Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/345

 us.vii.april2g,i913.j NOTES AND QUERIES. 337 "Furdaix" (11 S. vii. 228, 297).—The ' N.E.D.' shows that fur is a seventeenth- century spelling for fir, and that fir-deal, meaning " a deal or plank of fir," was in regular use from the fifteenth to the seven- teenth century. See the quotations, chiefly from account books, under ' Deal,' sb. , 1,1b, where the spellings are : firre deales (before 1450), ffyrdeUs and firdetts (1558), firre dales (1604), firdeal (before 1618). More- over, the ' English Dialect Dictionary' records fir-dale from Rutlandshire, and fir-deal-tree from Northamptonshire, both in the sense of " a fir-tree." After this there cannot be much doubt as to the meaning of the word in the accounts of the parish of Martin. L. R, M. Strachan. Heidelberg. I regret to have to say that the suggestion I made in my query at the former reference as to the probable meaning of furdatt is wrong. I have learnt from an antiquarian friend that the word in modern speech is vardle, which is the piece of iron spike with an eye in it, driven into the hind post of the gate, enabling it to hang on the crook. Varliwell or vartiveU is another term for such eye of a gate in which the crook works. See Peacock's ' Glossary of Manley and Corringham ' and Halliwell. I consulted a local wheelwright and blacksmith, and he at once confirmed this meaning. Hence one can now understand that a new bottom vardle was wanted for the church pulpit door, and for the door of the town house at Martin. J. Clare Hudson. Thornton, Hornoastle. " To banyan " (11 S. vii. 290).—I know of no example of the term as a verb: it must have been a whim of the lady so to use it. The term Banian or Banyan days is derived from the Banians, a sect of Hindu merchants who abstained from meat, and so has come in our days to mean any kind of fasting. Wm. E. Browning. The ' N.E.D.' gives the adjective "Banian" in reference to the Hindoo traders' or Banians' abstinence from flesh and sacred estimation of animal life :— 1748. Smollett, 'Rod. Rand.,' xxv. (D): "On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the ship's company had no allowance of meat, and these meagre days were called banyan day?." 1823. Lamb, 'Elia,' Ser. I. iii. (1865). 19: "We had three banyan to four meat days in the week." 1813. J.Forbes, 'Orient Mem.,' iii. 129: "A banian-hospital where he saw a number of sick oxen, camels, and horses." A. R. Bayley. The verbal form in the quotation must be a nonce use of the term. In the sixties I was familiar with its colloquial use, as an adjective, by an old gentleman in the sense of ' N.E.D.,' " Banian, 4 "; ' E.D.D.,' ' Banian-day.' To a guest whose unex- pected arrival at dinner-time coincided with the absence of a fresh joint and the rechauffe of the previous day's fare it was said apolo- getically, " You see, you've come on banyan day." " To banyan " could only have been used as a pleasantry. R. Oliver Heslof. Newoastle-upon-Tyne. [Mr. W. W. Glenny, Mr. W. H. Peet, Mr. F. A. Rcssell, and Mr. F. C. White also thanked for replies. 1 "Bethxem Gabor" (11 S. vii. 290).— Like the querist, I should be glad to know the history of this expression. I have found it in the second ' Epistle ' of Henry Tubbe (Harleian MS. 4126, fo. 40), which is itself a free paraphrase of Suckling's lines ' To Master John Hales.' Tubbe writes :— Come, come to Town, and leave your musty Gown ; There are Things here, as brave, yet may be known And understood with halfe the Cost & Labour, That's spent on such a Word as Jtethlem-Gabor. He died in 1655. The word is also used in ' Musarum Delicise' (1656), p. 31, 'The Lowses Pere- grination ' :— An Eunuch they hate like Bethlem Gabor. G. C. Moore Smith. Sheffield. Bethlem, or, more properly, Bethlen, Gabor was Prince of Transylvania, whose independ- ence he secured by repeated victories over Ferdinand II. of Austria. He died in 1629, after a glorious and even enlightened reign. He is introduced by William Godwin into his weird novel ' St. Leon,' and as the Wedgwoods were friends of Godwin's, it is doubtless to this that the allusion refers. Howard S. Pearson. The only Bethlen Gabor (which is the correct spelling of the name) famous in history was King-elect of Hungary and Prince of Transylvania, who sent mounted troops to help his ally, the " Winter King," in 1620. Sir Thomas Roe's published corre- spondence is full of references to him. In Vienna he was naturally looked upon as a rebel and a friend of rebels. What the writer of the letter meant was, no doubt, that the brutal treatment made his blood boil, and made him feel inclined to rebel against the authorities. L. L, K.