Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/63

 9 th S. I. JAN. 15, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

55

writes :
 * nd Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,

" The Romans recognized the god Lunus ; and he Germans, like the Arabs, to this day consider he moon masculine, and not feminine, as were the telene and Luna of the Greeks and Latins."

Vgain:

" The Egyptians represent their moon as a male leity, like the Germans, and it is worthy of remark n the East to the present day, while the sun is mans."
 * hat the same custom of calling it male is retained
 * onsidered female, as in the language of the Ger-

In 'Russian Folk-lore,' by W. K. S. Kalston, M.A., may be found :

"In South Slavonian poetry the sun often figures as a radiant youth. But among the northern Slavonians, as well as the Lithuanians, the sun was regarded as a female being, the bride of the moon. ' Thou askest me of what race, of what family I am, 3 says the fair maiden of a song preserved in the Tambof Government,

My mother is the beauteous sun. And my father the bright moon."

Tylor, in his 'Primitive Culture,' i. 21 writes: "Among the Mbocobis of South America the moon is a man and the sun his wife."

The Ahts of North America take the same view; and we know that in Sanskrit and in Hebrew the word for moon is masculine.

For 'Variation of the Grammatical Gender of the Sun and Moon,' see ' N. & Q.,' I 8fc S. v., vi.; 3 rd S. viii.; 4 th S. xi.; 7 th S. xi.

EVEEAED HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

Southey, in a letter to G. C. Bedford, dated 29 Dec., 1828, mentions a piece of moon-lore which it may be well to compare with that quoted by your correspondent. He writes :

" Poor Littledale has this day explained the cause of our late rains, which have prevailed for the last five weeks, by a theory which will probably be as new to you as it is to me. ' I have observed,' he says, ' that when the moon is turned upward, we have fine weather after it, but if it is turned down then we have a wet season, and the reason, I think, is that when it is turned down, it holds no water, like a bason, you know, and then down it all comes.'" 'Life and Corresp. of Robert Southey,' ed. Ch. C. Southey (1850), vol. v. p. 341.

EDWAED PEACOCK.

Berkshire adjoins Hampshire, and in Hamp- shire, we are told, everything is called "Tie," except a tom-cat, which is called "she." Thus in making the moon masculine the old shep- herd would follow the custom of his county.

C. B. MOUNT.

HATCHMENTS IN CHURCHES (8 th S. xi. 387, 454,513; xii. 29, 112, 193,474,517). In addition to replies to a question that he did not ask, MR. LEVESON-GOWER has now received one

or two to the purpose, particularly that under the signature of MARTIN PERRY at the last reference. May I mention an example of the inaccuracies which are apt to occur in such investigations 1 In the hope, which has been justified, that a much later instance would be produced, I mentioned one, in which I had a personal interest, of date so long ago as 1830. The late Mr. John Sperling took a note of this hatchment in his ' visitation of Arms in the County of Essex, 1858-59,' and mentioned it in his MS. referring to Strethall as a hatch- ment to the name of Raymond, viz., Raymond, Sab., chev. between three eagles displayed arg. ; on chief arg. bend eng. between two martlets sab. ; surtout Forbes, Az., three bears' heads erased arg., muzzled gu., two and one. This is correct, with the exception of the crescent for difference, which is shown not only on the arms, on the chief point, but also on the crest, a griffin's head or, langued and ducally gorged gu., the arms being those of Lieut.-GJeneral Raymond, a second son, who married Ann Forbes, an heiress. But in the 'Papers on Essex Churches,' with Mr. Sperling's signature, in the Gentleman's Maga- zine, New Series, vol. iii. p. 645 (December, 1857), the same hatchment is said to be to the wife of Archdeacon Raymond, rector. Archdeacon Raymond, who was for some years rector of Strethall, and died in 1860, had succeeded to his father's elder brother, as well as to his father, and bore no mark of cadency on his arms. Nor did he bear the Forbes arms in any way, though he might, as the record goes, nave quartered them. He was never married. KILLIGEEW.

" DiFFicuLTED " (8 th S. xii. 484). Is not this a Scottish provincial expression? I have often heard it used in Aberdeenshire.

JOHN MURRAY.

50, Albemarle Street.

BAYSWATEE (8 th S. xii. 405; 9^8. i. 13). At the last reply we are told that bay water could become bayswater " in easy parlance." On the contrary, it would be very difficult parlance. There is no parallel to it. No one ever yet burned red man into redsman. If your corre- spondent thinks differently, let him produce lis example, which he carefully omits to do.

We shall be always right in refusing to isten to the guesses and vagaries of those who ignore all the known history of our lan- guage. The present is a glaring instance of .t. We are actually told that " no horse, in serious earnest, could ever have been called Bayard unless he were of a bay colour." ^ It would be difficult to contradict the facts in a more explicit manner,