Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/494

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vii. NOV. 20, 1920.

-the Irish Folk Sons Society, pp. 97-98) as a variant of the European "wake game" known in English as "Jenny Jo." The following is the translation of the game :

" 'S oro Downey, 'S oro dee, Downey is asleep, and may he never gat up !. . . .Downey is in Lin- coin and Downey is in Leeds....! spent seven weeks and fourteen days. .. .Gathering the girls for saving the hay. . . .Downey is in Gal way and Downey is in Cluansheen . . . . "

It would be difficult to identify this folk- poem were it not for the following note by the Editor.

" This song. . . .seems to have been used not so much as an occupation song as a 'wake game.' Mrs. Hoban tells me that she remembers this song being sung in her youth, but only on the occasion of the wake of an old person. Such practices, however, have long since ceased among the Western peasantry. It is not easy now to get even an accurate account of how the game was played. I have been told that one of the gathering simulated the dead man, stretching himself across some chairs and covering himself with a sheet. The others who took part in the game would then gather round and sing verses, for the most part of an impromptu kind, until the seemingly dead man would get tired and come to life again."

This then appears; to be the Sicilian game described by Dr. Pitre :

" A child lies down, pretending to be dead. His companions stand round and sing a dirge in the most dolorous tones. Now and then, one of them runs up to him and lifts an arm or a leg, afterwards letting it fall, to make sure that he is quite dead. Satisfied on this point, they prepare to bury him with parting kisses. Tired, at last of his painful position, the would-be dead boy jumps up and gets on the back of the most aggres- sive of his playmates, who is bound to carry him oft the scene."

(See, Martinengo-Cesa-esco ' Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs.').

JOSEPH J. At AcS WEENED

RONALD AND Dixox FAMILIES. For a period of at least forty years, to my own knowledge, there has been in the possession of my family a tie-pin of gold set with a stone (topa-5 ?) about f by i in. in size, bearing the following arms : Or, a lion pass, guard, gu. tied to an oak-tree, ppr. on a chief az. three crescents of the first Crest, an oak-tree leaved and fructed ppr. Motto. Sic virescit virtus.

On reference to Burke' s 'Armory ' (1878), I find the motto is attributed to ''Ronald," and. on turning up "Ronald " in the alpha- betical list I find the exast description of the "seal " tie-pin which has been in my family for so many years. ^ I am still unable to account for the ""seal " of a Ronald being in the possession

of a Dixon, unless there is some connexion between the families. It is a point of interest that a fairly frequent contributor to ' N. & Q. ' bears the two names

H.. HARCOTJRT DIXON, Lt.-Com.

(late R.N.V.R., R.N.D.)

THROWING SNOWBALLS. The following from The Dublin Chronicle, Dec. 27, 1787, seems worth preserving ;

"The practice of throwing snowballs in the public streets is not less dangerous in its conse- quences than fatal in its effects, an instance of which occured last Monday evening. A gentle- man passing through Marybone Lane was hit by a fellow in the face with a large snowball, upon which he immediately pulled out. a pistol, pursued the man, and shot him dead. Those deluded people are therefore cautioned against such practices, as in siniilar circumstances they are liable, by act of Parliament, to be shot, without any prosecution^or damage accruing to the person who snowed fire." What is the Act of Parliament referred to ?

J. ARDAGH.

BOWLER HAT. The 'N.E.D.' referred to " bowl," a large basin, but according to The Daily Mail of Oct. 20, we owe the head- gear so named to "William Bowler of the Borough," and if so, then its nam^.

J. T. F.

DR. ALEXANDER KEITH. In 'The Note- books of a Spinster Lady, 1878-1903 ' (Gassell & Co., 1919), there is a highly coloured story about the narrow escape of Dr. Alexander Keith, the Aberdeen divine, from being buried alive in Budapest, while in a long trance. He was, we are told, saved by the interference of a kind lady who noticed his name on the luggage labels in the hotel hall and who managed to enlist the interest of the " Landgravin, " living in the Castle of Buda, the only power on the spot, to order the funeral to be put off. Meanwhile the kind-hearted lady watched over Dr. Keith for something like a month, until he recovered from his trance. The tale is differently told by a Hungarian author who has written the ' History of the Reformed Church in Pest during 101 Years.' Accord- * ing to this author Dr. Keith had arrived with a Mr. Black, another member of the Scottish Mission, in Budapest in 1839, where he was taken ill at the Queen of England Hotel and was carefully looked after for weeks by the orders of Archduchess Dorothy who sympathized with the aims of the mission, and called on him on several occasions. The 'D.N.B.' does not mention the incident. L. L. K.