Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/261

 9*8. XL MARCH 28, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the cornfields. His house is an old turreted mansion, much patched in the whole mass of its structure, and, I believe, much increased in its accommodations since he entered upon possession of it. The situation is extremely beautiful. There are very few trees immediately about the house ; but the windows open upon the side of a charming hill, which, in all its extent, as far as the eye can reach, is wooded most luxuriantly to the very summit." Letter vii. vol. i.

To it succeeds a description of a leaping party, and subsequently that of a dinner, at which Jeffrey is described as " wearing the little green jacket aforesaid, grey worsted pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a black silk handkerchief."

The rooms which the great critic occupied, but only for a brief period in 1791-2, are still pointed out at Queen's College, Oxford, in No. 4 in the North Quadrangle.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

GOTHS AND HUNS (9 th S. xi. 107). There is a legend that a race of giants called Huns invaded the Harz country in primeval times, and presumably they settled there. See the 4 Legends and Tales of the Harz Mountains.'
 * Legend of the Hoppelberg ' in Lauder's

C. 0. B.

"C.I.F." (9 th S. xi. 229). Cargoes are sold cost, freight, and insurance. The contracts run "c.f.i." When the telegraph came into use, the company charged "c.f.i." as three words, being unpronounceable. Consequently the trade altered the symbols to "c.i.f.," which passes as one word.

J. H. MlTCHINER. [Many other replies acknowledged.]

HANGMAN STONES (9 th S. x. 467 ; xi. 33). In the parish of Tankersley, on the turnpike road leading from Barnsley to Sheffield, about five miles south of the first-named town, there is a place called Hangmanstone, which used to give its name to a toll bar, removed within the past thirty years. There is the familiar legend of the man and sheep connected with it, according to an old ballad :

The crowner's quest found he had died With a stolen sheep struggling there ; For round his neck its feet were tied, And choked him for want of care.

There is, 1 may add, no veracious local record of the supposed tragedy, nor can any one even approximately fix its date.

ALEXANDER PATERSON. Barnsley.

The following old ballad, describing the legend of Tankersley, and containing an account of ' The Hang'd Man's Stone ; or, Widow's Lament,' will, I think, be of interest

some of your readers, as this subject has been frequently referred to in * N. & Q.' In my early boyhood I have seen the place known as Hangmanstone Bar. It is near Wortley and Tankersley, about seven or eight miles from Sheffield.

The Hang'd Man's Stone, or Widow's Lament :

A Legend of Tankersley. Ah me, ah me ! who would have thought

My William was a thief ? And still the horrid truth, unsought,

Half staggers my belief ! So good he seem'd, when first he came

A lover to my cot ; His speech, his conduct, and his name

Alike without a blot. And when we wedded, for our joy,

How yon sweet bells rung out ! And when at length our first-born boy

In beauty play'd about, How proud the father seemed to be !

How happy the young wife ! For though so poor, we still were free

From all domestic strife. But 'twas my grief ere long to guess

That he was sometimes led The dreaded game-laws to transgress,

Though not a poacher bred. And then his downward path began

The village alehouse knew Him, a sad, silent, alter'd man,

And I more anxious grew. 'Tis but a three weeks back, yestere'en,

He came not home at night; Ah me ! what could his absence mean ?

I fear'd all was not right. I look'd and listened in the dark,

But heard no earthly sounds ; High in the welkin, o'er the park,

Yelp'd the dread Gabriel hounds ! Old Tankersley church clock struck ten- Eleven twelve how dark ! I dozed and dreamt, and fancied then

Some conflict in the park. But morning came, and with it sped

To my ear the sad tale That William was found hang'd, and dead,

On the big stone in the vale. And the crowner's quest found he had died

With a stol'n sheep struggling there ; For round his neck its feet were tied,

And chok'd him for want of care. He's dead, and gone, but not the worst,

The widow's mourning breath ; I bear his name a name accurst !

He died a felon's death. And I am told that fatal spot

Through long, long future years, Will be shunn'd at night as a blood-foul blot.

Or pass'd with shuddering fears ; While the labourer near, at high noonday,

In a half-contemptuous tone, Pointing his fellow churl, will say,

"That is the Hangman Stone ! "

CHARLES GREEN. 18, Shrewsbury Road, Sheffield.