Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/304

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. OCT. 8,

left wing because he is pleased to look at it, or that the dexter side of my shield shall become its sinister side when he confers on it a similar favour. He will not by similar contemplation change the right and left of a stage, or a battalion, or a battle array.

Yet in one respect I must admit that a concession has been made to the feeling that he seems to entertain. A custom, which has only lately become universal, deprives a pic- ture of its personality and confers it on a person standing opposite to it, with the result that a figure extending its right arm to its right and looking in the same direction is said to be " to left." While we must accept such anomalies when use has sanctioned them, there is no necessity for their multiplication ; and with regard to a river, although it has not an extended front to indicate its right and left, it has what the front does not

Eossess, an everlasting indication of direction, et us preserve its privileges.

KILLIGREW.

I think MR. MAYALL decides this question too hastily. If the point is settled, as he states, it must be by the present generation disregarding former use ; and consequently the antiquity claimed for the journalist's view is erroneous. As east is left or right according to one's stance, so there will always be two ways of looking at the river- bank question ; and custom, not logic, must decide the right one. One grain of fact is worth a bushel of argument. If the stream, and not the traveller, settles the question, will MR. MAYALL explain how it is that the cataract of the Nile furthest from the source and nearest the sea is called the first cata- ract 1 A bank is only a boundary of a river, but a fall is part and parcel of it. If, there- fore, the stream decides the bank, a fortiori it should decide the cataract. But it does not.

J. S. M. T.

ENTRANCE INTO CHURCHYARDS (9 th S. ii. 126, 177, 234)." Stiles of stone " are not confined to Cornwall, where they are frequent both in connexion with churchyards (Mylor, near Falmouth, as well as Tintagel and Advent) and between fields but are in use in York- shire, e. g., Wensleydale, and indeed in stone countries they may not infrequently be found. But my object in writing is to notice a new use of the very same protection although on a larger scale. The necessity for economic construction of light railways ren ders level crossings frequent, and the Light Kail way Commissioners, anxious to secure for the convenience of agricultural districts the rapid construction of these railways

ivhile sanctioning frequent level crossings, yet rid of the expense of a gatekeeper, in districts like Salisbury Plain, by requiring the construction of pits with (or, indeed, without) stone bars or beams across the rail- way and parallel with the road crossing the ailway on the level " very inconvenient," as VtR. PIERSON says, "for old people, and indeed ! or any one [including sheep and cattle] to walk over." Hie ET UBIQUE.

A CHURCH TRADITION (9 th S. i.428 ; ii.58, 150, 173, 256). Is it a tradition at all, and not a nere imagination ? Does any sane architect lold it as an article of archaeological faith now that such deviation was due to any such lantastic purpose of symbolism gone to xtremities? GEO. NEILSON.

Glasgow.

JEAN F. DE WALDECK (9 th S. ii. 209). The presumed centenarianism of Count de Wal- ieck was discussed in 'N. & Q.,' 4 th S. xii. 403 ; 5 th S. ii. 182, by no less an authority than our [ate lamented editor WILLIAM J. THOMS.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

SURREY ETYMOLOGIES (9 th S. ii. 181). The interesting article on Surrey names ending in -ey reminds me of a peculiar word used in Kibblesdale. A flat meadow by the river is called a " Holme "; but should there be two such on the same farm, then one is called an " Ees." The Ordnance surveyors are respon- sible for the spelling.

What is the meaning of Sandal Holme (some miles from Clitheroe on the river Hodder)? A farmhouse in the same neigh- bourhood is called " Ayxa."

FRED. G. ACKERLEY.

Keighley Rectory.

FRENCH VILLAGE NAMES (9 th S. ii. 208). But for MR. PLATT'S very courteous personal appeal, I should not have attempted a reply to this question, mainly for the reason that none can be given. It may, however, be said that just as the termination -ac, which pre- vails in the south of France, takes the forms -as, -at, -a, -e, -ey, -ay, -eu, -eux, -i, or -y in other districts, so the local terminations -oz and -as are subject to dialectic variations, becoming in sundry regions -e, -e, -es, -et, -eix, -ais, -s, -ay, and -ac. As for the signification of these terminations, I do not think that any general meaning can be assigned to them, as they seem to be from various sources, a few of which I have mentioned in my book. Thus Servas (Ain et Gard) is Silvacum (from the Latin Sylva), which became Servais,' and de- signated a " forest tract " (' Names and their