Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/213

 128. vii. AUG. 28, 1920.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the name of the council-place seems to resolve itself into " Chalk-hythe " and there is no chalk at Chelsea. This has been got over by taking the first portion of Chelsey for Chesil or gravel. But Mr. T. Kerslake in his paper entitled ' Vestiges of the Supremacy of Mercia in the South of England during the Eighth Century ' (Transact, of Bristol and Glouc. Archseol. Soc. for 1878-9), says " the village of Chalk, two miles west of Higham Church seems to fulfil all requirements. ' ' Mr. Kerslake would place these famous councils and synods within the peninsula which divides the estuary of the Medway from that of the Thames. .Thus Cliffe, or Cliffe-at-Hoo, is to him synonymous with Clooesho ; and Chalk with Cealchythe. A. R. BAYLEY.

AN OLD PALINDROME INTERPRETED (12 S. vii. 131). The translation suggested is barred by the false quantity that results if torte is treated as a vocative. There can be no doubt that sol is a nominative, giro and rotor verbs, and torte the adverb. The meaning is " Lo I, the Sun, whirlingly wheel round my circles and revolve with fire." Possibly the writer intended ciclos to bear the technical sense of " cycles," but his chief concern must have been to fit the words to his palindrome.

EDWARD BENSLY.

LYTTON QUERIES (12 S. vii. 9). The first Earl of Durham is meant. At p. 309, vol. ii. of his Life by Mr. Stuart Reid is a picture of " Lord Durham's Library, 13 Cleveland Row. . . .where the scheme of the Reform Bill was drawn up."

In chap. xxi. of the same volume extracts are given from Lytton's letters to Durham, and on p. 375 is part of his tribute to Durham's memory, the lines beginning : Courts may have known, than thee, a readier tool. EDWARD BENSLY.

A STOLEN TIDE (12 S. vi. 335; vii. 38,53) It seems probable that this is a piece of pseudo- folk-lore made up by Jean Ingelow herself, very skilfully, as were * The Brides of Mavis Enderby." I have always connected the phrase with the Scottish nursery rhyme of the ' Borrowed Days,' perhaps from the association of ideas, " Beg, borrow or steal." In the rhyme March borrows three days from April in order to kill three sheep. The suggestion in the poem is that some super- natural being the sea or the devil ? stole the high tide from its natural place and sent

it to cause destruction on the coast oi Lin- colnshire. The pious old woman who- alludes to the story implicitly denies this The Lord who sent it? He knows all.

M. H. DODDS. Home House, Low Fell, Gateshead.

PRISONERS WHO HAVE SURVIVED HANG- ING (12 S. vii. 68, 94, 114, 134). In the York Chronicles is related a curious incident :

" A man named Bartindale, a strolling musician, who had been apprehended on a charge of felony, - was sentenced to be hanged at York. The sen- tence was carried out on May 27, 1634, and when, the man had hung the better part of an hour, h&- was cut down and interred near the scene of execution. A short time afterwards one of the Vavasours of Hazlewood near Tadcaster was riding past the spot and noticed the earth moving. He got off his horse and found the unfortunate victim still alive. He was taken to hospital and treated. At the next assizes he obtained a pardon and apparently lived for many years after as a hostler at a local inn."

J. HlLLSTORE.

"SEEVIER" (12 S. vii. 109). Does a- " seevier " mean a sifter of meal ; one who has a bolting mill ? A bolter is the sieve which separates the bran from the flour. Falstaff in 1 Hen. IV., act iii. sc. iii. speaking; of the shirts bought for him by the Hostess, says : " Dowlas, filthy Dowlas : I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them."

W. H. PINCHBECK. Bury, Lancashire.

THE CRUCIFIXION IN ART : THE SPEAR- WOUND (12 S. vi. 314 : vii. 11, 97, 132). Support is afforded by the antiphon for the Asperges during Paschal time : " vidi aquam- egredientem de templo, a latere clextro." The application of the vision of Ezochiel (xlvii) to the water from the side of the Crucified is obvious. J. J. B.

"To TRASH FOR OVERTOPPING" (12 S. vi. 143 ; vii. 118). Shakespeare was, among. perhaps before all other things, a sports- man, and his sporting similes "crop out " in all his plays. This ( " who to advance and who to trash for over -topping," 'Temp./X, ii. 80-1) is one of them. The overtopping hound is one too fast for all the rest ; he cannot kill the quarry single-handed, thougb he wants to, so he must be " trashed." Thi is simply done by attaching a trailing cord to- the hound's collar, which dragging behind him, and through his legs, checks his pace and so gives the pack a chance of keeping .ip with a galloper.