Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/47

 12 8. HI. JAN. 20, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

41

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARYS, 1917.

CONTENTS. -No. 56.

NOTES: St. Barbara, V.M.. 41 Correspondence of Richard Edwards. 44 Army List of 1740, 46' Zoriada ' and the Wordbooks, 47' The Diaboliad ' " Decelerate," 48 A Bibliography of the Victoria Cross, 49.

"QUERIES : Jill. Gillian Armorial Seal: Identification Sought, 49 Julius Caesar's Reform of the Calendar John Gilbert, Archbishop of York John Leake. M.D.-Gam- bardella, Italian Portrait-Painter Venetian Account of England " Terebus y Tereodin " English Colloquial Similes. 50 Pherenice and Olympian Games Col. Hon. John Scott Folk -Lore : the Angelica Family Portraits in Carved Wood, 51 Greene's Museum, Lichfield, 52.

REPLIES : Mews or Mewys Family, 52 Dickens and Henry VIII.. 53 "Wipers": Ypres Brassey Family Christopher Urswick Bath Forum, 54 Seize-Quartiers St. Kilda Colds William Cumberland Belleforest Fishing-Rod in the Bible or Talmud, 55 Author Wanted Butler's ' Analogy 'Disraeli and Empire, 56 The Royal Arms in Metre ' The Regal Rambler ' : Thomas Hastings "Gray's Inn Pieces" Philip Winton Snakes and Music, 57_ 'The Beggar's Opera' Pronunciation of " ea," 58 Sheridan Le Fanu's Works Foreign Graves of British Authors" Jobey " of Eton Capt. Ross amf the Gluck- stad Scotch Universities : Undergraduates' Gown Metal-bridge, Dublin Heraldic Queries Risk of entering a New House, 59.

' N. & Q.' Service RolL

NOTES ON BOOKS : 'The Origin of the Cult of Aphro- dite.'

"."Notices to Correspondents.

Jiafcs.

ST. BARBARA, V.M.

A SILVER statuette of this saint bears, in one hand a palm branch, in the other a small tower. This is the cherished posses- sion of a naval mess at Portsmouth, and the request that I would explain the symbol of the small tower, and the reason why St. Barbara has been reputed as patroness of soldiers and sailors, led me to search such books as would throw light on the topic.

The acts of this saint have been so over- loaded and depraved by fabulous details that some writers have doubted her ex- istence. Thus Baring-Gould (' Lives of the Saints,' xv. 25) says that it matters very little which account of her date and suffer- ings is accepted, as " she is a wholly mythical personage." Much the same might be said for our accepted patron St. George of Cappadocia, whose acts are equally inter- larded with fable. One may conclude that,

-as a rule, mediaeval romances were built up on some foundation of fact. Their admirers did these saints a very poor service when they


 * buried such facts under the wildest fiction.

It will be necessary to give the outline of St. Barbara's life, and I purposely draw this from a book which gives the legend, as accepted in the Middle Ages, both of the Life and of the Translation of St. Barbara. It is ' Historie plurimorum sanctorum noviter laboriose collecte et prolongate,' printed at Louvain in the house of John of Westfalia, A.D. 1485 in October. In this collection Barbara, Virgin and Martyr, has the place of honour as the first of the noble band.

In the times of the Emperor Maximian there was a certain man, Dyoscorus by name, very rich, but a pagan. He had an only daughter named Barbara. He made a high tower and there shut her up, that she might not be seen by man on account of her eminent beauty. Some of the nobles suggested to him that she should accept a husband. When her father told her this, she begged him not to compel her. Before going away for a long journey her father gave directions for a bath to be built over a spring beneath the tower where Barbara had been secretly baptized, giving minute directions how the work was to be carried out. Barbara, finding that the building was to be lighted by only two windows, directed the builders to make a third, and carried her point in spite of their remon- strance. When her father returned he was surprised that his order about the two windows had been disobeyed, and asked his daughter, " How do three give light more than two ? " She replied, " I have done well, for three give light, but two obscure it." And pointing to the windows, she said, " This designates the Father, this the Son, this the Holy Spirit." Her father, filled with rage, drew his sword and would have run her through, but at her prayer the rock opened, enclosed her, and cast her out on the mountain-side. Near that spot were two shepherds feeding their sheep, one of whom betrayed her hiding-place, and when she cursed him, his sheep were turned into locusts. Her father, thus discovering her, dragged her down the mountain by her hair, and shutting her up in a cell, carefully guarded, told the President, Marcian. The examination, confession, and tortures of the saint, her spiritual consolation by visions, and certain miraculous interventions are of a familiar type. At last she was sentenced to death by decapitation, her father under- taking the office of executioner. Before reaching the place, the saint offered a prayer to Christ, of which the last petition was

" Grant to me Thy servant that whoever makes mention of Thy name in memory of me on the