Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/622

 514

NOTES AND Q UERIES. [ii s. v, JINK 29, 101-2.

of this book, as if he ever chances to come across it, it may give him the information he desires. My friend the priest regarded it as a great treasure.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

The St. Wilhelmina mentioned by MR, WAINEWRIGHT is no doubt the lady referred to at 10 S. xi. 308. Several printed accounts of her life can be found in the British Museum Catalogue under ' Wil- helmina, Saint.' She is stated to have been Queen of Hungary and daughter of the King of England. A MS. life, written by Andrea Bon, Abbate de Sancto Gregorio de Venetia (before 1450), is in Add. MS. 10,051. She is said to have lived " nel tempo che novamente li Ongari forno con- vertidi ala fede cristiana," which would be about A.D. 1000, but she is totally unknown in Hungarian history. If your correspond- ent could indicate the date on which her festival is kept at Brunate, the ' Acta Sanctorum ' could be searched for further clues. L. L. K.

THE THAMES: VORTIGERN (11 S. v. 378, 436). While admitting gor-teyrn to be a more probable interpretation of Vortigern than my suggestion of mawr-teyrn, I must demur to one of the arguments with which MR. MAYHEW supports his view. He thinks that vor cannot represent mawr because in Celtic compounds " the adjective does not precede the substantive which it qualifies." It is true that such is the usual construction, but the exceptions are very numerous. An instance peculiarly in point is the title " mormaer," applied to the rulers of pro- vinces in the north of Scotland under the Celtic kings.

Many examples in place-names occur to mind, such as Morven (mor bheinn) and Benmore (beinn mor} great hill; Mor- cambe (mawr cam) and Cambusmore (camus mor) = great bend or bay; Gwynfynnedd (gwyn mynedd) and Fyntullach (fionn tulach) = white hill. To which I may add at random Banchory, Glasven, Glaslough, Glaster, Glasclune, Garvachie, Garvald, Shandon, Sanquhar, Shambellie, Fintray, Douglas, Duloch.

The constancy with which in Celtic, as well as in Teutonic, compounds the stress adheres to the qualitative enables one to distinguish the adjectival prefix glas, green, as in Glasven (glas bheinn, green hill)^ from the substantive glas, a stream, as in Douglas (dubh glas, black water).

HERBERT MAXWELL.

YEDDING (11 S. v. 408). In the following lines I am giving a derivation of the river- name Yedding which, perhaps, may prove right. In Yorkshire, Shropshire, Durham, and other counties the verb " to yed " means " to burrow underground," as a rabbit ; and " yedding," as a substantive, means " a molehole," and, as a verb, "to work secretly underground." Now, if that little stream has a deep bed, made gradually by the running water (burrowed, yedded), the deri- vation from the verb to yed, a burrowing, a yedding river, would be quite probable. See Wright's ' English Dialect Dictionary.' Perhaps MR. TAVENOR-PERRY will tell us whether the river-bed is really deep or not. DR. FR. ROSENTHAL. Hanover.

Lysons, ' Environs of London,' 1810, vol. iii. p. 389, has :

" The Manor of Yeading, anciently Yeldinge (i.e., old meadow), which has a court baron, is held under the Manor of Hayes by a quit- rent of 6 Shillings. It formerly belonged to WalteJ Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who had a charter of free-warren in 1307."

TOM JONES.

BULLOCK'S MUSEUM, PICCADILLY (11 S, v. 410). The Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, was built in 1812 for Mr. William Bullock, F.L.S., of Liverpool, as a receptacle for Ms natural history collection, the result of his thirty years' travel in Central America. The collection was sold in 2,248 lots in 1819, and realized 9,974Z. odd. The Liverpool Exhibition, as it was called, was opened at 22, Piccadilly, in 1805, in the room originally occupied by Astley for his evening perform- ance of horsemanship, and remained there till it was transferred to the more capacious premises of the Egyptian Hall.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

The building erected to house Bullock's Museum afterward became known as the Egyptian Hall. It was designed in 1811-12 by Peter Frederick Robinson (1776-1858), the details of the elevation being taken from V. Denon's work on the Egyptian monu- ments, and principally from the great temple at Denderah. The museum it was built to accommodate was dispersed by auction in 1819. There is a short account, under the heading ' Egyptian Hall,' in vol. ii. of Wheatley and Cunningham's ' London Past and Present,' pp. 7-8.

THOMAS WM. HUCK.

[MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS and G. F. R. B. the latter of whom refers to Timbs's ' Curiosities of London ' also thanked for replies.]