Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/259

 9th s. in. APRIL 1,99.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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some parts. See wig in Halliwell; wigge in the ' Promptorium,' with Way's note; wig in Jamieson, in the ' Holderness Glossary,' in the glossary to the ' Tour to the Caves,' and in many others. The etymology has been discussed sufficiently; and perhaps few things are more comic than the discovery by Wachter that it is derived from the Phrygian word bek, bread, which Herodotus rescued from oblivion as the result of a famous experiment. And it is further in- teresting to learn that the same Phrygian word is the origin of the English verb to bake; from which it follows that bake and wig are both playful variations of the same word, and are both of Phrygian origin.

There can, however, be little doubt that wig is nothing but the Northern form of the common word ivedge, and was applied to a three-cornered cake in the first instance, though it now frequently means a roll or a bun, and, indeed, accepted these additional senses as early as in the fifteenth century. The derivation is strikingly exemplified by the O.H.G. weggi, wekki, meaning (l)a wedge; (2) a wedge-shaped piece of stuff, a gore or

S asset; (3) a wedge-shaped cake. In mod. . both the former senses have died out, leaving only week or wecke, " a sort of bread, a roll," as being still in use. The same happened in Dutch; Hexharn has only " Wegge, a kind of bun or cake." Any one wh<> will take the trouble to consult Kluge's dictionary will find that that famous ety- mologist (who seems, on this occasion, to be culpably ignorant of Phrygian) derives the G. week from the O.H.G. wecki without hesi- tation, and proceeds to point out that the Icel. form for "wedge" is veggr. Our Northern E. wig is, of course, of Scandinavian origin, the form ivedge being Southern. The i (for e) occurs in Swed. vigg, a wedge. Danish has vcegge, a wedge; but the Dan. dialects have also vcekke, a roll of bread, borrowed, as the form shows, from Low German.

Let me add that I explained this fifteen years ago. See my * Etymological Dictionary,' s.v. 'Wedge,' p. 701, col. 1.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

THE "DECADE" (9 th S. iii. 208). Many con- fusing and conflicting collations of the Re- publican and Gregorian calendars are extant, and it was not until 1885 that, through the industry of Col. Phipps, trustworthy tables for the comparison of each year became avail- able. Owing to previous discrepancies, the difference of a day may be sometimes met with even in French historical works of im- portance. The days of the Decade (which

were christened merely by their order of numerical succession " Quintidi," " Sextidi," &c.) must not be treated as identical with the six intercalary days known as Sansculot- tides, which were distinguished by the names of Genie, Travail, Vertu or Belles Actions, Recompenses, Opinion, and Revolution or Republique.

Editions of Bourrienne's 'Life of Napo- leon,' edited by Col. Phipps, issued in Eng- land or in the United States subsequently to 1884, contain these tables at the end of one of the earlier volumes; and an adaptation of the same tables will, I think, be found in the last issue (only) of the English translation of Thiers's ' French Revolution.' R. B.

Upton.

[See 6 th S. viii. 471.]

See ' The Chronology of History,' by Sir H. Nicolas, 1833, p. 172. The months were divided into three parts, of ten days each. The days were called Primi-di (first day), Duo-di, Tri-di, Quarti-di, Quinti-di, Sexti-di, Septi-di, Octi-di, Noni-di, the last being the ninth of the month. The tenth was called Deca-di 1; the eleventh, Primi-di, and so on; the twentieth, Deca-di 2; the thirtieth, Deca-di 3. To distinguish exactly the first from the eleventh, and the like, the first day was called "Primi-di before Deca-di," which would (I suppose) be, in French, Primi-di avant Deca-di; the eleventh was "Primi-di after Deca-di 1 "; the twenty-first was " Pri- mi-di after Deca-di 2 "; and so of the rest. The scheme is extremely clumsy in practice, but beautiful in theory. I hope it now possesses only an antiquarian interest. It was seldom really used.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

The names given to the various days of the decade at the time of the French Revolution are singularly uninteresting, and this is per- haps why the months are remembered, but the days of the decade forgotten. The follow- ing little account of a love affair, written by a French poet, contains them all : On voit en France Agla6 primidi; On en devient fou duodi; On le lui dit

Tridi:

Quartidi, vite on s'empresse De demander son adresse,

Qu'on salt quintidi;

Tendre billet est reniis sextidi;

Rendez-vous septidi;

On triomphe octidi;

On s'en vante le nonidi;

Puis on part decadi.

T. P. ARMSTRONG.

This was the week of ten days substituted, by the French revolutionists, for the ordinary