Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/233

 ii s. xii. SEPT. is, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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in the cottages. If, as DR. MARTIN would have us believe, the Park must mean the Lord Bishop of Winchester's sixty -acre park, would not it be much more curious that out of that great area only six token- holders could be found ?

It is this confusion between the two properties (a) the Park which formed the _ northern boundary of Brand's land, and (6) the park of the Lord Bishop of Win- chester on the south which has led DR. MARTIN into mistaking the sewer on the north next the Park for the sewer on the south next the park of the Lord Bishop of Winchester.

In the Close Roll Globe Alley is mentioned as being 124 feet north of this southern sewer ; but DR. MARTIN thinks that the measurements should be taken northwards of the northern sewer. This he proceeds to do, with the result that he finds the site of the Globe would be in the bed of the river, a reductio ad absurdum.

GEORGE HUBBARD, F.S.A.

(To be continued.)

" DIE ^EGYPTIACA " : " HORA ^GYPTIACA " (US. xii. 181). Egyptian days were days on which it was unlucky to be bled, or to drink, or to eat goose, or to strike either man or beast, or to begin any work. Some of the days have, in the verses which indicate them, bad luck for special operations ; but the above are the matters which it is gene- rally unlucky to do on them. Durandus gives as the reason why they are called Egyptian, either that their unlucky character was determined by the Egyptian astrologers, or that they stand in some relation to the plagues of Egypt. They are specified for each month in a hexameter line, which gives two days, the former to be counted from the beginning, the latter from the end of the month. The days are 1 and 25 Jan. ; 4 and 26 Feb. ; 1 and 28 March ; 10 and 20 April ; 3 and 25 May ; 10 and 16 June ; 13 and 22 July ; 1 and 30 Aug. ; 3 and 21 Sept, ; 3 and 22 Oct. ; 5 and 28 Nov. ; 1 and 22 Dec.

The lines specifying the days are generally given in mediaeval Kalendars at the beginning of each month. They are not the same in all Kalendars. One set is given by Chris- topher Wordsworth in ' The Ancient Kalen- dar of the University of Oxford,' Oxf. Hist. Soc., vol. xlv., in a Kalendar which begins on p. 68, and another, which is also to be found in the works of Bede, in a Kalendar which begins on p. 198.

They are also called " dies aegri " and " dies mali," and in some Kalendars have the letter D marked against them.

Wordsworth also gives, op. cit., p. xxviii r a set of lines for the hours of the unh.cky days which were specially unlucky.

JOHN R. MAGRATH.

Queen's College, Oxford.

There are many mediaeval superstitions about certain days. It was held that, thanks to Egyptian astrologers, some ominous dates had been discovered. On these no prudent man would let blood, start on a journey or begin any other task, or, unless he wished to be refused, propose marriage. These astrologers seem to have been as clever as their kinsmen the astrono- mers, who, as the lady said, were so ingenious that they had found out the names of the stars. It was so important to remember these Egyptian days that a verse was composed which brought them all in, and calendars also marked these days. For scholars more precise calculations were provided by famous mediaeval encyclopae- dists, such as Vincent of Beauvais (1190? 1264). He says that there are two such days in every month, and that these include the 25th of January. -But, from some occult cause, this date was also the festival of St. Paul's conversion. Merry and busy in a pagan survival, Englishmen then carried a buck to St. Paul's Cathedral, and wore, or blew, bucks' horns. What this curious co- incidence of dates portended has surely never been explained by Vincent or any one else. From an allusion in Chaucer it seems that the Egyptian days may have had some popular connexion with the plagues of Egypt (' Book of the Duchesse,' 1206, and Skeat's notes, ' Chaucer,' i. 493-4). The Church, officially but vainly opposed to all astrology, by decrees and penitentials cen- sured the persistent common belief in Egyptian days (Smith, 'Diet. Christian Antiq.,' i. 551).

Egyptian days were, however, part of a larger belief. There were many such speci- ally Christian unlucky days. The births of Cain and of Judas, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, were all, of course, unlucky days ; but happily they were known, fixed, and avoided. There are plentiful allusions in our literature to unlucky days (Brand, 'Popular Antiq.,' ed. 1870, Index, s.v. 'Days lucky or unlucky'). Such beliefs are widespread and venerable. " Egyptian days " form a part of that older taboo of fixed unlucky days which sometimes