Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/29

 12 S. VI. JAN., 1920.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

21

DAVID, ' EPISCOPUS RECBEENSIS ' (12 S. v. 238, 326)." Recreensis " is possibly identical with " Rechrannensis," which is mentioned in Martin's ' Record Interpreter ' (2nd ed., 1910, p. 428) as meaning " Rath- lin," i.e., the island of Rathlin, off the northern coast of Antrim. In the ' Index Locorum ' (vol. v., p. 399) to Cotton's ' Fasti Ecclesise Hibernicao ' (Dublin, 1851- 60) " Rechrann " occurs, printed in italic capitals as being " the name of an ancient diocese, not now recognised as such " (see p. 389) ; but the reference, " iii. 152," needs to be corrected to " iii. 251," where one finds " Rechrann (now Raghlin, or Rathlin, or Raghery) " among "Minor Sees" of the diocese of Connor, i.e., churches which occasionally gave titles to Bishops (see p. 245). Cotton mentions only one " Bishop of Rechrann," Flann M'Cellach M'Cronmael (who is said to have died in 734), and gives a quotation from ' Reeves,' to the effect that " Rechrann " may have been, not the island of Rathlin, but the island of Lambay, which lies off the coast of county Dublin. I infer that this quotation comes from Reeves's ' Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore ' (Dublin, 1847). H. C.

Winchester College.

DAGGLE MOP (12 S. v. 293). For Mop, a statute fair for hiring farm servants, see the 'E.D.D.' and 1 S. iv. 190. The term " Mop " is current in all the Midland counties, and is said to be due to an old custom which required that maidservants who were seeking places were expected to bring with them their badge of office, many of them in consequence appearing at the fair with brooms and mops.

The same authority confines the use of "daggle" or " diggle," to Wiltshire; its meaning is " thick," or " in clusters."

N. W. HILL.

JOHN WILSON, BOOKSELLER (12 S. v. 237, 277, 297). I would suggest that we first of all strip the verses of their " olde Englyshe fancie fayre " tinsel, which gives us :

O ! for a book and a shady nook, either indoor or

out ; With the green leaves whisp'ring overhead, or the

street cries all about, Where I may read all at my ease, both of the new

and old ; For a jolly good book/whereon to look, is better to

me than gold.

It is dangerous to dogmatise in these matters, but to my eye and ear they cer- tainly have not the " excellent mediaeval ring " attributed to them at 10 S. ix. 192,

but rather of the latter half of the nineteenths century. Had I been asked to make three guesses I should have given: (1) Austin Dobson ; (2) Edmund Gosse ; (3) Andrew- Lang. To disprove Wilson's statement we want a book containing them, published before, say, 1850.

It is quite clear that Mr. Ireland did not verify them, but accepted the contribution on CAPT. JAGGABD'S authority. Who sup- plied the terribly vague date 1592-1670,. which appears in the last reference in- ' N. & Q.' ?

I once met John Wilson, and my im- pression of him was such that I should have accepted without hesitation any statement he made of his own knowledge.

Is it possible that MR. DOBSON is playing- Puck with us after all ?

FREDERIC TURNER.

PERSISTENT ERROR (12 S. v. 315). " The- quails stunk " is the reading in the edition of ' Holy Living,' published by A. Hall & Co., London (n.d., but " G.C.'s " preface dated' March, 1838). H. F. B. C.

[DARSANANI also thanked for reply.]

GREEN HOLLY (12 S. v. 319). As an emblem of mirth, the evidence in favour of holly is, I think, more or less obvious. For some four hundred years, and probably longer, it has been closely associated with) the Christmas festival a time of jollity. In the depth of our English winters it offers the brightest colouring from nature, available to rich and poor alike. It is essentially English in character, impervious to all 4 vagaries of climate, standing like the oak,, four-square to all winds, and " with shining morning face," ever handing on its message - of " Cheerio " to all passers-by. A holly bush is likewise an inn sign, as noted by that apostle of mirth, Dickens, in his short' story, ' Boots at the Holly-tree Inn,' and an,* inn is a place for conviviality.

In 1594 Hugh Plat (in his ' Jewell-ho ') quotes : " To take a tauerne and get a hollibush . . . . " (as a sign). In Yorkshire there was a dance known as the holly dance- at Christmas, with holly boughs as decora- tion. (See Harland, Glossary of Swaledale, 1873, p. 96). Then there is a game known as the Holly-boy, played with an effigy of a boy, made of holly, together with a girl' made of ivy, which figured in village sports^ in East Kent on Shrove Tuesday. (See Gentleman's Magazine, 1779, vol. 49, p ; 137.) >

Holly and Christmas are inseparable, and Philip Stubfces, who wrote the ' Anatomic ofc"