Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/379

 9 th S. II. Nov. 5, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

371

I supposed this was the last continental example I had to inflict, but my wife has referred me to one more case, that of the Russian princess Olga, wife of Oleg, Prince of Russia, murdered by the Drevelians in or about the year 945. Determined to revenge his death, Olga attacked the Drevelians and set siege to the capital Korostene. As the inhabitants held out she resorted to a strata- gem. Pretending friendliness, she sent am- bassadors to treat for amnesty, asking the townspeople, in fulfilment of their part of the bargain, to send her all their pigeons. This was done, but the crafty and treacherous queen now, I suppose, for services rendered later to the Church by her own and other folk's conversion, a saint in the calendar utilized the birds after the method of Hading, attaching lighted brands to their tails ana setting them free. Of course they returned into the town, which, being built of timber, was soon in flames. So, according to Russian legend, did the future St. Helen wreak her vengeance.

The ultimate Cirencester authority for the version referred to by MR. ED. MARSHALL and MR. MACRAY is Giraldus Cambrensis, who reports (' Topog. Hibernise,' iii. ch. 39) from " British history " that Gurmund alleged conqueror of Ireland passed from Africa into Ireland, and, having been brought over thence into Britain by the Saxons, besieged Cirencester, which he at last took and burnt " by the wicked stratagem of the sparrows "

-' qua tandem capta et passerum (ut ferunt) maleficio igne succensa." The highly con- densed reference "maleficio passerum" would certainly be mysterious unless interpreted in the light of the analogue elsewhere of crow, swallow, and pigeon. Miss THOYTS, mention- ing a kindred tradition of Silchester, reminds me that in the Roman station at Ardoch, when explored recently, there were found many little balls of clay which were believed to have been fireballs an institution by no means unfamiliar in the Roman wars of conquest. Winged legend has often enough feet of clay.

However regarded, the feathered flame- bearers at Cirencester and other places (modelled, like so many other mediaeval won- ders, on Scriptural incident, and in this case, of course, inspired by Samson's artistic and satis- fying treatment of the foxes' tails among the corn of the Philistines)have proved themselves long-distance travellers alike in time and space. Perhaps it would be equivocal to say that they are rather farfetched ; but, at any rate, one may safely opine that Dublin's claim to priority had best wait the decision of the critic of the comparative myth.

Since writing I have enjoyed an hour in the Hunterian Library with your too rare cor- respondent PROF. YOUNG, including a ramble over the ample pages of a very early edition of the 'Speculum Naturale' of Vincent of Beauvais, which was before the Reformation part of the library of the Abbey of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, as the MS. title-page undernoted* bears. In book xxxiii. ch. 96, entitled ' Tempora Henrici Sexti,' occurs the passage in question, which may be reckoned the "editio princeps" of at least some ver- sions of our tale. It is one not materially more wonderful than other incidents of natural history contained in the same noble tome :

" Eo tempore in pago Beluacensi inter Claruni Montem etCompenmum tante pluuie cum tonitruis et fulminibus et tempestatibua facte aunt quantas nulla memorat hominum antiquitas. Lapides enim ad quantitatem ovorum quadranguli mixtim cum pluuia de celo cadentes et arbores fructiferas et vineas et segetes penitus destruxerunt. Uille quoque in plerisque locis a fulminibus deatructe et combuste sunt. Corui etiam quamplures cum hujuscemodi tempestate visi aunt in acre de loco ad locum volantea cum rostris viuos carbones portantea ac domoa incendentes."

Leland (' Collectanea,' vol. iv. p. 37) has a reference to Giraldus, and to the name Civitas Passerum applied to Cirencester.

GEO. NEILSON.

Glasgow.

It will appear from Camden's observation, as well as from MR. MACRAY'S remark, that there may be room for another note upon this subject.

Geoffrey of Monmouth makes Gormund an African king who came over from Ireland and took Cirencester. But in A.D. 577 Ceawlin took Cirencester after a great battle at Depr- ham, as other authorities, in agreement with the ' A.-S. Chronicle,' state. Geoffrey of Mon- mouth's history ends before A.D. 879, at which date the 'A.-S. Chronicle,' in common with other histories, makes Guthorn-vEthelstan, who had been baptized the year before, to have come from Chippenham to Cirencester, and to have " sat there " for a year, which means a departure out of Wessex into Mercia. So Asser observes in his 'Life of King Alfred ': ___

' "SPECULUM NATURALE VINCENTII BELUACENSIS. Liber hicce rariaaimua utilisaimuaque Speculum mundi dictua cum pluribua aliia servatua est ab exitio e monasterio de Ramsey diasolutia domibua religiosia aub tune temporis rege Henrico ejua riomi- nis Octavo : opus autem fuit Vincentii Beluacensis Burgundi illuatria theologi de quo plura legas licet in folio ducenteaimo quartodecimo libri cronicorum mundi qui liber et ipae ibidem una cum hoc Speculo Mundi fuit conservatus."