Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/614

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis. vi. DEO. 28, 1912.

though it is the grandfather who sets the log alight, it is the youngest child who pours the wine over it and its decoration of gilt- paper stars.

In that, to me, most interesting museum, the Musee Arlatan, founded by Mistral at Aries, there is a group of life-size wax figures and accessories which illustrates the vinous besprinkling of the log on Christmas Eve. In a photograph of the scene which I have now before me, the supper-table blocks off the view. On it stand the three candles which are considered essential on Christmas Eve, though no doubt others are added : oil may be the illuminant at other times, but not now. It is a bad sign when the wick of one of these particular candles happens to turn so as to point at anybody round the board. On that stands at each end a plate of wheat, which has been roused to make signs of life by being steeped in water on St. Barbara's Day. The orthodox dishes of the time are snails, and cod, and celery, a preparation of olives, various fruits, and special dainties, never forgetting the cake peculiar to the season, which must not be eaten until a fourth part of it has been given to the first poor passer-by, or possibly been set aside for him. Mistral had the intention of introducing a full account of a Provencal Christmas Eve into notes to Cant. VII. ; it was left out of the poem from fear of making that too long. In some houses the supper-cloth is kept for three days upon the table. The crumbs are shaken up into the middle of it for the pious purpose of providing refreshment for the armettes, or ancestral spirits, who may come in search of it.
 * Mireio.' Some of this may be read in the

Frederic Mistral and C. Senes are, I believe, responsible for all my statements.

ST. SWITHIN.

" HOGMANAY " AND " AGUILLANNEUF." Sir Walter Scott, writing to Miss Joanna Baillie on 1 Jan., 1819, says he wishes she could have seen about a hundred children dancing to the pipes, and getting a piece of cake and bannock and pennies in honour of hogmanay (New Year's Eve). Rabelais in ' Pantagruel,' chap, xi., mentions " Yaguil- lanneuf, le premier trou de 1'an." These two names for New Year's Eve are two forms of a Latin refrain, hoc in anno, occurring in a Norman -French carol which used to be sung by children going about and begging for small presents or New Year's gifts. De Brieux has preserved a portion of this song, in which hoc in anno is spelt hoquinano

(see Dumeril, ' Patois Normand,' s.v. ' Hagui- netes'). When sung by children ignorant of Latin the words hoc in became aguin-, and anno was frequently taken to mean an neuf (new year), hence the French form hoguinane (Norm, dial.) and aguillanneuf, the form given by Rabelais (with I for n by dissimilation), Aguillanneuf is explained by Cotgrave as au guy Van neuf ("to the mistletoe the new year "), and is con- nected by him with the Druids gathering mistletoe on 1 Jan. ; but this explanation is now rejected by French scholars as merely " popular etymology." The New Year Eve cry hoc in anno passed over into Spain, as we may see from Sp. aguinaldo and aguilando, both of which occur in Minsheu (1623) in the sense of "a New Year's gift." In the poem of ' The Cid,' xxix., the word aguinaldo is found with the simple meaning of " a gift," a pour-boire.

The hogmanay of Sir W. Scott (the hag- mena of the North of England) is due to the Norm. dial, form hoguinane (with dis- similation of the n). A. L. MAYHEW.

Oxford.

TONG CHURCH TREASURE. Some day there may appear in ' N. & Q.' a query as to what has become of the Tong ciborium. This cutting from The Birmingham Daily Mail of 30 Nov., 1912, may therefore be w,orth preserving to show how it is now pro- posed to dispose of this piece of Church property and of the proceeds of its sale :

" One of the treasures of Tong Church a silver-gilt and crystal cup, sometimes called a ciborium for which it is stated a sum of nearly 3,0001. has been offered, is to be put into the market subject to the granting of a faculty for its sale. This will be applied for in a few days' time, the consent of the parishioners having been obtained at a recent meeting. It is ex- plained by the Vicar of Tong (the Rev. J. E. Auden) that for sixteen years or more the cup has been deposited in a bank at Shifnal, and prior to that it was kept in a strongroom at Weston Hall, the seat of the Earl of Bradford. Few of the parishioners have seen the treasure, inasmuch as there was not a place in Tong where it could safely be exhibited. In the time of the vicar's predecessor there was a proposal to sell the cup, but the scheme fell through. If a faculty is granted, however, there is now reasonable prospect of a sale. It is proposed to devote three-fifths of the proceeds to augmenting the stipend of the Vicar of Tong, and the remaining two-fifths exclusively for Church purposes. Tong Church is described by Dickens in ' The Old Curiosity Shop,' and many thousands of people visit the spot every year. The vicar admits there is opposition to the sale, of a senti- mental character, but adds that the cup hidden away in a bank serves no useful purpose, whereas if it'were sold the money would be of the greatest possible assistance.