Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/501

 12 s. VIIL MAY 21, i92i.i NOTES AND QUERIES. 411 PUSHKIN AND DANTE. In Pushkin's ' Piko- by tormenting them with the venomous vaya Dama' (The Queen of Spades), which chilopods, as is said to have been a usage was written in 1834, he quotes very appositely with the Mahomedan pirates of India 'Paradiso,' xvii. 58-60. Pushkin possibly ('HViaggio oriental! del Padre F. Vincenzo read the 'Paradise' in the French prose Maria,' Venetia, 1683, p. 420). translation of Artaud de Montor, a second Is there any other people who hold the edition of which had appeared at Paris four centipede as sacred or auspicious ? years previously. A comparison of the KUMAGUSU MINAKATA. Russian text withMontor's translation tends Tanabe, Kii, Japan, to confirm this supposition. This is the earliest reference to Dante that CLEMENTINA JOHANNES SOBIESKY I have found in Russian literature. Can any. DOUGLASS. In the churchyard of Fins- reader, perhaps, help me to put the date thwaite, near the southern end of Winder- farther back ? mere, there is a modern cross with the HUXLEY ST. JOHN BROOKS. following inscription : In memoriam Clementina Johannes Sobiesky JAPANESE ARTISTS. Can anyone give Douglass, of Waterside, buried 16th day of May me particulars of two Japanese artists, 1771 Behold thy King cometh. P. Maruyama and Chionin Kioto. Who was she ? W. B. S. M. HAMILTON SCOTT. [This question was discussed at 8 S. ix. 66. (-< . r., rp m i t ~r v* HO, 157, without much result. The letter at the CHARLES SIMPSON Town Clerk of Lich- gec ^ d ^ fepence is from the en of Andrew held and friend of Samuel Johnson. I Lang.] should be glad to know the nan^e of his wife and any particulars of his family. FRANKLIN NIGHTS (OR DAYS). Therf is a G. F. R. B. curious belief in Somerset and Devon that ROYALIST AND ROUNDHEAD RATES OF fr .8te are always experienced on the nights PAY. Were the soldiers of the Cromwellian of Ma ^ 19 ' fO, and 21, and the old natives forces paid at lower rates than those serving term these days Franklin days or refer in the Royalist army ? Many of the former t( ? _ th, fr ?f ts as conung on Franklin seem to have been undesirables and ap- C hte 9, an any reader lnform me wh >' parently were not treated too well, judging w 3 ', m from a report by Colonel Norton, who was /he legend attaching to tins brief season Governor of Portsmouth in 1644-5, and a g f ^ year is well known^ May 19 is close friend of Cromwell's. Norton writes S J- Dunstan s Day. As Dunstan must with regard to his garrison : al ^ s be. of the 1 J lost prominent figures Truly, I have not a pennv to pay them on m Somerset history-he was born, probably, Monday seven night and if I am not supplied at Baltonsborough the natives of the by the exciseman I am sure they will all mutiny county are interested in the story that it here for I am confident there is not a more dis- was he who persuaded the Devil to blight orderly soldiery in England. the app l e -trees and stop the production THE CENTIPEDE. In Japan the centipede great brewer of beer. Of course the asser- is held to be sacred to Bishamon (Sansk. tion has been denied. Vaisravana), the Buddhist god of fortunes, A Bristol brewer is also stated to have and his worshippers consider it especially sold his soul to the Evil One on the latter auspicious when a white centipede is caught promising to spoil the apple -crop by sending on Mt. Kurama where his temple stands three or more frosts from the 18th to the (Tanikawa, ' Kyosetsu Dan,' written in the 23rd of May in each year. There is no eighteenth century). However, no mention doubt that, generally, a few frosty nights of this association occurs in any authentic trouble us about this period of the month Buddhist writing of India. In China of of May. Some attribute the cold winds old there was a belief in the devilish centi- and frost about the middle of May to the pede, that, if it took up its abode with any melting of Arctic ice and the Gulf Stream man, great wealth would accrue to the being considerably cooled in consequence, household (Li Shi-Chin, ' System of Materia j The French, too, have a saying that Medica,' 1578, tome xlii). Such super- * ; In the middle of May comes the tail of stition perhaps had arisen from the brutal winter." W. G. WILLIS WATSON. practice of wringing ransom from prisoners Single's Lodge, Pinhoe.
 * CROOKS. O f c ider, the Saint, it is alleged, being a