Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/403

 9 th S. I. MAY 14, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

395

3lf, for Scott seems to attribute to this _ fant, as well as to fern seed, the power ol enabling its possessor to walk invisible ; anc much as madder was formerly sought after for its medicinal properties, I am not aware that it had any magical ones. It was in accordance with the curious doctrine of sig- natures that fern seed was supposed to confer this gift of invisibility, for the seed itseli was invisible. It could only be gathered at 12 o'clock on Midsummer night, at the very moment of St. John's birth. At that time the plant suddenly flowers and the seeds fall I have told somewhere in ' N. & Q.' (I cannot remember under what heading) a story of a man who not many years since watched for, and is said to have gathered, it on Hatfield Moor, in Yorkshire, some five miles from this place. According to Scott, it is the seed of the male fern that is supposed to have this property, and of it only Lyte says : " The whiche some gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the trueth, it is nothing els but trumperie and superstition." In the Taller, however, in that delightful paper (No. 240) on the relation of poetry to physic, we are introduced to a "uoctor who was arrived at the Knowledge of the Green and Ked Dragon, and had discovered the Female Fern Seed." What this means is left as secret as the meaning of that mysterious word Tetrachymagogon (and the fern seed had many superstitions attached to it) ; but probably it refers to the same "trumperie" as Lyte. C. C. B.

Epworth.

Girdle cakes are well known in North- umberland and Durham. They are the "sing- ing hinnies " of the pitmen of both counties.

R-T B.

"MARIFER" (9 th S. i. 267, 333). Will CANON TAYLOR kindly say where this word is recorded 1 ? Is it in any printed document? Possibly it should be read mariser.

O. O. H.

" WHO STOLE THE DONKEY ? " (9 th S. i. 267.)

At the time of the agitation concerning the great Reform Bill, and for some years both before and after it became law, white hats were worn by the Whigs as political symbols, and " He 's a Whig that wears a white hat " became a common street cry. These hats were especially affected by those persons who devoted their energies to party organization. When the Reform excitement cooled down and other questions became prominent, the white hat ceased to have much of its old significance. I remember, however, in the early fifties a gentleman who lived near here

who always wore a white hat. It was regarded by himself and others as a visible token that he remained an uncompromising Whig, or, to use his own words, "a staunch supporter of the house of Brocklesby." An amusing incident, in which the wnite hat figured, happened at Lincoln one day in May. 1831. Mr. Charles Tennyson (afterwards Cnarles Tennyson-D'Eyncourt, of Bayons Manor, uncle of the late Lord Tennyson) proposed Sir William Ingleby, of Ripley Castle, i ork- shire, as one of the members for the county of Lincoln. A report of Mr. Tennyson's speech is to be found in the Lincoln Herald of 13 May, 1831. I give an extract relating to a memor- able white hat :

" 'The only objection I ever heard taken to him [Sir William Ingleby] by the people of Stamford was that he had such a very bad hat, such a shock- ing bad hat. (Loud cheers and laughter.) The Stamfordians are a stirring people ; 1,000 of them immediately raised a subscription of Id. each, and

Eurchased him this handsome white hat' (taking it
 * om Sir William's head), ' which is lined with blue,

and which I was requested thus publicly to present to him, and crown him with it. (Laughter.) I now propose three cheers for him.' (Much cheering.) Mr. Tennyson concluded his address by formally proposing Sir William Ingleby as a fit and proper person to represent the freeholders in Parliament."

I have a note that a song called 'The White Hat ' occurs in the Sporting Magazine for October, 1819, p. 47, but I cannot, at the pre- sent time, refer to it. EDWARD PEACOCK.

Dunstan House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.

With regard to MR. HEBB'S interesting note at the above reference, readers of Mr. Punch for 1863 will not have forgotten that ex- quisitely absurd and amusing tale, with illus- trations, entitled ' Mokeanna ; or, the White Witness' (a clever skit on the sensational novels of the period), in which the stolen donkey and the white hat play all-important roles. H. E. M.

St. Petersburg.

"To THE LAMP-POST" (9 th S. i. 266). I venture to remark that if MR. CANDY will reconsider his statement at this reference,
 * hat " the lamp was hung over the middle of
 * he street, in the centre of a cord," he will

earn that it is not in accordance with the undoubted evidence on the subject to which calls our attention. La lanterne,now notorious in consequence of its terriblejCsso- iiations, was in reality supported by a pulley rom an arrangement of two long pieces of ivood fixed, in the form of a triangle, in the ide of the house at the corner of the Place de Greve. It may be mentioned in connexion vith the matter that it was on 22 July, 1789 hat Foulon, who had succeeded Necker as