Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/119

 ii s. ix. FEB. 7, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

113

" LUNKARD " (11 S. ix. 25). Compare " Lonquhard " in the ' N.E.D.,' which quotes J. Taylor (Water Poet), 1618, ' Penny les Pilgr.,' F. :

" There were small cottages built on purpose to lodge in, which they call Lonquhards."

Also a quotation of the year 1632 in the Fourth Report of the Hist. MSS. Comm., i. 533 (1874):

"[Vassals] sail caus big and put up our lonckartis for the hunting."

The word is apparently an adaptation of the Gaelic longphort (long and port), a harbour, a haven, a camp, a garrison, a palace.

The meaning is seen in the Scotch eqiiiva- lent, " shieling " :

" In Jura, in the Hebrides, a summer hut con- structed of branches of trees covered with sods, used by goatherds ; oblong or conic, low, having a small opening through which access is obtained by creeping, the door made of birch twigs."

A hut or residence for those who have care of sheep :

" Here we refreshed ourselves with some goat's whey at a Sheelin, or Bothay [Gaelic Bothag, a cottage, hut, or tent], made of turf, the dairy-house where the Highland shepherds or graziers live with their herds and flocks, and during the fine season make butter and cheese." Tennant's 'Tour in Scotland,' 1769, pp. 122-3.

TOM JONES.

ARNO POEBEL : TABLET DECIPHERED (11 S. viii. 489). See

"The Babylonian Expedition of the University ot Pennsylvania. Series A: Cuneiform Texts. Edited by H. V. Hilpricht. Vol. VI. Part 2. Babylonian Legal and Business Documents from the Time of the First Dynasty of Babvlon, chiefly frorn^ Nippur. By Arno Poebel. Philadelphia 1909.

ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, Mass.

FIRE AND NEW -BIRTH (US. viii. 325, 376, 418, 454; i x . 14). With regard to acacias, I remember hearing from some one who had brought some acacia seeds from Australia that they would not grow in this country until they had been boiled. I had heard the statement from another source.

J. FOSTER PALMER. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

Two CURIOUS PLACE-NAMES : OTTERY ST. MARY (11 S. viii. 447, 517; ix. 54). I thank MR. TAYLOR for his suggestion, but while Kerst (though I have never heard it) might represent the West -Country form of Christ, how does he account for the added syllable ? and what does he make of Kestermuick ? FRANCES ROSE-TROUP.

West Hill, Harrow- on- the-Hill.

AUTHOR WANTED (US. ix. 50). In the ' Essex Hall Hymnal,' revised ed., 1902, is a hymn of four stanzas, the first of which begins with the line " We believe in human kindness." The second stanza is there given thus :

We believe in dreams of duty Warning us to self-control, Foregleams of the glorious beauty That shall yet transform the soul ; In the godlike wreck of nature Sin doth in the sinner leave, That he may regain the stature He hath lost, we do believe.

The hymn is there marked as anonymous, without any indication of the text having been altered. (Altered texts in this Hymnal have an asterisk against them.)

F. J. HYTCH.

"BAY" AND "TRAY" (11 S. ix. 67). In the first edition of ' Notes on the Chase of the Wild Red Deer in the Counties of Devon and Somerset,' by Dr. C. P. Collyns, pub- lished in 1862, on pp. 25-6 we are told the meaning of these words, which, it appears from the book, were then in current use in those counties. The first edition of ' Water- Babies ' appeared in 1863, so Kingsley may have found them in Collyns's book.

STAPLETON MARTIN.

The Firs, Norton, Worcester.

Whyte Melville wrote some lines entitled ' Brow, Bay, and Tray,' which are included in his ' Songs and Verses,' published by Ward, Lock & Co. ; but whether they were written before or after the appearance of Kingsley's ' Water-Babies ' I am unable to say. But we know he was a versifier when quartered at Quebec in 1841, and down to the date of his fatal accident in 1878, so they may well have been written prior to 1863.

The expressions are, however, of very ancient origin, and are referred to in many old works on deerstalking, and were cer- tainly not invented by Kingsley. To cite one example only, it is stated in Elaine's ' Rural Sports,' published in 1858, under the head of ' The Stag or Red Deer ' :

' Where much attention to technical phraseology is observed, the stag's brow, bay, and tray antlers are called his rights."

The terms are derived from the old Nor- man words brou, bez, and trez.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

4< The stag's brow, bay [and tray antlers are

termed his rights A warrantable -stag has brow,

bay and tray ; two on the top, that is, a crocket on one horn, and an upright on the other." 'The Art of Deerstalking,' by William Scrope, 1839.

HERBERT MAXWELL.