Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/245

 * s. xii. SEPT. 19, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tabooed by "good society." To ordinary people they are, practically speaking, indis- pensable. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

" Please pass the salt," or anything else in use at table, is so common a phrase that to hear any other form would be looked upon as unusual in most homes. It is " pass me " everything; not "hand me," except on very rare occasions. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

JAPANESE MONKEYS (9 th S. xi. 9, 76, 430, 517). I beg permission to make the following corrections respecting my previous article under this heading: p. 431, col. 1, 1. 14, "North Indian Notes and Queries" should read Panjab Notes and Queries. Same page, foot- note, for "of the fifteenth century, * Hai-wai- hien-wan-luh, '" read Hwang Tsang- Sing's ' Si-yang-chan- kung-tien -luh,' 1520. In the same foot-note *' Japanese " should be Java- nese.

It will be a propos of the last correction to call special attention of printers and tran- scribers to the fact that this very misspelling has been a frequent source of serious literary blunders. For example, in the ' Book of Ser Marco Polo ' a story is told of the Japanese imbedding in their flesh certain talismanic stones which would make them invulnerable. I had been searching in vain among the re- cords, both native and foreign, for anything corroborating this till recently I hit upon it in * Fr. Odoric's Travels '; wherein it is nar- rated that a certain kind of stone grows in canes in Java, which endows its bearer with immunity from all manner of arms : ap- parently an exaggeration of the vulnerary virtue of the tabasheer. From this it is evident that the misplaced statement in Marco's book was a result of his, or his in- formant's confusion of the names Japan and Java, or, more probably, of his literary friend's dictation.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.

'TALES FROM DREAMLAND ' (9 th S. xii. 169). -'The Pot of Gold 3 is the English title of 'Der goldene Topf,' which is one of Hoff- mann's best stories. I do not know the book to which reference is made. It may be a collection of stories written by different writers. E. YARDLEY.

SALOP (9 th S. xii. 108). Mr. Harper is very good on ' The Holyhead Road/ but his etymologies cannot be commended. The way to Salop is through Shrewsbury, first recorded in 901 as "in civitate Scrobbensis" (' Chart.

Sax.,' 585), "in the City of Scrob," -ensis being an adjectival suffix freely used in Latin ecclesiastical charters in the sense of "of" or "belonging to." Shrewsbury was a mint town, and in the time of vEthelstan, c. 940, the coins are marked Scrob, and so continue, with variations, to the time of Edward the Confessor, c. 1050, when they are marked Screobbe, Screob, and Scrop. In the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' under the year 1006, we find Shrewsbury as Scropesbyri, and the county Scrobbesbyrigscire. Under 1016 Shrewsbury is Scrobbesbyrig. In ' Domesday Book ' Shrewsbury appears as Sciropesberie, and the county as Sciropescire. We have then a long interval without records, and in 1159 Salope and Salopscir appear in the Pipe Rolls for the first time. Now there can be no doubt that the early forms of Shrewsbury yield " the burh [dat. byrig] of Scrob " (in Mercian dialect pronounced Shrob). The tendency of b to become p is well known (Skeat's 'Principles of Etymology,' 375). Hence we have, in the later forms, Scrop (Shrop), and ultimately Shropshire. Scrob was a personal name. Eyton ('Antiquities of Shropshire ') says :

" Richard fitz Scrobi or Scrob was a Norman settled in England before the Conquest, and a favourite of Edward I. (Confessor). He held pro- perty in Salop, and estates in Herefordshire, where he was termed ' Scrupe.' "

Nash ('History of Worcestershire,' i. 239) says :

"Richard Scrupe was a Saxon of the time of Edward the Confessor, whose chief residence was

at Richard's Castle (Herefordshire) His son was

Osbern fitz Richard, a Domesday tenant in capite. His descendant having married a ' de Say ' took that name."

I think Nash is right as to Scrupe being Saxon ; the name does not savour of Norman origin. The passage of Scrop to Salope in the twelfth century is not surprising, con- sidering the difficulty Norman-French clerks had in dealing with Anglo-Saxon words and pronunciation (strange and barbarous to them). Blake way ('History of Shrewsbury,' i. 38) says :

" R, as is well known, is a letter insurmountable by many organs, and in all languages has been occasionally exchanged for I. Hence arose a further corruption of our Saxon name, which from Sciropes- berie became Salopesberie " (and Salop).

Skeat says (' Principles of Etymology,' 376) : " In most Aryan languages r has a tendency to turn into I" Scrob I believe to be an Anglo-Saxon name, and the origin of the family names Scroop and Scrope. We have Scrooby, in N.E. Notts (' Domesday,' Scrobi), "Scrob's village," but in Northumbrian