Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/433

 12 a. n. NOV. 25, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

427

INDEX OF PLACES.

Bank of England, 49

Blackheath, 1 'Cambridge, 39

Duke Street, 19

Edinburgh, 3

Fountain Court, 8

Guernsey, 27 "Great Northern Ceme- tery, 17, 18 Great Windmill Street, 2

Kenwyn, Cornwall, 12

G. S. 17 Ashley Mansions, S

Lancaster Place, 1, 5, 48 London Dock, 39 Lyons Inn, 16 Middle Temple, 34 Xewcastle-on-Tyne, 13 Boyal Academy, 6 St. James's Street, 39 St. Martin-in-the-Fields,

35

Serjeants' Inn, 1 Thatched House, 26

PARRY, Lieut.-Col. .W.

CYPRUS CAT. In the ' New English Dic- tionary,' s.v, "Cypress," 3 c., we read: "' Dark grey with darker markings ; hence cyprus-cat, a variety of tabby cat (local)." "The references are :

" 1857 Wright Prov. Diet., Cypress-cat, a tabby- cat. East. 1879 Lubbock Fauna of Norfolk 7 An immense cat of a cypress colour. 1887 N. & Q. "7th Sen. iv. 289/1 While discussing the merits of a new kitten recently with a lady from Norwich, she described its colour as ' Cyprus 'dark grey, with black stripes and markings.

In John Chamberlayne's ' Present State of Great Britain,' 22nd edition of the South Part call'd England, and 1st of the North Part call'd Scotland, 1708, p. 34, Part I., Book I., chap, iv., is the following : " Cats -are here [in England] very curious to the Eye, the Cyprus and Tabby Cats especially." In the index the reference is " Cats, very fine." It may be that the passage quoted appears in some other editions of ' The Present State of Great Britain,' but it does \not appear in those of 1710, 1726, 1755, -or in Edward Chamberlayne's ' Present
 * State of England,' 1684.

Apparently a Cyprus cat is a cat, as it

were, in mourning. It may perhaps be

umed, from the use of the term by John

Chamberlayne over two hundred years ago,

that it was not then " local." I have seen

lately two or three Cyprus cats, as probably

they might be called. I think that in the

definition " Dark grey " should be " Grey,"

but of -course it is practically impossible to

know when " Grey " becomes " Dark grey."

At 7 S. iv. 289 is a query about " Cyprus

Cat," with replies p. 432, giving no early

quotation. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

HARDY'S ' THE THREE STRANGERS.' Hardy bibliographers do not seem to have noted that an episode in this story has been set to (orchestral) music bv Mr. Balfour Gardiner under the title of ' Shepherd

Fennel's Dance.' It is a wonderfully vivid piece of work, bringing out the rustic spirit of the story as few other mediums could do. It is not infrequently done by the Queen's Hall Orchestra, to the programme of which Mrs. Rosa Newmarch contributes an admir- able account of it. Literary bibliographers are usually weak on music.

J. M. BULLOCH. 123 Pall Mall, S.W.

WAR JEWELLERY OF IRON. At 7 S. ix, 30, 254, 337, will be found an account of finely cast Berlin ironwork, often set in gold, the tradition among the curiosity dealers being that the manufacture was begun at least to supplement the jewels given up by the Austrian and German ladies in the great Napoleonic wars.

Thus history repeats itself, for we are told that the German ladies are now invited to give their gold trinkets and receive in exchange an ornament made of iron, corresponding as nearly as possible to the articles from which they have parted.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

MIDSUMMER FIRES AND TWELFTH-DAY FIRES IN ENGLAND. It may be well to enshrine the following extracts from ' The Manor and Manorial Records,' by Nathaniel J. Hone, in the pages of ' N. & Q.' :

" Many other days owed their observance to pagan origins, such as Mayday and Midsummer, the festivities of which had been consecrated by the Church, in accordance with the advice of St. Gregory. In the time of Henry III. the ploughmen and other officers at East Monkton, between Warminster and Shaftesbury, were allowed a ram for a feast on Midsummer Eve, when it was a practice to carry fire round the lord's corn. This form of the Beltane festival was observed in the North of England well into the eighteenth century, and a similar custom prevailed in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, fires being lighted at the ends of fields just sown with wheat, on the eve of Twelfth Day." P^ 98

The Glastonbury Custumals, circa 1250, afford evidence of a similar practice at Longbridge :

11 And whether the said Geoffrey be ploughman or harrower he ought, together with the rest of the said tenement, to watch with the hayward on St. John's Eve at the extremity of the lord's culture, and participate with the others of a lamb, and he shall have a branch from the lord's wood for fire that night." P. 235.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century I was present when a Peter-and-Paul's-tide bonfire was lighted in a village not far from the northern coast of Brittany. The parish