Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/13

 ii s. XIL JULY 3, i9i5j NOTES AND QUERIES.

To cure some infant malady a little girl known to the writer was taken to the village church and made to sleep in a bed within the sacred building, whilst her father watched beside her during the night. Another girl afflicted with a serious complaint used to visit an old church in Morfu, escorted by a companion of the same age, and was solemnly led, hand in hand, round the exterior of the building, beginning along the north side and round by the west end. Finally a half piastre was carefully pushed beneath the south door of the rustic temple.

Sleeping within churches is not uncommon in the Levant, not only for a medico -re- ligious purpose, but also as a matter of convenience in. lieu of other accommodation.

The singular custom of festooning the outside of a village church with a few strands of cotton yarn is differently interpreted by natives. There is no doubt, however, that the chief intention of the custom is to ward off or cure sickness of an epidemic kind. According to one theory, it is intended to act as an enchanted or quarantine cordon against the invasion of the community by the forces of the Evil One.

These few particulars of the manners and customs of our new fellow-subjects, which may serve to give some idea of what manner of men they are, are of course tinged with the peculiar religiosity of their nature. It will therefore not be inappropriate to conclude with an interesting quotation from Di Cesnola's 'Cyprus,' where the great explorer of the island in the 60' s and 70's of the last century gives an account of a common enough experience in anv part of the island :

" Enjoying the solitude in which I believed myself, and while climbing a jutting rock in order to reach the largest portion of a standing wall, I was startled by the voice of a man reading aloud in a nasal, unbroken tone. I coughed, and the sound immediately ceased, but after a moment proceeded as before. Upon reaching the wall I found a Greek priest reading to some nine or ten stonecutters. I made a sign to the priest (who on my appearance had stopped) to proceed, and, uncovering my head, waited a little way off until the prayer was over. Upon its termination the men dispersed, and I approached the priest to make some inquiries, and from the old man's lips gathered the following story : ' Formerly a church stood where are now these few ruins a very long time ago, more than 200 years ago ! ' The old priest eyed me askance as he said this, fearing my archaeological knowledge might dispute such remote antiquity ; but the building

was even more ancient than he imagined A

mass of rubbish and stones, with here and there a piece of wall a few feet high, are all that remain to mark the spot ; but a priest comes every Mon- day in the year at break of day to pray among

the stones. Before ascending the hill he rings a* handbell, and those peasants who wish gather there- together for prayer. The early morning, the earth still bathed in dew, the sun just rising,, throwing its glories over sea and land, the solem- nity of the hour, the profound tranquillity, that reigned around where nought met the eye that told of man, fitted so well with the scene of prayec' and the legend I had just been listening to, that a melancholy charm invested these simple ruins' for a moment, which more pretentious ones, at a. different hour, would have failed to convey."

GEO. JEFFERY, F.S. A.- Cyprus.

JOHN HARDY, WINCHESTER SCHOLAR, heads the roll for 1549, entering the College at the- age of 12, from, Farnham (Kirby, ' Winchester Scholars,' p. 128). Proceeding to New College in due course, he was removed from his Fellowship in 1562 by the see of Winchester for recusancy. After that we- lose sight of him for twenty-one years. In. 1583 two Catholic laymen were executed for their religion, John Body and John Slade,. the former being a Wykehamist twelve- years younger than Hardy. For what i& known of them see 'Lives of the English Martyrs,' Second Series, vol. i. (Longmans & Co., 1914), at pp. 1-21. A disputation which they held at Winchester with the Dean of Winchester, Laurence Humphrey,. D.D., and the Warden of Winchester Col- lege, Thomas Bilson, D.D., after they had twice been condemned to death (at Andover in April, and at Winchester on 19 August),, seems to have given rise to a good deal of discussion, and several months elapsed before- their deaths, Slade suffering at Winchester on 30 Oct., and Body at Andover 2 Nov., 1583.

A fortnight or three weeks before Michael- mas in that year one Eustace Mocne of Farnham, gentleman, was entertaining divers guests at dinner. When dinner was over or during dinner one of the guests, Peter Hampden, gentleman, alluded to the dis- putation lately held at Winchester; and after dinner another guest, the Vicar of Farnham, Peter German, fetched a copy of Eusebius, whose words as to the constitution of the Council of Nicaeahad been a point in the dispu- tation. Hardy then translated the passage word for word, and said that he thought that Body and Slade were correct in their interpretation of it. No immediate result followed, for the- Vicar " shortly fell lame, and so lay for the- space of a whole quarter of the year." No- sooner, however, had he recovered the use ol his legs than he made his way to Guildford and laid an information against Hardy before the local justices, Sir William More, George More, and Laurence Stoughton. They