Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/344

 336

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. OCT. 22, '

it may be well to record that at Northorpe, a village about three miles from here, a black dog was said to haunt the churchyard, which went by the well-known name of the Bargest. I have conversed with several trustworthy persons who said that they had seen this creature. At another village, somewhat further off, there was an old lame man, who was reputed to be a wizard, and who, it was affirmed, was in the habit of turning himself into a dog and biting cattle. I know a man still alive who is quite sure that he has seen old - - in a canine form, but never wit- nessed the transformation. A neighbour of his is reported to have been more fortunate. He saw, on one occasion, a black dog biting his cattle, and, running to the rescue, beheld it turn into the old wizard. I have heard this story from more than one person to whom he has narrated it. Miss Louisa Stuart Costello, in her ' Summer amongst the Bocages and the Vines ' (i. 302-7), gives a translation of a \yild poem, said to be ancient, entitled ' Heloise et Abaylard, Legend of Cornouaille,' in which the heroine is made to say :

' ' I can change my form into that of a black bitch or a raven when I will, or into the wild fire of the marsh or into a dragon.

EDWARD PEACOCK. Dunstan House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.

This expression, in a metaphorical sense for a person in a bad temper, used to be common enough when I was a boy, " He has got the black dog on his back." As an illustration, allow me to quote a passage from the ' Anti- quary,' the probable date of which is 1794 :

'"I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again,' said Miss Old buck.

" ' Black dog ! black devil ! he's more absurd than womankind. What say you, Lovel? Why, the lad's gone too.'

" ' He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things ; but I don't think you observed him.'" Chap. vi.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

For much curious information as to the demonic character of the dog both in ancient and modern times see Mr. Con way's ' De- monology and Devil - Lore.' Mr. Conway appears to attribute the fact that in Goethe's ' Faust ' Mephistopheles is made to assume the form of a dog to the poet's antipathy to this animal (see vol. i. p. 135), but the trans- formation is really a feature of the old legend. Bayard Taylor quotes from Manlius a saying of Melanctnon's to the effect that Faust had a dog with him, which was the devil. In the old puppet play of 'Doctor Faust '(translated by Heddervvick) there is no dog, but Mephis-

tophilis (sic) appears in the guise of a hunts- man. The name of Faust's dog was Praestigiar

C. C. B.

WILLIAM PRYNN (9 th S. ii. 288). The Prynns of Allington, Gloucester, and the Prynns of Swainswick, Somerset, derived from two brothers, Richard and Edward Prynn, both merchants and Sheriffs of Bristol in the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury. The Allington line failed in the third generation with Sir Gilbert Prynn, who died 20 June, 1627, leaving issue two daughters, who married into the houses of Seymour and Hastings. William Prynn himself appears to have been the last direct male heir of the Swainswick line, unless his brother Thomas left descendants. This Thomas matriculated at Oriel College in 1618, aged thirteen, and took his B.A. in 1623. He might have been the rector of Westbourne, Sussex, of that name, in 1646. See Foster's ' Alumni Oxori.' and pedigrees of Prynn in Weaver's ' Visita- tions of Somerset ' and Marshall's ' Visita- tion of Wilts ' ; also ' Documents relating to William Prynn ' (Camden Soc., vol. for 1877).

W. D. PINK.

"Ho AST": "WHOOST" (9 th S. i. 247, 337, 436). The word is employed by the popular modern novelist " Ian Maclaren " :

" This sustained defiance of the elements pro- voked occasional judgments in the shape of a 'hoast' [coughj, &c." 'Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,' p. 230.

"Donald was 'feeling sober' [ill], and re- commended the bottle which cured him of 'a hoast' in the fifties." Ibid., p. 63.

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. Hastings.

OLD ENGLISH LETTERS (9 th S. i. 169, 211, 258, 313 ; ii. 275).- I cannot answer B.'s ques- tion at the last reference briefly. It is part of a long story. It must suffice to say that I have MS. evidence, of the thirteenth cen- tury, for the fact that the name of the M.E. letter which is now frequently misrepresented by 2 (as in capercailzie) was pronounced by the scribe of the MS. like the modern English yea, which I should write, with phonetic symbols, as yei. In phonetics ei represents the sound of the ei in veil.*

The full explanation of this matter would occupy several pages of ' N. & Q.' in order to be convincing, owing to the unfamiliarity of most readers with the subject of A.-S. and M.E. pronunciation, and to the difficulty of expressing sounds by a symbolism that can- not be mistaken. But I may refer to rny

yee, without the glide at the end.
 * More strictly, the letter-name should be written