Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/440

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NOTES AND QUERIES. w h s. XL MAY 30, 1903.

a stone slab, with figures in relief of the Blue- faced Vadjra and his attendants, stand on a little mound on the roadside, practically serving the end of a milestone, for he is held as the protector of wayfarers. Therefore it is vulgarly maintained that, should one earnestly pray to the stone slab, he is sure to find out a runaway, a thief, or stolen articles. It is certainly curious to read in the mythology of Japan that the god who had guided the imperial ancestor on occasion of his descent on Mount Takachiho, and thence became the Shintoist " God of the Cross- Road," is termed Sarutahiko, or Man of the Monkey's Field, from which it appears very likely that in the present culture of the Koshin both native and Indian elements are preserved in amalgamation, taking ad vantage of such a happy coincidence.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.

SNAKES' ANTIPATHY TO HORSEHAIR (9 th S. xi. 349). The hero of 'Fifty Years on the Trail/ by Harrington O Reilly, was John Nelson, the veteran plainsman who accom- panied Col. Cody to England, with his first " Wild West " exhibition at Earl's Court, in, if I remember rightly, the early nineties, and drove the historic old ramshackle coach that was believed to have seen many an encounter with "Injun" the ''Deadwood coach," I think it was called.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

I remember mention in Mayne Reid's

1 Headless Horseman ' of such a usage by a

scout, but do not recollect whether in this

instance the lariat was composed of horsehair.

EDWARD M. LAYTON.

22, Brockley Road, S.E.

GOTHS AND HUNS (9 th S. xi. 107, 253, 351). Eitel as a German proper name has nothing to do with Attila. Like the adjective eitel in German and idle in English, Middle High Germ, itel, Old High Germ, ital, Old Saxon idal, and Anglo-Saxon or Old Engl. idel, the original sense of this proper name was, probably, not "empty or vain," but " bright, clear, shining." (See Skeat's ' Dic- tionary ' and Weigand's 'Deutsches Worter- buch.') H. KREBS.

LUDLOW CLERKS (9 th S. xi. 347). Ludlow was, until all such separate tribunals were abolished by the Long Parliament as abuses, the seat of the Lord President of Wales and his Council with the Court of Marchers. Probably the stanza quoted by your corre- spondent alludes to the malpractices current

in the various offices. The Star Chamber and the Council of the North were abolished by the same statute, one of the few enacted by the Long Parliament which were not repealed after the Restoration. I may add that Milton's ' Cornus ' was written to be played at Ludlow Castle when Lord Elles- mere was installed as Lord President of Wales in 1634. H.

DEFINITION OF GENIUS (6 th S. xi. 89, 190 ; 9 th S. xi. 373). Sain te-Beuve in his ' Causeries du Lundi,' writing on Buffon, quotes the saying thus : " Le genie (une haute intelligence etant supposee comme condition premiere) c'est la patience." I believe that the paren- thesis is Sainte-Beuve's own addition. In another passage, which I cannot now find, Sainte-Beuve, referring to Buffon, writes: "Quand il a dit que le genie n'etait qu'une plus grande aptitude a 1'application et une plus grande patience," <fec. Horace's defini- tion is best, 'Ars Poetica,' 11. 409-12. It should be remembered, and Buffon ought to have remembered, that the word genius sig- nifies what is innate ; but it requires intense cultivation to develope the innate power. Ben Jonson, I think, was remembering Horace's 'Ars Poetica' when he wrote the ten lines on Shakspeare beginning

^et must I not give Nature all.

E. YARDLEY.

The place in Bayle alluded to by Isaac Disraeli, and desired by MR. LATHAM on the felicitous application "of a thought found in a book" occurs in his article ' Epicure,' and is attributed to Cardinal du Perron, with the marginal reference of " L'Abbe de Muyrolles's ' Abre'ge de 1'Histoire de France.' Pref." FRANCIS KING.

KEATS'S 'LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI' (9 th S. x. 507 ; xi. 95, 195, 353). Hogg's ballad of the fate of Macgregor introduces a pitiless spectral lady who carries away the hero of the clans. Some of the stories of the celebrated " White Lady " spectre show her to be anything but tender-hearted. To the elfish beings mentioned by MR. YARDLEY belong the malignant Slavonic roussalki (Russia) and samovilas (Balkan countries), fair and dangerous as the Greek sirens and the German Lorelei of the Rhine.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Brixton Hill.

"ROLLICK" (9 th S. xi. 47, 177, 298). It seems necessary to point out that my note on this term conveyed no feeling of difficulty regarding "rollicking," but indicated that "rollick" itself, while occasionally used,