Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/121

 xii. AUG. s, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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lament the day of Nirvana. From the group the cat as well as the earthworm are ex- cluded ; the former is said to have laughed at the Buddha's temporal end.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.

ST. DIALS (9 th S. xii. 49). This saint is pro- bably Deicola or Deicolus, which in Irish is said to be Dichuill, and in French becomes Diel, Deel, Desle, Die, and is also given as Dielf, Deile, and Dieu ; see 'D.N.B.,' xiv. 295-6 ; Nicolas, ' Chronol. Hist.,' 1838, p. 143.

W. C. B.

Would not this be a corruption of St. Deiniol's ? St. Deiniol was, according to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his ' Lives of the Saints,' Bishop of Bangor in the seventh century. In Alban Butler's ' Lives of the Saints' (23 Nov.) he is called St. Daniel. Butler, however, says that he flourished in the former part of the sixth century.

J. HOLDEN MAC MICHAEL.

- "WlCK" (9 th S. xi. 348, 495). "Wick " = dairy may nay, does require explanation or corroboration, but there is nothing whatever "puzzling" in the suffixes of Droit-wich, North- wich, &c. See Taylor's ' Words and Places' (1882), p. 108. Canon Taylor may have been shaky in his etymologies at times ; but on this there is no doubt, as evinced by the term " bay-salt." The collection of the evaporated saline deposit can be seen now on any suitable summer evening on the viks or wicks round the coast of Malta and else- where. Similarly there is nothing recondite about Ger. Halle = saltworks : it is only the word Hall with a special meaning.

H. P. L.

HERALDIC SHIELDS : THEIR ORIGIN (9 th S. xi. 8, 513). I believe that the woman-headed serpent is Lilith. The first wife of Adam, and the mother of Samael, who in the form of a serpent tempted Eve, she herself was a serpent, and assisted him in the temptation. She has been represented in art as a serpent with a woman's head, assisting in the tempta- tion of Eve, and twined round a tree. I read the article in the Nineteenth Century, and did not see in it any mention of Lilith. '

E. YARDLEY.

COLUMBARIUM IN CHURCH TOWER (9 th S. xii. 48). Dovecotes on churches may be rare now, but in former times they were pro- bably not uncommon. Giraldus Cambrensis tells us^at least of one, on the church of St. David at Llanfaer, in Breconshire, upon which he hangs a very instructive story. A

reprobate boy of the place, attempting to rob it, had his hand miraculously fixed in the hole into which he had thrust it for the pur- pose, whence, notwithstanding the prayers of his parents and friends, it was only- liberated on the third day '* Vinculo divini- tus relaxato." The miracle, as was intended, and might be expected, resulted in the youth's reformation, who, growing up (in the words of an unpublished metrical version of the legend),

took to good ways

For the rest of his days, And never more scoffed at religion ;

And, later in life,

Took a pub and a wife. And set up the sign of " The Pigeon."

The birds in this instance seem to have been Church property, not that of the lord of the manor. JOHN HUTCHINSON,,

Middle Temple Library.

At Collingbourne Ducis, near Marlborough the interior of the church tower is constructed to serve as a columbarium (' N. & Q.,' 1 st S. ix. 541). Very many columbaria or dove- cotes are recorded in, the various series of ' N. & Q.,' but the above is the only notice of one being built in a church tower.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. ' 71, Brecknock Road.

OWL (9 th S. xi. 467, 517). I have before me a book published at Berwick and undated, which professes to be Buffon's 'Natural His- tory Abridged.' It is in two volumes, and the first of them affords generous space to the " ragging " of mistimed owls by lesser birds, about which your correspondent in- quires :

"As they [owls] are incapable of supporting the light of the day, or at least of then seeing and readily avoiding their danger, they shut themselves

up during the day in some obscure retreat If

they be seen out of these retreats in the daytime they may be considered as having lost their way, as having by some accident been thrown into the midst of their enemies and surrounded with danger. In this distress they are obliged to take shelter in the first tree or hedge that offers till the returning dark- ness once more supplies them with a better plan of the country. But it too often happens that with all their precaution to conceal themselves they are spied out by other birds, and are sure to receive no mercy. The blackbird, the thrush, the jay, the bunting, and the redbreast all come in file, and employ their little arts of insult and abuse. The smallest, the feeblest, and the most contemptible of this un- fortunate bird's enemies are then the first to injure and torment him. They increase their cries and turbulence round him, flap him with their wings, and are ready to show their courage to be great, as they are sensible that their danger is but small. The unfortunate owl, not knowing where to attack or whence to fly, patiently sits and suffers all their insults. Astonished and dizzy, he only