Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/398

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [* s. IL NOV. 12,

Grifonnet d'Autefuelle o le grenon melle.*

le riche due Grifon, Gel d'Autefoille o le flori grenon.f Et li autres, dus Naimes, o le giiornon flori.J Je sui hon Karlemaine o le flori guernon. To revert to my subject, it is more reasonable to assume that the scribe omitted "cogno- men to" from the Latin document either by accident or, deeming repetition unnecessary, by intention.

" As gernuns " and " oht [i. e., ot] les ger- nuns," then, mean "with the moustaches." But the rendering " with the whiskers " is common to Collins (' Peerage,' ed. Brydges, ii. 221), Burke ('Peerage,' art. 'Northumber- land '), De Fonblanque (' House of Percy,' i. 12), the Duchess of Cleveland (' Battle Abbey Roll,' ii. 375), and Miss Yonge, who in her glossary ('Christian Names,' second edition, p. xxiii) has "with wiskers" (sic). The meaning of grenon (of which gernon and guernon were dialect spellings) is obvious in the very earliest example (' Chanson de Roland,' ed. Michel, 11. 214-6) :

Li emperere en tint sun chef enbrunc, Si duist sa barbe, afaitad sun gernun, Ne ben ne mal ne respunt sun nevuld.

Charlemagne is in a reflective mood ; he sits, therefore, with his head depressed, toying with his beard and shaping his moustache, without making any reply to his nephew Roland's proposal a touch of nature that makes us feel at home with the trouvere. The meaning is also strikingly illustrated in Wace's pre- sentation of the well-known story of Harold's spies in William's camp, who returning to Harold declared that all the Norman soldiers seemed to be priests, "eo quod," as the monkish chroniclers tell us, "faciem totam cum utroque labio rasam haberent " (shaving among the English being confined to the priests), or, as Wace phrases it in the ' Roman de Rou ' (ed. Pluquet, 1. 12242) : Kar tuit erent tonduz e rez, Ne lor esteit guernon remez ;

and Fabyan (' Chronicle,' ed. Ellis, p. 235) : " For they had theyr ouer lyppes and chekes shauen ; and the Englysshemen, at those dayes, vsed the heer of theyr ouer lyppes shadde [i. e., parted] and not shauen."

So much for the word in the singular. As to the plural, Pluquet, in his ' Essai Historique sur Bayeux' (1829, p. 307), gives as a current Norman " quolibet :

Je n'ai peur ni de ses noma Ni de ses guernons,


 * 'Fierabras,'4406.

t 'Gaydon'1604.

' Gui de Bourgogne,' 2842.

Ibid., 1900.

being careful to gloss guernons as moustaches for the information of the ordinary French reader. Whiskers, in the present meaning of the word, were unknown to the Normans, and seem not to have been known in England until the last century. Bailey defines whisker as "a tuft of hair on the upper lip of a man," and mustaches as " whiskers. The appellation " William with the Whiskers " evidently owes its long existence to Collins, to whom " whiskers " and " moustaches " were syno- nymous. Occasionally grenon signifies the whole beard, but this is a contextual meaning. The grenons were worn long, as we learn from the Provencal 'Roman de Jaufre' (fol. 16) :

E 'Is grenons loncs sobre la boca. In 'Gui de Bourgogne' (1. 1841) King Huidelon Par desus les oreilles ot [t. e., cut] les grenons treciez ; and (1. 2889) Duke " Naimes o le guernon flori " (see 1. 2842) likewise

Par deseur les oreillea ot les guernons tornez.

There may be exaggeration in this picture of moustaches trained over the ear, but evi- dently these appendages were objects of care to those who cultivated them, and William de Percy's acquisition of his sobriquet may be

Eartly explained by this fact, as well as by is departure from the Norman fashion of shaving.

A few words may now be said about the etymo- logy. The L. Lat. granus,* a tuft of hair, was formed from a Gothic word (Isidorus, ' Orig.,' lib. xix. cap. 23), and on this are based the O.Span. grenon, beard, and grinon,\ Prov. greno, O.Fr. grenon, all meaning " moustache." Cognate with the Gothic word are O.H.G. grana, A.-S. granu, Icel. gron (Cleasby), all likewise meaning "moustache." Celtic affinity appears in the Gaelic greann, " hair standing on end, beard " (Armstrong), Irish greann, " uncombed hair, a beard " (O'Reilly).

Cognomens derived from the beard have been borne by several historical personages. Contemporary with William de Percy was a family who had the appellation of Gernon, a branch of the barons of Montfichet or Mont- fiquet in the arrondissement of Bayeux ; and as early as 1050 Robert, surnamed Guernon, baron of Montfiquet, witnesses a charter of Duke William of Normandy. The surnames and territorial names are perpetuated in

Gran<me is defined in old Latin-English dic- tionaries as a cat's whiskers ; hence Topsefl's use of " granons " in his ' Foure-footed Beasts ' (p. 104, see Halliwell).

f "Onde juraron todos sobre los BUS grinones ('Poeraa de Alexandra,' cop. 1052). So Charlemagne swears by his grenon ('Chanson de Roland,' 219; ' Fierabras,' 276).