Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/20

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. m. JAN. 7, 1911.

A reprint of this chapbook may be found in vol. ii. of 'The Old Book Collector's Miscellany,' edited by the late Charles Hindley. W. C. BOLLAND,

Lincoln's Inn.

This great snow was in 1614/15 :

" January 16th began the greatest snow which ever fell upon the earth within man's memorye. It covered the earth fyve quarters deep upon the playne. There fell also ten less snows in Aprill, some a foote deep, some lesse, but none continued long. Uppon May-day in the morning instead of fetching in flowers the youths brought in flakes of snow, which lay above a foot deep uppon the moores and mountaynes (Youlgrave Register, Derbyshire)."

" At York a heavy snow fell in January and eleven weeks frost, and then the river Ouse over- flowed, which flooded the streets, and lasted ten days, destroying many bridges (Whittock's York)."

The above quotations are from T. H. Baker's ' Records of the Seasons, Prices of Agricultural Produce, and Phenomena ob- served in the British Isles.'

A. R. MALDEN.

From my transcription of the ancient records of Whitgift's Hospital, Croydon, I quote the following contemporary note :

" Divided among the brethren and Sisters, in consideration of the Great Snow and cold winter, according to the appoyntment and warrant of my L. Grace of Canterbury, to each one the sum of vi 8 . riii d . 'amounting in all to the sum of x 1 . xiii 8 . iv d . (1614-15)."

ALFBED CHAS. JONAS.

An interesting and verbatim account of the great snow will be found in The Reli- quary, vol. iv. p. 194, taken from the Youl- greave parish register ; also an account of a great drought in the following spring, when only two showers of rain fell in over four months. " Nature always pays its debts."

A. C.

Describing the great snow in the winter of 1614-15, Chambers (' Domestic Annals of Scotland') quotes from Balfour's 'Annals of Scotland,' and cites other authorities to show the terrible severity of the season.

W. SCOTT.

CHBISTMAS MUMMERS AS MAMMALS OB BIKDS (11 S. ii. 507). Some additional infor- mation may perhaps be obtained from Hone's ' Works,' edition 1845 ; an article in Chambers' s Journal, 1848, on ' Obser- vances of Christmas in the Olden Time ' ; Record, vol. iii. 1880 ; and Miss C. M. Yonge's ' The Christmas Mummers, and other Stories,' 1858.
 * Dorsetshire Mummers,' in The Folk-lore

A graphic account of a singular custom once prevalent in Dumfriesshire, indicative of the detestation in which the memory of the persecutor Grierson of Lag was long held in that part of Scotland, will be found in ' The Burns Country,' by Mr. C. S. Dougall, 1904, pp. 271-4. The observance, not necessarily confined, however, to the Christ- mas season, represented the persecutor as a grotesque animal figure, crawling on all fours in search of Whigs. ' SCOTUS.

Fosbroke, ' Antiquities,' p. 668, states that some mummers were disguised like bears, others like unicorns, bringing presents. There is a small illustrated plate of these, and a reference to Strutt's ' Sports,' 124, 189, 190. TOM JONES.

CHBISTMAS BOUGH : CHBISTMAS BUSH (11 S. ii. 507). The Christmas bough, con- sisting of a bundle of evergreens decorated with oranges, apples, &c., and hung up in the kitchen, has always been called " the mistletoe " as long as I can remember, and is supposed to convey the same kissing privileges as, the actual mistletoe, which was never seen here before the days of railways.

J. T. F.

Winterton, Lines.

In my own childhood (fifteen to twenty years ago) at Epworth in Lincolnshire, we never had a Christmas tree, but always a bush of the type described by ANCHOLME. It was formed of two wooden hoops placed one inside the other cross-wise, and then trimmed with evergreens, such as holly, ivy, box, &c. Apples, oranges, and small fancy articles were suspended from the framework, and a light hung in the middle or below. I have seen such bushes in other houses not many years since in the same place, and my father tells me they were common in South Notts in his boyhood. It was there called " the kissing-bush." We called it " the holly-bush." H. I. B.

The earliest of those I knew over sixty years ago were much the same as described by ANCHOLME. The most used name for them in Derbyshire was " kissing-bush," because at every cottage Christmas gathering every one child, maid, lad, as well as mother and father had to be kissed under it, or, if it hung too low from the kitchen beam, by the side of it, and under it all the kissing forfeits in the games had to be redeemed.

At one of the editorial references given I described the making of the " Christmas