. Michael.Cornhill The " Bell" Bible Epitaphiana : Longnor Churchyard Match-Girls' Song Gladstone on Germany's Greed, 490.

QUERIES : Prince Charles Edward's English, 491 Charles Reade's Note-books' Edwin Drood ' : a Classical Query James John Lonsdale, 492 Hyde Sir John and Lady Oldmixon Scottish University Theses " Here we come .gathering nuts and may," 493 Sir Richard Bulkeley, Bart. Poems Wanted Pictures dealing with School Life Dickson : Baillie : Gordon: Simpson Verger's Staff Stoke Poges Church : Picture Site of Inscription Wanted " Jago," Shoreditch, 494.

REPLIES : Isaac Taylor of Ross, 495 Heraldic Query,: Boteler Arms Dean of Ripon's famous similitude" Rochdale Dialect Words Corpus ChrisM in England- School Folk-Lore, 496 " Myriorama " "Janus" Pack- Horses Marybone Lane and Swallow Street Birgit Rooke, Abbess of Syon, 497 A Russian Easter Piccadilly Terrace Barsanti : Bulkeley : Nossiter Lope de Vega's Ghost Story, 498 Spon : Spoon Levant Merchants in Cyprus, 499 Alphabet of Stray Notes Chesapeake and Shannon" Life is a romance "Goats with Cattle, 500 Custody of Ecclesiastical Archives Parish Registers "The tune the old cow died of," 501 The Seven Seas Sir John Moore : Black Stripe in Officers' Lace, 502.

NOTES OX BOOKS : ' Bibliography of Johnson ' ' Busones : a Study and a Suggestion.'

First Editions and Autographs.

From ' L'Interme'diaire.'

Notices to Correspondents.

JSotea.

THE INTERPOLATIONS AND DISLOCATIONS IN 'WIDSITH.'

THE leading characteristic of critics of Widsith ' is a deplorable readiness to detract from the value of tb.e text they profess to elucidate. This readiness operates whenever theory and partial knowledge severally conflict with the statements made by the poet, or fail to explain them. Gaps in the text are assumed with facility, and with no other warrant than the supposed need to smooth over real or imaginary diffi- culties. Hypothetical corruptions of the text and of the forms of proper names in it are freely alleged to be probable. Name after name is arrogantly declared to be quite fictitious, or imaginary, or feigned, or typical and without actuality. And no fewer than eleven passages of the genuine text of 140 lines are alleged to be interpo- lated, for no other reason than because the retention of them jeopardizes or confounds the theory of the moment.

Now the interpolations made in the text by 'A (the scribe of the archetype of

the Codex Exoniensis) are three in number exactly ; while the dislocations due to him are two only. I propose to restore the original text of the poem, as it was before A transcribed it, by ejecting these interpola- tions and by replacing the dislocated verses in their true and original position.

I.

The three interpolations are :

1. " -as " in " Alexandreas," in 1. 15.

2. LI. 81 and 82 :

Mid Israhelum ic wses | ond mid Assyringum,* Mid Ebreum en I mid ludeumf ond mid E^yptum.

8. Two words in 1. 87, viz., " ond Idumin- gum."

1. The first interpolation I have already dealt with in ' N. & Q.' (11 S. vi. 7). " An- dreas " is the name of one of the twelve Apostles ; but " Alexandreas " is just the oblique case of " Alexander," with the meaningless syllable -as ignorantly attached thereto.

2. At 1. 84 A saw, or thought he saw, a reference to the Medes and Persians, and he was moved to insert two lines about the Israelites, the Assyrians, the Hebrews, and other Biblical races.

3. At 1. 87 A saw, or thought he saw, Idum> which he did not understand. He looked again and made " Istum "J of it, and wrote that down. With his first im- pression in mind, and regardless of metre, he interpolated" ond Idumingum " ("and among the Edomites ' ). These additions,

"MS. exsyringum, with ec :: a, and so ecs::as; cp. Hebrecicam for Hebraicam. a repeated error which occurs in the copy of Bede's ' Chronica Maiora ' made in 820 by Winithari, Abbot of St. Gall ; ed. Mommsen, ' Chron. Minor.,' iii. 237.

f MS. indeum, with n : : u.

J The scribal confusions of d with sc and st are very interesting. Cp. Gebustus for *Gebudus, i.e., Gepidus (' Historia Brittonum,' Chartres MS., eleventh century, ed. Mommsen, p. 160, 1. 5). Also dustnon (with d::cl, and pn::ou) for Cludnou, in the * Llyfr Achau,' a late sixteenth-century copy of much earlier MSS. ; see ' Archiv fur celtische Lexi- cographie, i. 520, 525. Sercedur (with er::el) for Selcestur, i.e., Silchester, 'The Bruts,' edd. Rhys and Evans, p. 126, 1. 17, and p. 415. Scrocmagil for Saxon Chronicle, F (Lat.), a Canterbury MS. of the twelfth century. The Laud MS. of c. 1130 has Scromail, and F '(English) has Scrocmail. The Middle Welsh Brochmail is intended.
 * drocmagil (with d::b), i.e., Brocmagil, in the

j " Idumingum " = Edomites. Cp. Sodom-ingum, Lidwic-ingum, Asxyr-ingum. Latin e became I in early O.E., and o became u ; cp. moneta ) *munlt V "mynet," "money"; seta ) "side," "silk"; Leta (LtZta) } "Lid- "in Lid-wicingum ; Gepid-u* > Gif J>- of Widsith.