Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/165

 12 S.IH. FEB. 24, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

find out the origin of this custom ; Mistral's ' Tresor ' does not explain it. I regret that during the lifetime of " lou Mestre " I did not think of asking him. I fancy that this wheat, set to sprout at about the time of the winter wheat -sowing and appearing on the Christmas table, was considered to bring luck to the crops ; and that St. Barbara's Day, just three weeks before Christmas, was chosen so that lou blad de la Santo Barbo would be a homage to avert thunder- storms. I need hardly say that the powder magazine of ships is la sainte-barbe. But Littre says that this name is properly that of the gunner's store-room, in which there was an image of the saint.

EDWARD NICHOLSON. Nice.

[Will ROY GARART be good enough to repeat the contribution kindly sent last week ?]

CURIOUS TAVERN SIGN (12 S. iii. 89). The meet of the Oakley Hounds on January 13 at the Cat and Custard Pot is not an isolated case of foxhounds foregathering at a tavern with that title. Those who are familiar with Surtees's immortal sporting novel ' Handley Cross,' published in the fifties, will recall "The Cat and Custard Pot day " with Mr. Jorrocks's hunt on the Muswell Road, on which occasion his hunts- man, James Pigg, distinguished himself by imbibing a good deal more brandy than redounded to his credit or to that of the Hunt. The sign is probably as old as the Bull and Mouth, the Cat and Fiddle, et hoc genus omne. WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

PORTRAITS IN STAINED GLASS (12 S. ii. 172, 211, 275, 317, 337, 374, 458, 517 ; iii. 15, 36, 76, 95). The east window in Westacre Church, Swaffham, Norfolk, by Messrs. Burlison & Grylls of Great Ormond Street, London, represents four Hamond brothers, one of whom is still alive, viz. :

Anthony Hamond, died 1895; at one time master of hounds, depicted in red coat and top boots.

Philip Hamond, died 1861 ; a soldier, portrayed in a Hussar uniform.

Richard Horace Hamond, died 1906 ; an admiral, represented in naval uniform.

Thomas Astley Horace Hamond, living ; depicted in the dress of a mediaeval lawyer.

I believe that Mrs. Tryon of Bulwick, Oakham, erected a window in her church to the memory of her only son Guy, who died in the South African War. In this window his portrait is adapted to either St. George or St. Michael. H. S. G.

Jlofcs 0n !B00fes<

Hoirth and its Oicners. Being the Fifth Part of ' A History of County Dublin,' and an Extra Volume of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. By Francis Elrington Ball. (Dublin University Press, 7. 6d. net.)

THE first part of Dr. Elrington Ball's ' History of County Dublin ' was published in 1902. The- fourth part appeared in 1906, and the long interval ' between that and the present volume has arisen from the author's compliance with the urgent request that he would take over the publication of Swift's letters an important task which the death of Mr. Csesar Litton Falkiner had left little - more than begun. Howth combines an unusual number of romantic attractions. True, a place cannot well be claimed for the castle, as a build- ing, beside the finest great houses of the United Kingdom. Yet the touch of Irish rusticity which persists through all improvements may count as in itself a charm. And how many others can it boast ! For one thing, a peninsula seems, by conformation, to be favourable to- adventure. And then this is a peninsula thrust out into the sea in front of the capita} city, facing that rival shore from which so much both of good and ill has passed and re-passed to Ireland. It offers harbourage, often found sufficient for great occasions. It bears more than one ancient ruin ; : it has caves proper for smugglers, and, in fact, - in old times put to their use ; it has very lovely scenery, at once of a wild grandeur and of flowery sweetness ; and it has that picturesque and kindly interest, with the poignancy of peril about it, which is incident to a fishery. Nor does it by any means lack the grim distinction of shipwreck..

Historically its character is no less definite - and compact if so we may put it than it is topographically. It has belonged to the St. Lawrences, and been their home, from the time - of the Anglo-Norman settlement in the twelfth century, when it fell to Almeric St. Lawrence by direct grant of the Crown, till 1909, when at the - death of the fourth Earl of Howth the barony and earldom lapsed, and the estates went to Mr. Julian Charles Gaisford of Offington, Sussex,. a nephew of the Earl's, who thereupon took the arms and name of St. Lawrence.

Apropos of the arms, it is curious that we no- - where in this book find them blazoned, nor any but cursory notice taken of them ; while the sea-horse crest does not seem to be mentioned at all. Again, apropos of fault-finding, we will here just mention that the index is somewhat lacking.

Dr. Ball is certainly too sweeping when he says that the St. Lawrences have been " ennobled for countless generations " as Lords of Howth ; for not only does he, two pages further on, provide a list of Lords of Howth by which it is perfectly easy to count up the generations in fact, the whole list does not run to thirty names but he also gives us a delightful chapter, entitled ' In Early Times,' setting out the history of Benn Etar, as the peninsula was then called, before the Anglo-Norman occupation.

Still, there is much excuse for that touch of exaggeration. The descent of the House of" Howth from father to son in one seat through: