Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/25

 9* s. V.JAN. e, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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supposed to be the original home of the " Gotham " stories 1 H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Austwick, near Settle, is the " Gotham " of Yorkshire, and Austwick people are usually spoken of as " Austwick carles." The walling- in of the cuckoo is attributed to the folk of many sequestered places, but there is in the first series of William Dobson's 'Kambles by the Kibble ' (Preston, 1864) a diverting folk- tale to the disadvantage of the "carles," which may be new to your readers. At p. 40 Mr. Dobson writes :

"A common joke against Austwick people is to cry ' Whittle to the tree.' When knives and forks were somewhat more of luxuries than at present, and their use had not penetrated into... the northern dales, it is said that a 'whittle '...was the only knife in Austwick. It was common to the township, and when those who used it had done with it they had to put it in a tree in the centre of the village. If it was not there when wanted, the person requiring it went through the village calling out, 'Whittle to th' tree ; Whittle to th' tree.' The whittle at last was lost. It was taken once by a numerous party of workmen to the adjoining moor (Swarth- moor) to cut up their pies for dinner. To save them the trouble of taking it back, they discussed where they should put it, so that they could find it when they came next day. Looking round for some object to know the locality by, for then, as now, trees were a rarity on Swarthmoor, it was at last agreed to stick it in the ground under a very black cloud, which was the most remarkable object in sight. This was done. When next they went to Strath- moor it was a fine day, the cloud had moved off, and the whittle could not be found."

Q. V.

"DozziL" OR ^'DossiL" (9 th S. iv. 479). My father, a Lincolnshire man, remembers these objects, which he calls " dossels," being in use over forty years ago. They were then, he tells me, very common, being made of wood or tin, in the shape of a "cockerel," and usually served as vanes. It was also customary, I am informed, to fix at each corner of corn-stacks, in an upright position, a bunch of corn "heads." These also were called "dossels."

I remember seeing a "dozzil" at Clee- thorpes last summer, not on a stack, but fixed to the top of a long pole standing in the back -yard of a house outside the town. It was in the shape of a cock and made of tin, serving as a vane. H. ANDREWS.

Gainsborough.

Figures such as are mentioned in this query, but very well made of straw, are more numerous this winter than I have seen them before, on stacks around Mill Hill, in the district between Edgware and High Barnet. They are mostly imaginary fowl, particularly strong about the tail, elevated on sticks

about two feet above the ends of the stacks, and free to move in the wind. I have taken them to indicate that a new stack-thatcher of artistic tastes has been at work in the district recently ; and it may be said for him that his thatching is very good work. H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Not many years ago I saw some beautiful stack finials" at Bishopthorpe, near York. Cocks I think they were, and I believe they (or their descendants) are still presiding over the ricks in the yard I have in mind. I dare say Miss FLORENCE PEACOCK knows what Mr. Baring-Gould says about these things in 4 Strange Survivals.' ST. SWITHIN.

Is not this word like " Dosset " for Dorset, or "fossick" for fore-seek, which would appear to have been the original meaning of the latter a corruption of "dorsal," some- thing placed on the back of an object, such as a corn-stack, to protect it from the ravages of the birds in short a scarecrow, or rather a bird-scare] I remember being told of an old gentleman who was accustomed to suspend a tin semblance of a cat from his fruit trees, presumably to scare the birds away. By the way, the dialect word "fossick" still means also to "fore-seek" or "prospect" for gold in new ground, as well as in aban- doned workings.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

"MiDDLiN'"(9 th S. iv. 416, 495). C. C. B. is certainly correct in saying that this word is not a peculiarity of the Manx dialect. Nor was its use in England confined to the North. "Pretty middlin'" was formerly in West Surrey and in Hampshire probably the usual answer to an inquiry after the health of a countryman. R. L.

JAMES Cox's MUSEUM (9 th S. ii. 7, 78 ; iv. 275, 337). "The great room in Spring Gardens," otherwise Wigley's Auction Room, stood, according to F. G. S., at the south- west corner of Spring Gardens, and on one's right hand on passing from that street (which was never a thoroughfare for vehicles) into the park. The Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain exhibited here until 1780. Wigley's Auction Room was burned down 2 April, 1785, during a representation of Mount Vesuvius at Cox's Museum. F. G. S. elsewhere states that Wigley's room occupied the site of the London County Council offices; but in this he is mistaken, the Council's offices occupying the site of Berkeley House, which was purchased from the Government by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1862, and the present building