Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/43

 128. I. JAN. 8, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

37

(iii.) If the newly commissioned subaltern is not desirous of proceeding later into the line he is granted an outfit allowance of 40/., otherwise he cannot claim it.

(iv. ) At the end of his course he must pass an examination for confirmation of his rank and for subsequent promotion to lieutenant. If he fails he is required to remain attached, unpaid, until he passes.

As regards (2) and (3) I know nothing of the late Militia.

A booklet dealing with the method of obtaining a commission in the Special Reserve can be obtained on application to the Director of Military Training, War Office.

The ' Regulations for the Special Reserve of Officers and for the Special Reserve ' cover the whole ground in detail.

JOHN C. GOODWIN, Captain, 3rd Batt. the King's Own Regt.,

(Special Reserve).

WAR AND MONEY (US. xii. 400, 487). The reference given by Buechniann is Lodovico Guicciardini's ' L'Hore di Re- creatione ' (Venice, 1607), fol. 197. The first edition was published in 1565.

L. L. K.

TREE FOLK-LORE: THE ELDER (11 S. xii. 361, 410, 429, 450, 470, 489, 507). As for the tree of Eden, it was always thought in France to have been an apple tree. See Littre, 'Pomme et Pommier,' with many quotations, one of which is early fourteenth century : " La fame .... Fist Adam no pere premier, Mordre la pomme du pommier" (J. de Conde, iii. 268).

But as concerning the Cross the same tradition seems there to have long ago disappeared, as it did in England. I am rather pleased that ST. SWITHIN had never heard of it ; nor had I before reading the Enigmas of Aldhelm.

Unfortunately, the one on this subject was not quoted by me (xii. 450) in its en- tirety ; the title alone, by itself, is quite clear : ' De malo arbore vel melario,' the latter undoubtedly for melapio, a Latinized Greek word, meaning a kind of a pear- apple-tree, which is to be found in Pliny. Fausta fuit prima mundi nascentis origo, Donee prostratus succumberet arte Maligni ; Ex me tune priscae processit causa ruinfip, Dulcia quae rudibus tradebam mala colonis. En iterum mundo testor remeasse salutem, Stipite de patulo dum penderet Arbiter orbis, Et pcenas lueret Soboles veneranda Tonantis.

The ' Legende Doree ' adds that Adam was buried at the very place where the Cross was planted ; and I therefore consider that

the skull which appears under it in some ancient windows (for instance, in a charming early fourteenth - century quatref oil repre- senting the Holy Trinity in Cheriton Church, Kent) is meant for his. Later on it was intended to signify the victory of Christ over death : " Ubi est, mors, victoria tua, ubi est stimulus tuus ? "

The family of elder is not altogether an exemplary one ; a certain member of this family had formerly an evil reputation. This was the dwarf-elder (Lat. Sambucus ebu- lus, Anglo-Sax, wcel-wyrt), mentioned in leech-books as very dangerous, and, never- theless, as a cure for leprosy and contagious diseases in another Enigma by Aldhelm ( ' De Ebulo '). PIERRE TURPIN.

The Bayle, Folkestone.

" LYTJLPH " : CHRISTMAS NUMBERS (11 . xii. 502). This was the pseudonym of Henry Robert Lumley. In addition to the books mentioned he published the Christmas story ' Something like a Nugget ' (1868), which was issued as a drama in four acts in the same year, and went into a second edition ; a play entitled ' Savage ' (also in prose, 1869) ; ' An Ancient Mariner,' a Christmas story (1870) ; and ' As You Like It,' a Christmas story illustrative of a great sovereign (1874). The author's name does not appear in the usual sources, and I am unable to find any- thing about him. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

J. S. BREWER AND E. C. BREWER (11 S. xii. 502). They were both sons of John Sherreii Brewer, a schoolmaster of Norwich, E. C. Brewer being the younger of the two.

G. F. R, B.

TIGERS' WHISKERS (US. xii. 481). The beliefs regarding the whiskers of the tiger go back at least to the time of Niccolao Manucci, who landed in India in 1656. In his ' Storia do Mogor ' (edited by W. Irvine, vol. i. p. 192), speaking of the Emperor Shahjahan, he writes :

" In addition to the huntsmen, there is always an official present whose business it is to take possession of the tiger's whiskers : and therefore, as soon as the tiger is dead, they put on his head a leather bag, coming down as far as the neck. Having tied the bag, the official attaches to it his seal. After this the tiger is carried in front of the royal tents, when the official appeal's who has charge of the poisons, and removes the whiskers, which are employed as a venom."

Bernier (' Travels in the Mogul Empire,' Oxford, 1914, p. 379) says that when a lion was killed by the king, the length of the teeth and claws w r as recorded, " and so on down to the minutest details " ; he does