Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/17

 9*s.x.JuLY5,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

"the Peak." Have Pec and Peak anything to do with each other ? Lord Avebury, lec- turing on ' English Scenery ' on 12 April at the Mansion House, said, " The Peak of Derby- shire was really a cup rather than a peak." I had often wondered what " the Peak dis- trict" had got its name from, and reasoned (on Lord Avebury 's lines above) as to the peculiarity and unfitness of the name for the district. If the Pec (Pec) ssetna, dwelling in that district, gave name to the district, the name "the Peak district" is explained. Ac- cording to Lord Avebury's dictum it could not be the Peak as a peaked (or piked) dis- trict that gave its name to these inhabitants.

B.

LOVEL: DE HATJTVILLE. Had the Lovely seigneurs of Castle Carey in Somerset, any ancient association with the Norman house of De Hautville ? I believe the arms of Lovel of Karey viz., a lion rampant between cross- lets fitche were likewise borne by the De Hautvilles, Norman conquerors of Naples and Apulia in Southern Italy. Sir John de Hautville is buried at Norton-Hautville, in Somerset. T. W. C.

MAY CATS. The following cutting from the Torquay Directory of 29 May seems worth preserving in the pages of 'N. & Q.' Does the superstition prevail outside Devon and Cornwall 1

"Superstition still lingers at Torquay. A Torquay correspondent of a Plymouth contemporary writes : ' An interesting event occurred at pur cottage yesterday, our cat presenting the establish- ment with a litter of kittens. This caused great joy to the younger members of the family, as they each hoped to become the possessor of one of them. However, these hopes were speedily dispelled, for no sooner had our housekeeper (who hails from Cornwall) heard of the event than they were immediately "ordained" to be drowned. Asked the reason for this apparently ruthless decision, she explained that all cats which are born in May have the disagreeable habit or faculty, when they are grown up, of bringing " varmints into the house ; that she once had the temerity to rear a May cat, and that the cat caught and brought into her house no fewer than twenty such varmints. Most of them certainly were only slowworms, but several were adders, and consequently she never intended doing such a foolish thing again. Can any one give me the origin of this belief, or say how far it prevails?' That the superstition obtains with Devonians as well as with Cornubians is evident from this extract from Mr. Eden Phillpotts's ' Lying Prophets ' : : Them chets had to go, missy. 'Tis a auld word, an" it ban't wise to take no count of sayings like that : '' May chets bad luck begets." You ve heard tell o' that? Never let live no kittens born in May. They theer dead chets corned May Day.'"

A. J. DAVY.

Torquay.

"MERESTEADS" OR "MESESTEADS." (9 th S. ix. 248, 437.)

I BEG to thank ME. MATTHEWS, of Boston, U.S., for his most useful and interesting note. I had no idea that records kept by early American colonists contained material of such value to the English archaeologist.

The word misted in the ' Plymouth Colony Records ' seems plainly identical with the meestead or meastead of the Court Rolls of the manor of Dewsbury, in Yorkshire, in the six- teenth century (see 9 th S. v. 349) ; and the meadstead oi those records is evidently identi- cal with the meadstead, midstead, or meatstead which occurs at Royston, near Barnsley, in the same county. The first time that I heard the Royston word, now more than twenty years ago, it was pronounced meadstead. I was then told of a piece of land in that village which belonged to the "meadstead- owners" in common, a " meadstead-owner " being the owner of one of the old houses in the village (see 8 th S. x. 349, 471).

The meestead of the Dewsbury Rolls is doubtless identical in meaning with mese- place, which occurs in many old English books and documents. Thus in Fitzherbert's ' Sur- ueyenge,' 1539 (repiint, p. 66), we have :

"I. B. holdeth a mese place frely of the lorde, by charter, with dyuers lands, medowes, and pastures, belongyng to the same, the whiche mese place lyeth bytwene the sayde hye way, and the sayde north felde, as is before sayid, and the sayd personage on the west side, and the tenement or mese place of F. G. on the easte part," &c.

It will be noticed that this mese-place has lands and meadows belonging to it. And so the midstead of the Plymouth colonists has " land assigned vnto yt."

The prefix mess-, as in mess-uage, mese- in mese-place, or meas- as in meas-stead, is identi- cal with the prefix meas- in meas-ure. A mese- place or meastead is then a " measure-place," a measured building-plot, or portion. Per- haps I may TDO allowed to refer to my notes on the word " messuage " in 9 th S. v. 520 ; vi. 122

Meadstead is not so easily explained. It may mean " meadow-place " ; but, on the other hand, its apparent identity in meaning with mese-place, &c., raises the suspicion that the older form may have been mete-stead, and so be connected with E. mete, to measure.

It is delightful to see how well old English habits and customs are reflected in the ex- tracts from the ' Plymouth Colony Records ' which MR. MATTHEWS has given. These ex- tracts appear to show that early in the seven-