Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/272

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. APRIL 2, '98.

Stop with moss and dugg with clay, And that will weize the water away. The frog comes to claim his bride : and, to tell the tale with effect, the sort of plash which he makes in leaping on the floor ought to be imitated : singing this nuptial ditty:

Open the door, my hinny, my heart, Open the door, my ain wee thing, And mind the words that you and me spoke Down in the meadow by the well spring. In the same strain as the song of the little bird : My mother me killed, My father me ate, &c.

Independently of the curious circumstance that such tales should be found existing in very different countries and languages: which augurs a greater poverty of human invention than we would have expected : there is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good-boy stories which have been in late years composed for them. In the latter case their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks like their feet at the dancing school, and the moral always consists in good moral conduct

being crowned with temporal success. Truth

is I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred histories of Tommy Goodchild. Miss Edgeworth, who has with great genius trod the more modern path, is, to be sure, an exception from my utter dislike of these moral narrations ; but it is because they are really fitter for grown people than for children. I must say, however, that I think the story of Simple Susan in particular quite inimitable. But 'Waste not, Want not,' though a most ingenious tale, is, I fear, more apt to make a curmudgeon of a boy who has from nature a close cautious temper than to correct a careless idle destroyer of whipcord. In a word, I think the selfish tendencies will be soon enough acquired in this arithmetical age ; and that, to make the higher class of cha- racter, our wild fictions, like our own simple music, will have more effect in awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition than the colder and more elevated compositions of more clever authors and composers.

I am not acquainted with Basile's collection ; but I have both editions of Straparola, which I observe differ considerably I could add a good deal, but there is enough here to show that it is with sincere interest that I subscribe myself

Your obliged servant,

(signed) WALTER SCOTT.

J. LORAINE HEELIS. 9, Morrab Terrace, Penzance.

CHELSEA.

IN the first of the picturesque and sug- gestive papers which Sir Walter Besant is now contributing to the Pall Mall Magazine on ' South London,' he says (Jan., 1898, p. 69) that the old South wark causeway was

"constructed by driving piles into the mud at regular intervals, forming a wall of timber within the piles, and filling up the space with gravel and shingle, brought from Chelsea' Isle of Shingle '

or from the nearest high ground, where is now Clapham Common."

This looks as if Sir W. Besant thought the original name of Chelsea was Ceosel-ig, Pebble Island, but so far as I know there is not the slightest authority for such an assumption.

The origin of the name of Chelsea was discussed in these pages more than thirty years ago (3 rd S. ix. 295, 419, 522) in connexion with trie "Concilium Calchutense," the " Geflitf ullic " or contentious synod which according to the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' was held at Cealc-hyth in the year 785. Opinions have greatly varied with regard to the situa- tion of Cealc-hyth. Some writers have sug- gested Calcuth or Celchyth, in Northumbria; others Kilcheth or Culcheth, in Lancashire ; and others, again, Challock or Chalk, in Kent. A writer in the Gent. Mag., xcvi. (Feb., 1826) 111, was the first to adopb Leland's sugges- tion that the Council was held at Chelsea; and this view has been held by Dr. Lingard, by the Rev. J. H. Blunt, and by Faulkner, the historian of Chelsea, who in the second edition of his work (1829) has transferred bodily the letter which had appeared three years previously in the Gent. Mag. There can scarcely be a doubt that these writers are correct.

Lysons, in his 'Environs of London,' ed. 1810, ii. 45, says that the most ancient record wherein he has seen the name of Chelsea mentioned is a charter of Edward the Con- fessor, in the Saxon language, where it is written Cealchylle, and that did local circum- stances allow it he would not hesitate a moment in saying that it was so called from its hills of chalk ; but as there is neither chalk nor a hill in the parish the derivation does not prove satisfactory. The fact that there was no chalk in Chelsea affords the reason why chalk was brought to it from other parts, for Cealc-hylle is an evident mistake for Cealc-hyth, which means a landing-place for chalk, just as Lamb-hyth (Lambeth) means a landing-place for sheep, Rother-hyth a landing-place for cattle, and Steban-hyth (Stepney) a landing-place for logs of wood. The charter mentioned by Lysons is, I believe, among the archives of Westminster Abbey, and Mr. Blunt says it is doubtful whether the correct reading is Chilchelle or Chilchede. In Domesday, as Mr. Blunt remarks, it would appear that the scribe was puzzled how to pell the name, and for safety's sake he has ,,.,., ,1 Cercehede \

bracketed the two names, thus

Henry of Huntingdon writes it, anno 1110, Cealcyde. In the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, 1291, it is spelt Ghelchethe. In manorial