Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/498

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. i. JUNE is,

used to be in Bishopsgate Street Without, a few doors from what was once the old City of London Theatre, a shop kept by Italians who used to make these wafers, and the whole process of baking could be seen from the ex- terior of the shop. The bottom of the two flat surfaces used to be filled from a ladle with a thin batter ; the instrument was then firmly closed, and placed for a short time over a fire. This being done, it was opened, and there was turned out a flat wafer orna- mented with a certain device. The same thing may, I think, be seen to-day in Charing Cross Eoad the place, I believe, is Gatti's. Whether this is the same sort of instrument which C. C. B. seeks to know of is, of course, a question ; but from his description I think it may be. That I speak of must, like his, fit very close together in the act of closing ; for these wafers are, as he doubtless knows, very thin indeed. C. P. HALE.

"DANNIKINS" (9 th S. i. 287). I am glad that MR. MAYHEW has asked a question about this word, for it is full of interest not only from the philological point of view, but also from that of the student of folk-lore and anthropology.

In my ' Glossary ' I mentioned the " Bol- sterstone Dannikins " as the name of a feast held in that village on Holy Thursday. I have lately visited Bolsterstone for the pur- pose of making inquiries on this subject. It appears that the feast was known in the neighbourhood not only as the " Bolsterstone Dannikins," but also as " Bolsterstone Custard Feast." It was the custom of the inhabitants on Holy Thursday to eat custard pies under a sycamore tree on the village green, and the feast itself lasted several days. Mrs. Askew, who lives at Spink Hall, near Bolsterstone, has heard a man say, "We'll mak t' pwd custard tree shak at Bolsterstone Dannikins," meaning that they would have great rejoicings there. A man named Wade Hawley, aged about eighty-three, said that when he was a young man people used to talk, in a humorous way, about "running t' cows to mak 'em drop their calves and mak sure o' beeastings for custards agen Bolsterstone Dannikins." The custards were baked with crusts, and they were made from " beestings," or the first milk given by newly calved cows. Both the custom and the word "Dannikins" are now obsolete. The sycamore, too, has died, but the inhabitants have planted another sycamore in its place, and called it " the Jubilee tree."

In the neighbourhood of Bolsterstone the word " Dannikin " or " Dannikins " is gener- ally understood to mean a merry-making,

but it does not seem to have been always applied to a village feast, properly so called. In reply to a letter from me, Mr. Joseph Kenworthy, of Deepcar, wrote on 19 April :

' It appears that the people at Wigtwizzle, or Broomhead Mill, or Fairhurst, or Bolsterstone, had their separate ' Dannikins,' or what my informant describes as tea-drinkings, and the people of Wig- twizzle would invite, say, their friends at Bolster- stone to their ' Dannikin,' and expect to be invited in return to the ' Dannikin ' at Bolsterstone, per- haps a fortnight after, and so on. They appear to have been social gatherings of kinsfolk and friends. Whether all the ' Dannikins ' were got through in one particular season I have still to ascertain."

I was told at Bolsterstone that it was cus- tomary for each hamlet to select two or three men out of their number as messengers. These messengers were sent out with invita- tions to the "Dannikins." After such an invitation had been sent out one might have heard a Wigtwizzle man say to a Bolsterstone man, if they chanced to meet, "Now you'll come to our Dannikins."

As regards the etymology of the word, we ought to bear in mind that it is found only in a Danish district of England. It is possible that the customs with which it is associated may be Danish. In form the word resembles " Danekin," meaning " Danish." I have not found "Danekin" in literature, nor have I been able to consult the 'H. E. D.'* Mr. Bardsley, however, in his ' English Surnames,' mentions Gunnilda Danekin, Gunnhildr being a common feminine name amongst the Norse- men. If this view is correct, "Dannikin," like " frolic," was originally an adjective.

About seven miles from Bolsterstone is a hamlet, in the parish of Penistone, called Denby. The word means " dwellings of the Danes," or Danish town, and its older form, preserving the genitive plural, is found in Denaby, near Rotherham. The name shows that at one time the English people of this dis- trict had amongst them colonies of Danes whom they regarded almost as foreigners. A mile from Denby is the little hamlet of Gun- thwaite, formerly Gunnildthwaite, meaning " Gunnhildr's piece of land," and here, again, we have evidence of Norse colonization. Here, too, we have a custom which is apparently unique. Under the title of ' Commemorative Pies,' an account, taken from a newspaper, was given in these pages of the custom of baking the Denby pie (8 th S. x. 93, 146, 386). We were told that the people of Denby " for over a century have baked large pies in com- memoration of remarkable events in the history of the country." On Saturday, 1 Aug.,

[* It is not in the ' H. E. D.']