Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/189

 9* s. xii. SEPT. s, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER t~>, 190S.

CONTENTS.-No. 297.

NOTES : Simferopol, 181 Secretary Morice, 182 Dibdin Bibliography, 183 'Twelve Profits of Tribulation,' 184 Dr. Halley "Tatar " or " Tartar," 185 First Scotch Rail- wayMarshall Family " Bisk " Epitaph at Stanford Rivers Ben Jonson and Tennyson Sexdecim Valles, 186 " Wickey- up " Archbishop King's Prison Diary Witchcraft in Essex, 187.

QUERIES: "Paltock's Inn," 187 Richard Cobden Nodus Herculis " Wenthlok" "Cater" : "Lethes" "Catherine Wheel" Inn 'Wives and Daughters' Authors of Quotations Wanted Stafford, 188 Hobgoblin's Claws Lloyd Family Ghent Arms "Pass" Grubb Count de Bruhl Dog of St. Roch Ganning Family Macaulay and Dickens Whitebait Dinner" Jolly Boat " Coaster, 189 -" Alias" J. T. Towson Beni-Israel, 190.

REPLIES : Coincidences, 190 Shakespeare's Geography- Coffee made of Malt Sir Christopher Wren's Mallet. 191 English Cardinals Margate Grotto Searching Parish Registers Gautier's 'Voyage en Italic,' 192 Jews and Eternal Punishment Byfield House, Barnes Long Lease Coleridge as Translator, 193 Commonwealth Arms Mannings and Tawell W. H. Cullen Castle Carewe Dialect Dictionary,' 194 Holborn Casino Skeleton in Alum Rock " Hagioscope," 195 Mary, Queen of Scots "Flea in the ear " " To dive ""Accord er," 196" Haff " Fisherfolk John Angier Children's Festival Watson of Bar-asbridge Welsh Dictionary John Wilkes Booth, 197' Beowulf ' Hambleton Tribe Whaley Family, 198.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Porritt's ' Unreformed House of Commons ' Mew's ' Traditional Aspects of Hell ' 'Stevenson's Shrine ' Barber's 'Cloud World' Maga- zines and Reviews.

Notices to Correspondents.

SIMFEROPOL.

THIS town, situated on the river Salghir, forty-five miles north-east of Sebastopol, is the seat of government. Several glens belong- ing to the lower slopes of the Tchatyr-Dagh converge in the neighbourhood, each bearing its contribution of flood-water to the Salghir. During the Tartar Khanate Simferopol was the site of a town or large village called Ak-Mechet (" White Mosque "). As the resi- dence of the commander-in-chief of the Crimean Khan's troops it also bore the name of Sultan-Serai (" Sultan's Palace "). At its occupation by the Kussians in the eighteenth century it was burnt down, but it was rebuilt on the annexation of the peninsula, and made the chief town of the Government under its present name. That name has been explained as " Gathering Town," and as having been given owing to the great diversity of the population drawn together there. Some remains close by Simferopol have been iden- tified as the site of an ancient Neapolis. That name does not necessarily imply an earlier settlement on the same or a neighbouring spot, but it increases the probability that such was the case. It is not far off from Eski- Krim, the ancient Kimmerion, in the valley

of the Churuk-su, where that stream leaves the hills for the treeless steppe on its way to the sea at Kaffa or Theodosia. On the coast, some thirty-five miles from Theodosia, is Opuk, the Kimmerikon of antiquity. These names suggest that Simferopol is a revival or survival of an old name rather than a new coinage ; for, so far as I can ascertain, no other place subject to the influence of the Greek tongue bears such a name, although it would have been a most appropriate one, on the received explanation, in scores of other

E laces in that part of the world. Can it ave been originally, then, a translation of a " barbarous " name 1 That is my sugges- tion. There is a name, co-extensive with the widespread settlements of Celtic tribes, which is of frequent occurrence. That is the Breton " Kemper," the Irish " Comrnur," and the Welsh "Cyrnmer." It is composed of cy-> ci/f-j cognate with the Lat. cum, and (perhaps) the Gk. <rvv, " with," "together," and ber, Lat. fero, Gk. , Eng. "bear" ; and the usual rendering is "confluence." That rendering, however, is not etymologic- ally correct. Primarily, unlike the Lat. con- fluentes (Conflans, Coblentz), it is applicable to the converging glens that bring the streams together,and not to the streams them- selves. A similar remark applies to the kindred terms inver and aber. The distinc- tion is an important one, for it points to a topographical idea confined, I believe, to Celtic peoples. It can be traced back to the dawn of Celtic history, and is a living idiom in the vernacular Welsh of to-day. It is not necessary for an affluent to be of any import- ance in size or volume for its outfall to be called an aber. The tiniest brook, whose flow disappears in dry weather, may confer the dignity of aber upon a secluded hamlet or even farmhouse as idiomatically as Tawe or Teifi does on Swansea or Cardigan. The same thing is true of cymmer, though this is not quite so common as aber. But should two Welshmen, strangers to each other, meet, and one happen to say to the other that he lives " at Cymmer," the other, though he may be ignorant of the locality referred to, will at once understand that it is at the confluence of two or more streams.

As the reader sees, Simferopol, or Symphero- polis, is an exact rendering of cymmer with addition of the Greek for "city." On the supposition, therefore, that cymmer and Kimmerion are two forms of the same Celtic word, I would suggest that the Kimmerioi did not bestow their name on the peninsula they occupied, but, on the contrary, were so called from the various "kimineria" or