Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/87

 12 S. X. JAN. 28, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 65 participation in the verse, it should be sufficient to point to the jingle at the end of Artemia's final speech : . . . Rifle her estate ; Christians to begging brought grow desperate. Massinger was quite incapable of this. But there is no doubt that some of the best features of the verse are also Dekker's. H. DUGDALE SYKES. Enfield. (To be concluded.) ST. BLAIZE. ST. BLAIZE, who is commemorated on Feb. 3, is usually represented with an iron cornb in his right hand in reference to the manner of his torture, and from this is supposed to have arisen his becoming the patron saint of woolcombers. Alban Butler, however, says: No other reason than the great devotion of the people to this celebrated martyr of the Church seems to have given occasion to the woolcombers to choose him the titular patron of their profes- sion. On which account his festival is still kept by them with a solemn guild at Norwich. This is quoted in ' N. & Q.,' April 15, 1854 (1 S. ix. 353), in reply to a question in which it is stated that " in Norwich every 50 years the festival of Bishop Blaize is observed with great cere- mony." Butler died in 1773. Baring- Gould, writing a century after Butler's death, says that the wool-manufacturers of Norwich *' still observe his (St. Blaize) day, or did so until lately." He also says that " at Bradford, Yorkshire, a festival is holden every five years in memory of St. Blaize " ; but according to Francis Bond ('Dedications of English Churches') this festival was discontinued in 1825. An anonymous writer in The Illustrated London News of Feb. 14, 1880, states that " every seven years the woolcombers of our large manufacturing towns hold a festival in his (St. Blaize) honour." What is the truth as to the frequency of these festivals ? Did an annual celebration take place anywhere, or were the festivals held at intervals of five, seven, or even 50 years in different towns ? Are any held at the present time ? There is a story of St. Blaize that on his way to prison he extracted a fish-bone from a child's throat, and for this reason candles offered on his feast were said to be good for throat trouble and even for tooth- ache. St. Blaize, indeed, might almost be claimed as the patron saint of throat- specialists. The writer in The Illustrated London News quotes the words of a charm for extracting a bone out of the throat : "Blaize the Martyr and servant of Jesus Christ commands thee to pass up or down." This ch^rm, or something like it, may have been used by a certain French cure in 1757, whose story has been preserved in the registers of the church of Wemaers Cappel,. near Cassel (Nord). Within a glazed frame- on the wall of the south aisle is a fish-bone- mounted in silver, below which is set out its history in a certified transcript from the church register. The extract is in Flemish, but a translation into French is also given. In English it may be thus rendered : On the twenty-second of September, one thousand seven hundred and fifty -seven, the Rev. Roland Behaegel, cure of Hondeghem, made in gratitude to St. Blaize the offering of a large carp-bone, which, having stuck in his throat, caused him to fear for his life. He was miracu- lously delivered by invoquing the saint with the promise of a Mass to be said in his honour. Certified as true, H. BAUDEN, cure of Wemaers Cappel. Copy conformable to the registers of the Parish, A. BARBEY, cure, Wemaers Cappel r February 2, 1902. Hondeghem is a village about four miles to the south-east of Wemaers Cappel, and M. Behaegel was presumably on a visit to the latter place when he met with his misadventure over a dish of carp. The church of Wemaers Cappel was uninjured by the war, being just outside the fighting area. It is partly of twelfth-century date, but was largely reconstructed in brick, apparently in the seventeenth century. All the exterior work is of the later period, and the ancient round-headed clerestory windows are hidden by the newer roof. The above particulars, which are recalled by the approach of the feast of St. Blaize, were noted by me in April, 1918. F. H. CHEETHAM. PALLONE, AN ITALIAN GAME. IN 1867 (3 S. xi. 333), a correspondent asked, concerning a picture by Varrvitelli, " What is the game of Pallone ? " There was no reply, excepting a short editorial note referring to ' The Game of Pallone,' by Anthony L. Fisher, M.D., of which a review of less than eight lines had appeared (3 S. viii. 180). The game is fully described by the late William W. Story, the American sculptor, in his ' Roba di Roma,' 7th ed., 1875, p. 122.