Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/66

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

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

kids?" is a very common inquiry, and not by any means confined to one class. Kittens are called "kits," "kitties," and "kittlings." THOS. KATCLIFFE. Worksop.

" TIELING-PIN " (8 th S. xii. 426, 478; 9 th S. i. 18). In an article on 'Door Knockers,' in Architecture for July, 1896, Mr. C. G. Harper gives the following account of the " tirling- pin," with an illustration :

" The tirle-pin came from France, where it origin- ated in the times of the Valois, and this was the manner of its origin. It was not etiquette in those days (perhaps it is not now, but I have no first-hand knowledge of the subject) to knock at the door of the king's palaces, and so courtiers were reduced to scratching with the finger - nails a disagreeable operation, as any one who cares to try it may dis- cover. Perhaps because of this, or possibly because the scratching was not loud enough, the tirle-pin was invented. The fashion spread from France to Scotland in the times when those two countries were linked in close ties of friendship, and from the king's court it spread downwards to the nobles and the merchant princes, and finally came into general use ; but it was never acclimatized in England. One of the last of the Edinburgh tirle-pins belonged to an old house in Canongate, and has been removed to the museum of the Royal Scottish Society of Antiquaries. Even the tine-pin finds a reference in literature besides having originated the Lowland Scots verb 'to tirle.' The reference is in that curious old ballad ' Sweet William's Ghaist ':

There came a ghaist to Margaret's door

With many a grievous groan,

And aye he tirled upon the pinne,

But answer made she nane.

MATILDA POLLARD.

On one of the doors of the old rectory house at Ovingham, in Northumberland, there is a tirling-pin. Another is to be seen on a door in the house of Bailie McMorran, in the High Street of Edinburgh. Both are in use.

Y. Z.

STEWKLEY CHURCH, BUCKS (8 th S. xii. 448) Britton (' Beauties of England and Wales, 1814) gives an interesting account, archi tectural and descriptive, of this very interest- ing building, " the rival of Iffley, among the most ancient and most perfect Norman structures in England," built, according to Parker, about 1150, and dedicated to St Michael. He remarks, as I understand it that the signs of the zodiac are carved rounc the archway of the south porch ; but on ex amining his plate I could not make out anj of the signs.

Mr. Fowler (Archceologia, 1873, vol. xliv p. 139) also mentions that a zodiac is to be found at Stewkley Church, and gives Britton as his authority.

The Rev. C. H. Travers, late vicar o

tewkley, who read an architectural paper efore the Bucks Archaeological and Archi- ectural Society in 1862, made in it no allu- ion whatever to a zodiac.

This paper was enlarged, and published as

three-paged pamphlet, with three views of

he church (price twopence), in 1892 by the

)resent vicar, the Rev. R. Bruce Dickson ; but

t contains no zodiacal allusion. Considerable

Iterations were made in 1833 and 1844, and

a complete restoration in 1862, by Mr. G. E.

Street; but there does not appear to have

Deen a destruction of any carvings.

In a letter from the present vicar (16 Dec., 897) he obligingly informs me "that we lave not the signs of the zodiac, as such, round any arch in our church." So I conclude Britton was mistaken. The emblems of the months are sometimes mistaken for the zodiacal signs. Even that invaluable work the large ' Dictionary of Architecture' (just completed, I believe) ascribes a zodiac to Deepdale Church font, Norfolk. But a photo- graph of this font, in my possession, proves clearly that it only has the month symbols )n it, relating to agriculture.

The leaden Norman font in Brookland Church, Kent, seems to be the unique in- stance of a font zodiac (Archceologia Cantiana, iv. 87). Four of the tower gurgoyles are symbols of the four Evangelists ; and these ds the cherubic emblems seem to have formed the nucleus of the zodiac. A. B. G.

A slight sketch of the architectural features will be found in * Old England,' by Charles Knight, London, 1842, i. 203, and an illus- tration of the exterior in ii. 65. Samuel Lewis, in his 'Topographical Dictionary of England,' only says: "The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is one of the most enriched and complete specimens of the Norman style of architecture now remaining."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Sid- ney Lee. Vol. LIII. Smith Stanger. (Smith, Elder & Co.)

THE new year brings with it the fifty-third volume of this huge and noble work, well on to half of this latest instalment being occupied by the names Smith and Smyth. The editor who, fortunately for his readers, is a frequent contributor to the volume deals but little with the bearers of these patronymics, the most eminent Smith, from a lite- rary standpoint, with whom he deals being Edmund, the poet known, as Mr. Lee tells us, as "Captain Rag* and the " Handsome Sloven "the author of