Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/70

 NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. vi. JULY 20, 1912.

MONUMENTS IN OLD CITY CHURCH (US. v. 463). There must be an error in the date assigned for burial of John Stoker, Alderman and draper, 23 May, 1485. He was one of the six aldermen who died within a few days of each other in September, 1485. His will (P.C.C. 15 Logge) is dated 23 Sept., 1485.

The year (1546) of Sir W. Forman's burial is given according to the old com- .putation, when the year began on 25 March. It represents 1547 according to modern reckoning. ALFRED B. BEAVEN.

Leamington.

" SPOILING THE SHIP FOR A HA'PORTH OF TAR " (1 1 S. v. 468). Many country people in the parts of Warwick, Worcester, and Gloucester, round Stratford-on-Avon, still refer to " sheep " as " ship " ; but I cannot quite agree with the too sweeping asser- tion of the author of ' A Shakespeare Glossary' (1911) that the two words are pronounced alike. Forty years ago a farmer spoke of his " ship," and his son on the same farm to-day refers to his " sheep." Both pronunciations were common in Shakes- peare's time, hence his play upon them in three well-known passages.

I have always thought (perhaps quite wrongly) that the saying had its origin in a reference to the shearer giving a finishing touch to his work by putting the initials of the owner by means of a branding iron and hot pitch on the freshly shorn sheep. It is, however, quite possible that the phrase had some connexion with sheep - stealing, and I shall be very glad of your correspond- ents' explanation of this connexion.

A. C. C.

In the London Daily News of 10 Nov., 1910, Sir James Murray said : . " ' Ne'er lose a hog for a halfpenny worth of tar ' was noted down by John Ray in 1670 as a current Northern proverb, adding that ' Some have it " Lose not a sheep for a halfpenny worth of tar." ' ' Hog, or hogg, in the North, is a one- year-old ewe In 1828 the Craven Glossary

gives us ' Do not lose the ewe for a hauporth o ; tar.'

" The first to convert the ' sheep ' into ' ship ' was apparently Hazlitt in his ' English Proverbs,' who has ' To spoil the ship for a half- penny worth of tar'; but he cautiously adds, ' In Cornwall I heard a version more consistent with probability, " Don't spoil the sheep for a

hap'orth of tar." ' The bold and reckless

exaggeration of the ' ship ' form recommended it to the Londoner in the street, who likes a paradox to be a thumping one. In the true form there is no exaggeration : a hap'orth of tar each saves hundreds of sheep every summer.

" In hilly districts sheep are constantly liable to surface wounds or abrasions on head or legs by falling, or clambering, or leaping over rugged ground and rough walls ; and if the abraded part is not at once tarred, the flesh-llies settle upon it, deposit their eggs, and in a few days the poor sheep is eaten up of worms. One of the chief cares of a shepherd in summer is to see whether any of his sheep have been thus wounded, and if so, at once to catch the poor animal and apply the hap'orth o' tar to the wounded part, which will keep off the carnivorous Hies, heal the part, and save the sheep. For this purpose the tar box is in constant use."

An interesting interchange of opinion on this quotation between X. Y. Z. and Sir James Murray took place in The Daily News of 8, 10, 11, and 14 Nov., 1910. If MR. LANDFEAR LUCAS is unable to obtain the papers, I will type him a copy of the correspondence. WM. T. SANIGAR.

" Sheep " is still very generally pronounced "ship" in the provinces, and it was cus- tomary probably later among those who could write as well as those who could not to use their sheep-mark as a signature. The saying alludes to the risk run by farmers of losing their sheep strayed or stolen owing to their not making a trifling invest- ment in tar to mark their ownership. The following is an early allusion to the custom :

" I know not how I shall order them that cannot subscribe by writing ; hitherto I have caused one of my secretaries to subscribe for such persons, and made them to write their shepe-ma'rk or some mark as they can .... scribble." Cranmer, ii. 291.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

[DR. JOHN KNOTT thanked for reply.]

THE FITZWILLIAM FAMILY (11 S. v. 164, 312, 454). I am sorry to resume the un- grateful role of critic, but I really c nnot accept MR. WIGMORE'S attempt to \ tch- fork Turstin fitz Rou into the MortLiier family. As " fitz Rou " means " son of Rou," Turstin cannot have been the son of Roger de Mortimer, or any other Roger, Rou being a softened form of Hrolf, not a variant of Roger.

After the Battle of Hastings Turstin returns to the obscurity from which he had suddenly emerged ; but he seems to have been alive in 1086, although Dr. Round cautiously remarks that there is " just a doubt " whether the Turstin fitz Rou (or Rolf) of Domesday is the same man as the standard-bearer at Hastings (' Studies in Peerage and Family History,' pp. 188-9). Subsequently his fief reverted to the Crown, whether by escheat or for- feiture is not known, and portions of it