Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/572

 472

NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. v. JUNE 15, 1912.

Monographic,' pt. i., Berlin, 1876, suggests that at the time when Europe and North Africa were still united, hordes of dolmen- building Berbers may have migrated as conquerors across Europe and into Asia.

Major C. R. Conder found an abundance of menhirs, dolmens, and stone circles in 1881 in Moab ; they were numbered by hundreds (' The World's Greatest Explorers : Palestine,' c. 1890).

Information about cromlechs or dolmens will also be found in Jacques Antoine Dulaure, ' Histoire abreg^e de differens Cultes,' Paris, 1825, 8vo ; and in an article on ' Sacred Stones ' in The Fortnightly Review, January, 1890, pp. 96 sq. ; also illustrations in the article ' Stone and Stone- Worship ' in ' The Jewish Encyclopaedia,' vol. xi., 1905. FHEDK. A. EDWARDS.

The questions raised by this query are by no means easy to answer. Why were cromlechs erected ? That is the first point to be settled. We know some (e.g., the Lanyon Cromlech, Cornwall) were placed over graves. Mounds of earth originally quite covered some perhaps all and when the mounds have been removed, the crom- lechs, or quoits, have been exposed to view. Many of them, especially in Cornwall, are placed within a mile or two of the seashore, but not all. I am inclined to think that in former times they were much more numerous, their scarcity to-day being largely accounted for by the undoubted fact that a long-continued process of dilapidation, even wilful destruction, has been going on. The huge stones, in many districts, were con- venient material for building pxirposes, for gate-posts, and bridges over streams, and in the past have been freely made use of, either in their entirety or after being broken, or split up, into the needed sizes.

It is not unlikely that the huge stones were placed over graves of eminent, or even sinister, personages, to keep their ghosts from troubling the living.

I know that many writers for example, the late W. C. Borlase assert, on what authority I know not, that these rude structures were placed so as to catch the rays of the setting sun. Against this theory is the better authenticated view that the south has always been the favourite posi- tion for burials all over the world. Even in prehistoric barrows, where secondary interments are common and numerous, by far the larger number of interments is found to have been made on the south and east sides of the barrow, very rarely on the north

and west. The curious burials within the walls of churches, of persons with evil, or doubtful, reputations, have always (as far as I know) been in the north wall, never in the south wall (e.g., Purton, Wilts ; Burnt Pelham, Herts ; Clavering, Essex ; Rouen Cathedral ; Tremeirchion, N. Wales), and the singularity of this points to the south as the usual position for the burial of normal persons.

But it is not improbable that some of the cromlechs may have served other purposes than tombstones. Mystery still enshrouds the subject, and seems likely to do so.

J. HARRIS STONE.

Oxford and Cambridge Club.

PAGANEL AS A CHRISTIAN NAME (11 S. v. 350). Paganel is merely the Latinized form of Paynel or Paignel, a common Norman name in the thirteenth century and later. In the Lat. pdgdnellus both a's are long, as it is a diminutive of pdgdnus, a villager ; from pdgus, a village. Bardsley, in his ' Dictionary of Surnames,' s.v. Paynel, observes that " one of the chief tenants in capite in Domesday is a Ralph Paganel." He also quotes " Paganel or Pain, del Ash, A.D. 1301 " ; and " Katerina Paynel, 1273." The Lat. pdgdnus, done into the Norman Payen, Payn, Payne, Paine, Pain, &c., is a very common name.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

" HUSH, YE PRETTY WARBLING CHOIR"

(11 S. v. 370).

Hush, ye pretty warbling choir ; Your thrilling strains Awake my pains, And kindle fierce desire. Cease your song, and take your flight ; Bring back rny Acis to my sight.

From the cantata ' Acis and Galatea.' written by Gay, and composed by Handel. The first performance took place at Can- nons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos, in 1720. WILLIAM H. CUMMLNGS.

This air occurs in Handel's serenata ' Acis and Galatea,' composed by him in 1720, when he was organist to the Duke of Chandos at Cannons.

The libretto for the work was selected from various sources, Gay, Dryden, Pope, and others being drawn upon by the com- poser. Who was responsible for the words of this particular air, I cannot say.

EDWIN T. MORGAN.

The Cathedral, Bristol.

[ME. JOHN T. PAGE and MR. C. S. JERRAM also thanked for replies.]