Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/489

 9". s. xn. DEC. is, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

481

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1903.

CONTENTS.-No. 312.

NOTES : Derivation of aijua, 481 Jonson, Harvey, and Nashe " Phasis," 482 Richard Marshall : John Morren Thomas Knaggs Bottle Tree Riding the Black Ram, 483 Spanish Folk-lore Euchre Whirligig as Punishment A Wonderful View Bull Rings in Devonshire Grenadier Guards, 484 School-Board System, 485.

QUERIES:- Madame de Charriere's 'Le Noble 'Medical Barristers Bird as Crest Lancashire and Cheshire Wills ' Practice of Piety ' Mundy Nome City Crowns in Church Spire, 485 American Book Castle Society of Musick Cromwell buried in Red Lion Square Tidcombe : Long: Jennings: Howard: Tyler "Clyse" Economy- Morganatic Marriage " Spanish bag" Buche Cardinals and Crimson Robes ' Religion of Nature Delineated,' 486 Col. Stanhope Cotton " Molubdinous slowbelly" Rous Family Rev. James Beck, 487.

REPLIES : ' The Abbey of Kilkhampton,' 488 Miss Char- lotte Walpole Flaying Alive, 489 History of Bookselling Courts of Requests, &c. Envelopes, 49J Historical Rime: Rhyme " Euiachon" and its Variants "Pale- face," 491 Overstrand Church William Ware The Oak, the Ash, and the Ivy Glastonbury Walnut Wyke- hamical Word " Toys," 492 St. Bees College Thomas Young Richard Nash' Rule Britannia,' 493 Thackeray and ' Damascus and Palmyra ' Jinrikshas " Hagio- scope" or Oriel? Dickens Reference, 494 English Grave at Ostend Inscription on Snuff box " Peace at any price "Infant Saviour at the Breast Sundial Motto- Peter Payne, 495 Folk-lore of Childbirth "Clameur de haro " : " Crier haro "Gipsy Queen" Scriptures out of church" "Lord Palatine" Queen Elizabeth and New Hall, Essex, 496 Madame Humbert Child-murder by Jews -Cistercian Visitations Macaulay and Dickens- Cardinals Raleigh Altar Cushions, 497 Numerals House of Commons" Hark! Hark ! The dogs," &c., 498.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Sidgwick's Popular Ballads of the Olden Time' Bateson's ' Grace Book B ' Davies's 'Old Chelsea Church' 'Who's Who' 'Who's Who Year- Book' 'Whitaker's Almanack '' Whitaker's Peerage' ' Photograms of the Year 'Booksellers' Catalogues.

ITS DERIVATION.

IN Liddell and Scott's * Greek Lexicon ' and its derivatives number some one hundred and five words, without reckoning compounds entered under prefixes other than at//,-. Of the remaining alp- terms cuju,vAos accounts for six, at/xao-ta for three; and there are three isolated words, viz., at/Aoa-ar^s, "a Saurian stone used in burnishing gold," ai/zos " = 8pvfji6, skil- ful," which has also the meaning of " bloody." The two meanings "bloody" and "skilful" are more likely to have had an identical origin than that there should have been two different words of identical sound and form. As alfjLvhos has the meaning of "flattering," <; wheedling," " wily," used mostly of words, it also is probably to be classed with the majority of the other at/x- forms, and may possibly be equated with English "say." This leaves only two isolated forms : the name of the Samian stone used in burnishing gold, and ai/xos = S/cnyxos, a " coppice," " brush- wood," from Spvjrru, "tear," thus hinting at a connexion with at/xao-ta. Samos, according to Strabo, meant a height; an adjectival

form (radios gives us Samia, where there was a famous temple of the Samian Poseidon. Now o-a/xio, yields at/za without any violation or torturing of Greek phonetic laws. Rse- monia, the ancient name of Thessaly, and the Thracian Hsemus are, I venture to suggest, of the same derivation. It is well known that promontories, rocky islands, and beet- ling crags overhanging streams have been seats of ancient cults, and in many cases bear names signifying " blood." Thus we have the lies Sanguinaires, off Corsica ; Gower (giviar, an old Welsh word meaning "blood"), near Swansea ; and the Bloody Foreland (cnoc na fola), in the Mac Sweeny country in Donegal. The supersession, in Greek mythology, of the Mediterranean god Poseidon by Olym- pian Zeus is apparently an idealized repre- sentation of the subjugation of the Medi- terranean race by Northern tribes. Some of these tribes, Phrygian and Cimmerian, are found in the Troad ; and accordingly Posei- don and his sister Hera are the implacable foes of Troy in Greek story, while Zeus is either friendly or neutral. In the usual way a marriage is arranged between the intruding conqueror and the sister of the conquered monarch such an alliance as Napoleon con- tracted with Marie Louise of Austria. The " Samian " epithet of the defeated god loses most of its sacred connotation, and is de- graded^ into the simple meaning of blood sanguis in Italy and cu/xa in Hellas. By way of compensation the conquerors' word for blood, ichor, acquires a mystic or sacred meaning like the " blue blood " of the Spanish hidalgo and loses its simple signi- ficance (Lat. vigor, vigeo, vegeo, veget- ; W. giuaed, blood). Another term, nectar, seems to have been treated in a similar way. It means "drink at a banquet," and is con- nected with Lat. necto, nexum, Neptune ; Irish Necht, nasadh, feast, nescim, I bind ; W. neithior, a wedding feast. The Neptu- nalia took place in the latter part of July, much about the same time as the Irish Lugnasad, "the great feast for Lug mac Ethlenn for his entertainment after the battle of Mag Tured ; for this was his wed- ding of the kingship, since the Tuatha De Danann made the aforesaid Lug king after the death of Nuada " (quoted from one of the Ashburnham MSS. in Rhys's 'Celt. Myth.,' p. 414). Nuada Necht is connected by Prof. Rhys with Neptune and "the world of waters." All this reminds one of the famous victory gained by the Venetians over the Ghibellines in 1177, and the way in which Pope Alexander III. showed his gratitude by presenting the Doge with a ring wherewith to