Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/441

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li'i' S, 1. MA i, 'OS.J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

438

ve had it from the use of long-handlod axes. Barthe, from baerja, bd'ren, to strike, was an ancient term for a. hatchet or axe (Adelung, ' Worterbuch '). Lange barthen were therefore long axes. The Saxons also used the battle-axe, a long-hafted weapon called the byl and twy-byl, from being single and double axes, and tney used them with terrible effect at Hastings. It is singular that although axes have been often found in graves on the Continent, they are but rarely found in Saxon graves in England. The Northmen and Danes used the double-bladed axe. B. H. L.

KING JAMES I. AND THE PREACHERS (9 th S. i. 321). In this article occurs in the dedica- tion of Henry Greenwood's sermon the expres- sion "bedfellow": "My verie dear friends Sir

Lestraunge Mordaunt and Lady Frances

Mordaunt, his most louing Bed-fellow." I have met with the same in a letter, dated 1641, from one James Wilsford to Capt. Coi- lings : "Soe with my best respects to you and your bedfelloe I rest," &c. K. J. FYNMORE.

The Bishop of Llandaff was Theophilus Field, of whom there is an interesting account in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.'

W. 0. B.

"ON HIS OWN" (9 th S. i. 304). This has been a familiar phrase to me for some years now, but until reading MR. MATTHEWS'S note I had no suspicion that it was derived from the Welsh idiom which he quotes. To me it has always savoured of a piece of slang phraseology, and, so far as my experience goes, its usage is strictly colloquial, and has a more extensive vogue in other than literary circles. Personally, I have hitherto always regarded it as a mere clipping of the often- used phrase " on his own responsibility," a phrase which to my mind might as well have been responsible for that in question as the Welsh idiom. In London one fre- quently hears that a man has started business " on his own," or in reference to some action, that " he did it on his own," i. e., on his own responsibility, or without permission from those who might pro tern, have been in authority over him. MR. MATTHEWS'S note is nerertheless enlightening, and the metro- politan usage may, of course, have been evolved from the idiomatic phrase he mentions. It would be interesting to learn, if possible, how long a vogue it has had here in London.

C. P. HALE.

" On his own," " on my own," &c., are quite usual expressions herein East Anglia, meaning " on his own hook " and the like.

JAMES HOOPER.

SWANSEA (9 th S. i, 43, 98, 148, 194, 370), I beg leave to reply to the example given by MR. J. P. OWEN at the last reference. This example, on which he seems to pride himself, has nothing whatever to do with the ques- tion, but is ludicrously inapplicable.

My statement was that Norman-French never turns initial s into sw in the case of a word beginning with s. His example is not from Norman-French, nor yet from a single word. He says that so help me, when the two words so and help (both words of purely English origin) are run together, can become swelp me or swop me. Why, of course they can. There is here no insertion of iv, because its origin is there already.

Both Dr. Sweet and myself have explained (oh ! how often !) that the o in so is not a pure o, but an o with an after-sound of u; we spell it phonetically sou. See my ' Primer of Eng. Etymology/ p. 20. Consequently sou 'elp is the real origin. But the u passes into w before the vowel e, so that the next stage is sowelp, the next swelp. The form swolp comes next, due to the effect of the w on the e, assisted by the following /, and the form swop comes last. All the developments are regular.

If your correspondents would only deign to learn the merest elements of phonetics (for which see the works of Dr. Sweet) they would be able to explain these things for themselves without making such curious mistakes.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR (9 th S. i. 308). So far as I remember, the English articles were first classed as adjectives by Morell in his ' English Grammar and Analysis ' about 1860.

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

'THE COLLEEN BAWN' (9 th S. i. 368). I remember that one of the earlier editions of Gerald Griffin's 'Collegians' had a short note at the end of the volume, in which the date of Scanlan's trial was given as 1803 or 1807. I have looked at the 1847 and 1861 reprints ; but though they give a long account of the trial, the only date is " July in the

y ear The Dublin Kecord Office is the

most likely place to afford full information, or MR. FITZGERALD might look up the files of the Freeman's Journal or of the Limerick Chronicle for that period. The following may prove of interest to readers of ' N. & Q.' Conroy, the Colleen Bawn's uncle, was a tenant of my grandfather, and I have often heard the latter tell how he was present at the trial and execu- tion of Scanlan. When Eily Hanlon left her home with Scanlan they took forty pounds belonging to her uncle. My grandfather met Conroy at the trial, and after sympathizing