Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/492

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL DEC. 19, 1903.

his copyhold lands, dum sola et caxta ftierit, that i while she lives single and chaste ; but if she com mits incontinency, she forfeits her estate ; yet if she will come into court riding backward upon a black ram with his tail in her hand and say the words following, the steward is bound by the custom to admit her to her Free-Bench :

Here I am,

Riding upon a Black Ram

Like a wh. . e as I am ;

And for my crincum-crancum

Have lost my bincum-bancum ;

And, for my tail's game,

Have done this worldly shame :

Therefore, I pray you, Mr. Steward,

Let me have my land again." It is evident that the lady had to sit astride on the ram in masculine fashion, and not as she is represented in the picture.

L. L. K.

SPANISH FOLK-LORE. In an interesting political conversation reported in theHeraldo deMadrid, 28 August, the following saying is quoted as current among Asturian farmers : todo el cucho" ("God and manure can do great things, especially manure "). This resembles the famous Cromwellian " Trust in God and keep your powder dry." When a labourer meets a cow on his road he salutes her with " Ayudela Dios ! " ( u ,God help her ! ") He dare not omit this, for fear of personal misfortune. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.
 * Dios y el cucho pueden rnucho, pero sobre

Brixton Hill.

EUCHRE. The etymology of euchre is un- known. A guess is hazarded in the ' H.E.D.' which is not very convincing. In a book upon card-playing, by the Rev. E. S. Taylor, at p. 451, we are, at any rate, told how the game arose : " The game of euchre, euka, or youka (for it is variously spelt), largely played by the rowdies, is simply e'carte." This being so, it really does not seem a very wild guess that euka was a pronunciation adopted by " the rowdies " of ecar-, which is merely carte with the last syllable dropped. They were not very strong in French.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

WHIRLIGIG AS INSTRUMENT OF PUNISH- MENT. Col. Clifford Walton, in his ' History of the British Army,' p. 572, says :

"Grose tells us of another corporal punishment, of which, however, I have not yet succeeded in find- ing mention elsewhere ; but as he speaks of it as of a

certainty I quote his account: 'In garrisons

where martial lavy prevails, the followers of an army are liable to military punishments; one formerly very common for trifling offences committed by petit sutlers, jews, brawling women, and such like persons, was the whirligig ; this was a kind of circular wooden cage which turned on a pivot ; and when set in motion, whirled round with such an

amazing velocity that the delinquent became ex- tremely sick, and commonly emptied his or her body through every aperture.' "

Grose does not specify any particular whirligig, but I think he must have had in mind the one at Gibraltar. Drinkwater's and the volume of Grose's * Military Antiqui- ties' in which the above-quoted passage occurs was published in 1788. Moreover, the men- tion of "jews" in connexion with a garrison where martial law prevails is noteworthy. At p. 53 in the first edition of his work, Drinkwater says that
 * History of the Siege' was published in 1785,

" about 300 Jews and Genoese were employed in levelling heaps of sand, near the gardens, on the

neutral ground the picquets of the garrison

were ready, on the Grand parade, to support these parties in case they had been molested ";

and at p. 179 he writes of

"the whirligig, a machine erected at the bottom of the Grand parade, for the punishment of scolding women, or others guilty of trifling misdemeanours." The whirligig had perpendicular bars a few inches apart. It was not a military punish- ment, that is to say, soldiers were not liable to it ; but no doubt their wives were. Ancell, in his 'Journal of the Siege,' makes no men- tion of the whirligig. W. S.

A WONDERFUL VIEW. In 'World Pictures/ by Dorothy Menpes, a pleasantly written and copiously illustrated book, there occurs the following passage (p. 103) :

" Presently we came up on to a flat terrace, and there, rolling far below us, lay distant Naples with its clustering white houses glistening in the sun, and the blue Adriatic beyond."

For the benefit of those who have never been to Naples I may point out that the Adriatic is ninety miles away at least, and on the other side of the formidable range of the Apennines. T. P. ARMSTRONG.

BULL RINGS IN DEVONSHIRE. At Cul- lompton there are two very wide open spaces, one at the higher and the other at the lower end of the town, known as the Higher and Lower Bull Rings. In the Higher Bull Ring the monthly cattle market is held. A fair is also held there on the first Wednesdays in May and November. Cullompton was one of the manors given to the Abbey of Buck- land bv Isabella de Fortibus. A further grant of market and fair was made to that fraternity in 1317. A. J. DAVY.

Torquay.

GRENADIER GUARDS. In the Gazette of 29 July, 1815, it is announced that the Regent lad approved of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards being styled the First or Grenadier