Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/447

 9">8. IV. Dzc. 9,W] 483 NOTES AND QUERIES. works similar to our old English writers on the above subject. Parkinson in his ' Herbal,' 1640, gives a long account respecting the various opinions on this subject. He says: — " I know that divers learned men are of opinion that Cinamon, Canell, and Cassia are three distinct things differing each from other, and that we have no true Cinamon brought to us (which controversie is too long to insert in this i>laee) but that which we usually have, is as they call it Cauell or Cassia, and not Cinamon." He also gives quotations from ancient writers. Salmon's ' English Physician,' 1693, says: " This our Cinnamon was the Cassia Lignea of the ancients." Bacon (Lord Verulam) in his 'Sylva Sylvarum,' 1651, p. 128, remarks: "Quaere, how far Cassia which is now the substitute of Cinnamon doth participate of these things." JOHN RADCLIFFE. "THE ASS BEARING BOOKS " (9th S. IV. 397). —It is unlikely that the hieratic writings of the ancient Hebrews should ever have been carried by a beast listed as "un- clean." The fact is. this witticjsm of our Hebrew literati—for it is nothing more- arose in an age when libraries were the exclusive luxury of the rich and were rarely accessible to poor Palestinian students ; the cfmmour was therefore exalted to the status of perambulating librarian. It was a com- mon sight in those early times to witness in the ass-flesh the original of the frontispiece mentioned by MR. HOOPER of "the ass chew- ing thistles, laden not with the books of Pope's mordant satire." but with "Shasses" (volumes of the Talmud) or Mishnahvoth, &c., for the use of village scholars and schools. Now in more recent times we have appro- priated colloquially the word chommar to designate a . dunce. " O you chommar !" " You are a chommar !" " What a chommar- kop !" (blockhead) are current phrases in many Hebrew households. M. L. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney. I find I have repeated myself here. See 6th S. iii. 330 ; iv. 217. Aristophanes, Saadi, and the Koran use the simile, but perhaps the Rabbis used it first. JAMES HOOPER. ST. JORDAN (9th S. iii. 207, 349, 414, 495; iv. 76).—Jordan seems sometimes, though a place-name and a surname, to have been used as a Christian name. The derivation of the name of the river seems to be from 11J, jarad, to descend. The heiress of Jordan de Maccles field married Moreton of Little Moreton, co. Chester, and brought estates into that family, one of the most ancient in the county, and the name is still preserved in a street of Macclesfield called Jordangate. Many years ago, on the hatchment, in Astbury Church, of Sir William Moreton, Recorder of London, who died in 1763, were the arms of Moreton quartering l)e Macclesfield: 1 and 4. Argent, a greyhound courant sable, collarea argent, for Moreton; 2 and 3, Gules, a Greek cross engrailed ermine, for De Mac- clesfield. The hatchment of Sir William Moreton, the last male of the ancient line of Moreton of Little Moreton, has long since departed, and probably been broken up; surmounting the arms was the "helmet affrontee " of knighthood. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. In the collection of mediaeval carvings in the museum at Berlin there is an octagonal relic-box of ivory, said to be Rhenish work of the eleventh century. On each panel of the sides there are figures represent- ing S. Mathias, S. Matheus, S. lorandes, S. Petrus, S. Paulus, S. Andreas, S. lacobus, S. Philippus. As all the other saints in this list are apostles, the catalogue of the museum is probably right—and this must have oc- curred to most spectators—in taking lorandes as a miscut lonannes. On the lid of the box, numbered 466 in the catalogue, there are the emblems of the four Evangelists with abbreviated names, the eagle bearing loh'. St. Matthew is named both as Apostle and as Evangelist. It is, therefore, not unreason- able to suppose that S. lorandes on the side refers to loh' upon the lid. But if one mediaeval artist put lorandes for lohannes, why may not the name have assumed the form lordanes in the hands of another? This is but guesswork. But sometimes guessing ends in knowing and yessing ; and one must stumble till the truth be found. PALAMEDES. WELSH MANUSCRIPT PEDIGREES (9th S. iv. 412).—Peter Ellis was of Iscoyd, or rather, I think, of Erbistock; Lloyd, of Bercham. Both these families, therefore, were near neighbours. Valuable Welsh pedigrees are in the possession of many of the old Welsh families, and are well known among them. I suppose MR. YEATMAN does not know Maelor Saesneg. E. E. THOYTS. THE SURNAME JEKYLL (9th S. iv. 415).—Will MR. STEVENSON kindly illustrate his position more fully from modern Celtic? Turning, on his initiative, to the Welsh vocabulary, 1 find lutldeit, a Jew : are we to take it that this widespread ethnic term is really connected with the Sanskrit ywlh, to tight? This ac- complished gentleman quotes iudk, " battle "