Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/202

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. ix. MAR. 7,

says, with a tenement in Swansea, and 66 acres at Kilvrough, " which are of our patrimony " (in solo patrimonii nostri) in Pennara, a lordship in Gower. See G. G. Francis, ' Charters relating to Swansea.'

Nothing further, I think, is known of the family there ; but the arms of the poet John Gower, .Caxton's " squyer of Walys " Arg., on a chev. az. 3 leopards' heads or; crest, a talbot passant should prove a clue. Duke Henry of Lancaster, after- wards Henry IV., the poet's " mine own lord," was also Lord of Kidwelly and else- where in Carmarthen and on the borders of Gower. I would suggest a search among the archives of the Duchy, and also among those of the Duke of Beaufort, the successor in title of the family De Braose, the ancient Lords of the Honor of Gower.

AP THOMAS. I MR. ALFRED C. JONAS also thanked for reply.]

TYING LEGS AFTER DEATH (11 S. ix. 128). Superstitions connected with this practice must be unusual. In the decent " laying out " of the corpse it is necessary, before rigor mortis sets in, to arrange that the lower limbs do not remain everted, and usually a bandage is applied to the ankles and to the feet. The eyes are closed, commonly with wet packs, not with heavy pennies as in Georgian days; and the lower jaw is kept from falling by a bandage fastened round the top of the head. Later on the bandages are all removed. The body then assumes the statuesque rigidity of a recum- bent marble effigy, and the features remain as if in calm sleep. The grotesque expres- sion of the poet, " when my eyestrings crack in death," is now usually altered to some softer form, as " eyelids close." The writer of the line, of course, had no knowledge or thought of physiology.

GEORGE WHERRY.

Cambridge.

It may be surmised that the old Derby- shire lady wished to have her legs left free after death in order that she might have their poor assistance in case of premature interment or any other contingency. The custom of tying the limbs probably arose from a desire to check the activity of ghosts. In Provence the hands of a corpse are fastened together by a piece of ribbon ; but that may be to secure the crucifix which is placed within the unconscious fingers.

I believe that a great deal of folk-lore of which the living world in general knows nothing rules in a house when the blinds are

down, and the more intelligent dwellers therein are too absorbed to take notice of everything that goes on. I have often wished that ' N. & Q. ' had a sympathetic undertaker among its contributors, who would tell us what superstitions he has observed and practised ; and that some ancient dame would inspire a pen to record what customs she has seen followed between death and burial. My own opinion is that we know more of what takes place in the South Pacific islands than in the house of a mourning neighbour of our own. ST. S WITHIN.

The legs of a corpse should be untied before the coffin is closed, that the soul still linked with it may have free powers of movement. This is the folk-lore reason for unfastening them.

Similarly we read in ' La Roride des Chataignes,' by Theodore Botrel, a poet of the people in Brittany :

En me mettant en biere

N'enfoncez pas de clous ;

Car ma pauvre ame en peine

Reviendra parmi vous.

Here, though the ghost of the dead is imagined as enduring retributory suffering in the beyond, it is still in some way con- nected with the body lying in the grave, and can leave the coffin to visit the world of living men. Such beliefs depend on feeling, not on logic. M. P.

" RUCKSACK " OR "RUCKSACK" (11 S. viii. 447, 497, 517; ix. 53, 117). In the columns of The Gardeners' Chronicle, Prof. Farmer has replied to some of the points which my query raised, and I now give you the chief part of his reply.

" The word rucksack originated among the German- speaking people in the Alps, and it has spread of late years through Germany, England, and other nations accustomed to visit the Alps. The word has largely displaced 'knapsack' in this country, and also the corresponding word ranzen (satchel or knapsack) in Germany. As the ruck- sack is a bag slung across the shoulders, and rests on the back, the forms rucksack (or rucksac} t from riicken (back), have been used, especially by English people, instead of rucksack (or rucksac), as the word is written on the Continent. Now, the terminal syllable sack (or sac) is of Latin origin (Fr. saccus), and as rucksack is a German and not a French word, sack is to be preferred. But it is in connexion with the first syllable that controversy has arisen. There is no doubt but that rucksack (or rucksac) is wrong. It is etymo- logically incorrect, and in any case it could hardly convey the intended meaning of ' a sack carried on the back.' It remains, then, to consider what is the origin and historical meaning of the word written as rucksack. Some ingenious people have endeavoured to save the notion of ' back * by appealing to a dialect or archaic form of