Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/81

 us. vm. JULY 26, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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1 Observations ' on the subject. In 1886 he also printed as a leaflet a letter from M. Delisle. in which that eminent scholar said : " Je suis porte a croire que vous avez raison de presenter Gherbodus comme le frere-de- ]ait de Gtmdreda." W. D. MACRAY.

MB. FLETCHER will find the most impor- tant information on Gundred's parentage in a pamphlet by Mr. Chester Waters on ' Gundrada de Warrenne ' (sic), published by William Pollard, Exeter, 1884. The author quotes a letter from Anselm to Henry I., which proves conclusively that Gundred was not a daughter either of William I. or of Queen Maud. No doubt she was a sister of Gherbod the Fleming, Earl of Chester, and probably daughter of the earlier Gherbod, who is supposed to have been his father, whilst her mother is unknown.

Mr. Waters states that the Lewes charters, in their present form at least, are mere fabrications. MB. FLETCHER might, per- haps, find information bearing on them in Sir George Duckett's ' Charters and Records of Cluni,' 2 vols., 1888.

G. H. WHITE. St. Cross, Harleston, Norfolk.

See ' D.N.B.,' xxiii. 338, and The English Historical Review, No. XII.. pp. 680-701, October, 1888, for Freeman's summing-up.

A. R. BAYLEY.

' THE READER ' AND DR. JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY (11 S. vii. 468; viii. 36). The set of The Reader in the Library of the British Museum is grievously imperfect. The paper ran until 12 January, 1867. Bendysshe's * Papers of a Suicide, by Him- self,' appeared in the last three numbers. The review of vol. i. of Latham's ' Johnson's Dictionary,' in which the reviewer I suppress his name mistook the preface of Johnson for one by Latham, is in the last number (12 January, 1867, pp. 24-5). It is headed " First Notice The Preface,'" but there was no second notice, as the review died. W. P. COUBTNEY.

STATUES AND MEMORIALS IN THE BRITISH ISLES: " OFFRS." (11 S. vii. 443; viii. 13). I entirely agree with the strictures of SIR HARRY B. POLAND. The contrac- tion is an offence to the eye and should never have been perpetrated. I failed to refer to this in my notes simply because I look upon myself more in the light of a recorder than as filling the office of a critic.

JOHN T. PAGE.

THATCH FIRES (11 S. viii. 6). Great iron hooks on long poles are kept in many Swiss villages to help put out fires in chalets and other wooden buildings by tearing out roofs or other parts when alight. Specimens of these are kept in what might be called a. fire-brigade shed about five minutes' walk from Wengen Station, near Interlaken.

J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.

Glendora, Hindheacl, Surrey.

Iron " fire-hooks " are not uncommon in Cambridgeshire. There is one preserved in the very interesting church of St. Benet, Cambridge, and others at Stretham (still attached to its pole) and at Lintcn. The iron shackles would be used either to fix the pole, which was sometimes 30 ft. long, on to a wooden carriage on wheels to which the larger ones were attached, or else as a means of lowering the hook to the right height when in use. There is a print in St. Benet's showing one of these fire-hooks at work. It has been suggested that the iron rings sometimes found under the eaves of seventeenth - century houses were put- there to facilitate the use of these hooks. A paper was recently read (I think) on this subject before the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, but I have not the reference by me.

L. E. T.

2, Little Dean's Yard, S.W.

At Swalcliffe there is an iron hook with wooden handle similar to that mentioned by MR. DOUGLAS OWEN. This has two stout iron chains attached to it about half-way down. I am describing from memory, but know where a photograph exists, and doubt- less a print could be obtained by your corre- spondent if he cared to have one.

I subj oin an extract from ' Chaucer and his England ' which may be interesting :

" An earthen wall is mentioned in Riley, p. 30. The slight structure of the ordinary house appear.* from the fact that the rioters of 1381 tore so mam- down, and that the great storm of 1362 unroofed them wholesale (Walsingham, an. 1381, and Riley, p. 308). Compare the hook with wooden handle and two ropes which were kept in each ward for the pulling down of burning houses (' Liber Albus,' p. xxxiv)."

F. C. MORGAN, Librarian.

Public Library, Malvern.

I well remember such a hook as that described by MR. DOUGLAS OWEN at West Haddon, Northamptonshire, in the sixties. It was fitted with a long, serviceable pole, and used to repose on a series of supports under the eaves of some outbuildings at, the residence of the captain of the village fire brigade. I last saw it used at a fire