Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/463

 9s. xi JUNE 6, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

455

confirm, consecrate, or administer any sacra- early sixties, Mrs. Attwood used to tell us

ment. Having been ordained priest and that a cockney would say, " My vife and I

consecrated bishop, he then has the power of vent to Vest Vickham ; and vether it was the

order just as any other priest or bishop ; but vaggon, or vether it was my vife, I can't pre-

the power of jurisdiction, or supreme eccle- tend to say; but ray horse vouldn't go, and

siastical authority, he possesses from the my vife vouldn't go, and so ve'd to stop by

moment when he is chosen Bishop of Rome, the vay." A Platt - Deutsch "twister" is and, being so chosen, becomes Pope.

GEORGE ANGUS. St. Andrews, N.B.

u A " OR ''AN " BEFORE " H " SOUNDED (9 th

S. xi. 286). I am concerned with the above only so far as the reference to the preserva- tion of " an hungred " in the R.V. This is surely a matter for congratulation, as the word, better written with a hyphen, has now attained the respectable age of about six hundred years. See ' King Alisaunder,' 1. 1230 (Weber). I have not the R.V. at hand, but I trust that " on sleep," in Acts xiii. 36, has also been preserved. H. P. L.

[" On sleep " is preserved.]

" TONGUE-TWISTERS" (9 th S. xi. 269). The following, furnished me by my learned friend and colleague the Chevalier Londirii, is an Italian tongue-twister which it will take some research to parallel :

"Se P Arcivescovo di Costantinopoli si volesse disarcivesco viscostantinopolitannizzare, vi disarci ve- scoviscostantinopolitannizzereste voi per non fare disarcivescoviscostantinopolitannizzare lui ?"

" If the Archbishop of Constantinople would wish to give up his archbishopric, would you do the same in order that he may not give up his arch- bishopric ? "

A common French tongue-twister is " Le riz tenta le rat, le rat tente tata le riz."

HERBERT A. STRONG. University College, Liverpool.

vay

" Eene jute jans is eene jute jabe Jottes." An Irish one is " Baile-da-chab, buail dodha chab a-cheile " ( u Ballydehob, strike your two lips together "). A Welsh one is " Hwch goch a chwech o berchyll cochion bach" ("A red sow and six little red pigs"). Ho:

Monmouth.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

THE AUTHOR AND AVENGER OF EVIL (9 th S. ix. 22, 229 ; x. 35). Prof. L. Leger, in his ' Mythologie Slave,' chap, v., mentions a demon who may be the original of " Old Scratch " :

En Boheme on connait encore le Skritek iden- tique au Skrzat des Polonais. Les anciens lexiques traduisent ce mot par lar domesticus. Les pr- dicateurs faisaient de Skritek le synonyme de Diabolus. Hus dit des fideles qui n'^coutent pas les offices : ' Le pretre prononce certains mots, ils sont recueillis par le Sfcritek, 3 c'est-a-dire evidem- ment par le de"mon."

I presume these " certain words " are a form of excommunication, some formula analogous to bell, book, and candle. St. Paul " delivers to Satan " certain erring converts for correc- tion, an obscure point in exegesis, but what Hus intends is not clear from the above citation. Prof. Leger continues :

Le mot skrzat (pol.), skratek en Slovene, skritek

(tcheque) n'estpas d'origine slave il est d'origine

germanique: anc. all. scrato, scratun (larva, lares mali, lemures) ; moyen allemand schrat, schratze, schretze (faunus, daemon), schretel (spiritus fami- liaris), &c."

The following French one is a supposititious I The learned writer proceeds to connect schrat

soliloquy of a groom following his master : Je suis ce que je suis, Je ne suis pas ce que je suis ; Si j'etais ce que je suis Je ne serais pas ce que je suis.

The play of words is, of course, on " je suis, I am," and " je suis, I follow."

A. COLLINGWOOD LEE.

specimens of this kind of sentence," was awarded the first prize in a competition held some years ago by the Golden Penny viz., " The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."

rx s. H.

The version I have heard was " Ces sau- cissons-gi sont six sous" which is hardly good French, but effective. When I was a little boy at a Croydon dame school, in the

with the Russian chort (devil), an ancient kinship if existent. It is strange if the obso- lete Teutonic word survives in Russia as the appellation of the author of evil, and with us in the irreverent form of " Old Scratch."

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Brixton Hill.

THE PAUCITY OF BOOKS IN ELIZABETHAN SHAKESPEARE ABROAD (9 th S. xi. 44, 150, 336). I am obliged to Z. for his reply to

y letter regarding Calderon, which was

nply meant to show that there was not the

smallest resemblance, as Z. maintained, be- tween Calderon's ' Devocion de la Cruz ' and Romeo and Juliet.' Z. says, '"Romeo and Juliet' must have certainly been known to Lope." I fail to see the certainty. The supposition is as far-fetched as that Shake-