Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/423

 9*8. XI. MAY 23, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

415

thrown back and pursued nearly as far as Riga. The sledge in which Frederick William drove with his consort and the Hereditary Prince is preserved in the Berlin Hohen- zollern Museum. Apart from the painting by Wilhelm Simmler in the Zeughaus, the memorable sleigh ride of the Branden- burgers is recorded on fine gobelins in Monbijou Castle in Berlin. G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

MISTAKES IN PRINTED REGISTERS (9 fch S. xi. 326). In 'N. & Q.' for 25 April W. C. B. aptly draws attention to this subject, and supports his complaint by striking illustra- tions, particularly with respect to the mistake of printing "Ingge" for Jugge. I am in a position thoroughly to sympathize with him, on account of having undergone a precisely parallel experience, none the less pertinent because the register I have in mind is episcopal instead of parochial, and of earlier date viz., A.D. 1400. On broad general grounds I think I may claim that a more important issue was involved in my case than in that of W. C. B. Quoting Archbishop Scrope's Register at York, the Charity Commissioners, 1826, followed by some very high authorities, and the sub- sequent Nottingham historians, refer to a messuage granted to Plumptre Hospital, Nottingham, under the unintelligible name of " Inscole." No one gave a variant reading. A few years ago, following up a line of investigations on the ancient churches and religious establishments of this town, by a piece of good fortune I was enabled to prove conclusively that the true reading of this hitherto mysterious name was Juscole, i.e., Jew School. From the circumstance of the

Property being capable of precise location, was thus able to point to the exact spot occupied by the Jews' synagogue of mediaeval Nottingham, which had long been debated inconclusively by our local historians.

A. STAPLETON. 524, Woodborough Road, Nottingham.

HALLOWE'EN PRACTICE (9 th S. xi. 109). The fires lighted formerly in Scotland and Wales on the vigil of All Saints', and in Ireland on the four great festivals of the Druids, of which Hallowe'en was one (Valiancy's ' Col- lectanea de Rebus Hibernicis '), seem to have been generally identified with the ingathering of the harvest, the blazing fir torches carried about on Upper Deeside bearing, no doubt, originally a religious meaning in connexion with the Baal-fires at which they were kindled. One suspects that this choice of fir torches was, in the first place, something

more than accidental, or that it was not merely on account of their better adapt- ability for burning, for the fir-tree was identified with Baal - Berith, the pagan Messiah. Why the torches were called " sownicks " does not appear. Jamieson does not give the word in his ' Dictionary,' but perhaps they were so called from the " sowens" (i.e., flummery made of the dust of oatmeal remaining among the seeds, steeped and soured) which, with butter instead of milk, constituted the Hallowe'en supper (see Eden, 'State of the Poor,' 1797, quoted in Brand's ' Popular Antiquities,' 1877, p. 210). The curdled milk appears to have been but a variation of the so wen -cake which was solicited by the torch-bearers to celebrate the occasion, as they proceeded from door to door. The practice at Balmoral alluded to in 'N. & Q.' (4 th S. xii. 485) is obviously a survival of the ancient custom of carrying torches before royal personages as a mark of honour and as symbols of the royal presence (see Daubuz's ' Symbolical Diet.,' 1842, s.v. 'Fire'). J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

"PEELER" (9 th S. xi. 265, 358). Was not " peeler " almost entirely confined to Ireland 1 It used certainly to be very common in Irish novels, and I remember meeting with a note in one of these to the effect that it was the Irish name for a policeman. One remembers, too, how at the famous battle of Limerick " the peelers came in view, And jended J;he shaloo upon Shannon shore."

C. C. B.

WRITING AND LANGUAGE OF THE HUNS (9 th S. xi. 287). L. L. K. will find in the Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. vi. No.' 10, pp. 227-36 (1893), alphabets of the Huns, according to Telegdi and Harsanyi, as well as the Cuman alphabet, in a paper by Paul Kiraly de Dada. Whatever the origin of these alphabets may be, they are quite different from those used by the Turks in the inscriptions of the Orkhon and Upper Yenis- sei. These were first deciphered by Prof. W. Thomsen, of Copenhagen, and his first results are published in the MJmoires de la Societe" Finno-Ougrienne, v. (1896).

JOHN ABERCROMBY.

LATIN RIDDLE OF LEO XIII. (9 th S. xi. 48, 114). The Latin charade quoted at the first reference appeared in the earliest number (1 November, 1898) of Vox Urbis, p. 8, un- signed, with the heading "^Enigma (vulgo Italice Sciarada}" Arabes, the answer, is, it may be remarked, more satisfying to the eye than to the ear, though we may grant the e in the final syllable the quantity of the Latin