Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/280

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. in. APRIL s, ion.

James IV. of Scotland (1488-1513) seems first to have used as supporters of his arms the two silver unicorns royally gorged and chained or, which figure also in a signet of his granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots. James VI., when he succeeded to the crown of England, assumed one of these unicorns as the sinister supporter of his new coat- armorial.

But is not RAVEN rather begging the question in asking, " Why a fabulous beast ? " The unicorn was not looked on as fabulous until well on in the seventeenth century, and is generally taken to be an heraldic development of the Syrian antelope, whose long straight horns, set close together, appeared like one when viewed from the side. There was in CasseWs Magazine of some few years bask (I fear I cannot give the date) a curiously interesting and in- forming article, called ' The Rise of the Unicorn.' A unicorn is more commonly found as a charge ou Scottish than on English shields ; and many well-known Scottish families bear it.

OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B.

Fort Augustus.

The unicorn was made the supporter of the royal arms of Scotland by James III., as may be seen upon his gold coins the unicorn and half -unicorn struck in 1486.

A. R. BAYLEY.

The unicorn was an old device of the Scottish kings, and subsequently the sup- porter of the royal arms of that kingdom. See Nisbet's remarks in his ' Heraldry,' i. 304, ii. 35 (Edinburgh, WilHam Black- wood, 1816). T. F. D.

In 1884 I stumbled on the owner (Mr. Piceller) of a gilt-bronze badge representing a unicorn, which was supposed by him to be a relic of Hawkwood's English freelances, having been dug up in a field near Ponte S. Giovanni, 4 miles from Perugia, where they fought bravely. Its .workmanship is thought by experts to be of the fifteenth rather than of the fourteenth century, but I cling to a conviction that it was once worn by an English man-at-arms who fell in the siege by Hawkwood.

This unicorn I conveyed, at the request of the late Sir Wollaston Franks of the British Museum into the possession of the English descendants of the Hawkwood family (Coggeshall, Essex), to which he claimed to belong. WILLIAM MERCER.

It is hardly necessary to say that, how- ever " fabulous " the unicorn afterwards became, the belief in its existence was virtually universal in early times ; and its reputation for courage and magnanimity was such as amply to explain the choice of it in heraldry. " It seemeth by a question moved by Farnesius," says Guillim (quoted by Miss Phipson),

" that the unicorn is never taken alive ; and the reason being demanded, it is answered, that the greatness or his mind is such, that he chooseth rather to die than to be taken alive." 'Display of Heraldry,' p. 163, ed. 1724.

C. C. B.

There is a great deal of literature about the unicorn, but RAVEN will find it all embodied in a little work called ' The Uni- corn : a Mythological Investigation,' by Robert Brown, and in a more recent work by John Vinycomb, * Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art,' A. RHODES.

[ScoTUS also thanked for reply.]

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. iii. 228). The line,

As we journey through life, let us live by the way, occurs in an old Border drinking song called " Sae will we yet." There is much rollicking, humorous, homespun philosophy in the song, which is in the Lowland Scotch dialect. I remember several of the verses, the first of which is

Come sit ye doon, ma cronies,

An' gie us ye'r crack, Let the win' tak' the care O' this life on its back, For oor hairts tae despondency

We never will submit ; We hae lippened aye to Providence,

An' sae will we yet.

I never saw the song in print, and never heard who was the author.

ANDREW HOPE. Exeter.

' RENASCENCE : THE SCULPTURED TOMBS OF ROME ' (U.S. ii. 304). A critical genea- logist has called my attention to a statement by MR. GERALD S. DAVIES as to the relation- ship of the " two vassal kings, Charles and Charles Martel," who walked beside Boni- face VIII. in the procession when that Pope took possession of the Late ran, 23 January, 1295. Reference to Gregorovius (vol. v. of Mrs. Hamilton's translation, published by Bell, 1897) in which the "picturesque incident " is related, readily determines the question.