Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/261

 9. s. V.MARCH si, istoo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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in honour of the sun, a kind of agnalia, whilst others say that it derives its cognomen from Ignis Agnse. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

THE WOODEN HORSE (9 th S. v. 82). This was probably a milder form of the " Spanish donkey." If so, it requires no great stretch of imagination to connect it with Alva and the Council of Blood, in Flanders. From this cockpit of Europe it would certainly spread northwards. Gustavus Adolphus brought it thence, with one or two more strictly national inventions the Swedish drink, for instance. Scott mentions the wooden horse in con- nexion with the great Gustavus. Thus the immortal Dalgetty :

" Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for parade ; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had an hour's ride on the wooden mare for his pains." 4 Legend of Montrose,' chap. xiv.

The many soldiers of fortune in the Thirty Years' War would serve to spread the use of this machine. Dugald Dalgetty has been identified as Monro, in whose memoirs there may be some mention of the punishment. In the Nuremberg Exhibition of Tortures, which toured this country some years ago, there was a "Spanish donkey," with the history attached. It was a foul thing. The back was merely the thin end of a long wedge. The weights were of stone, with iron rings ; and the end worse than death. The " wooden mare " would probably have a round back, but would be sufficiently severe, no doubt. GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

The following additional particulars of this mode of obsolete military punishment, both in this country and on the Continent, may be of interest to your readers. At Wells, in 1649, a woman was ordered to be set in the stocks

"neer the place wher the Woodden Horse is to stand, w'ch is apoynted to bee at the upp r end of

the Market duringe the tyme that a soldier shall

ride the Woodden Horse." 'N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. v. 292. In R. Holme's 'Academv of Armory' (1688) there is an illustration or the machine, with this description :

" The Riding of this Horse, whose Back is only two Boards set together like the Ridge of a House, is a kind of Punishment used among Soldiers, and Men under Martial Laws ; the sharpness of which ridge doth so gall and cut the Riders Thighs and Breech, that he shall be scarce able to go or stand for a certain time after ; especially if his Offence require his Punishment to have Spurs at his heels (that is a Musket or two tied at each Legg), and his Hands bound behind him." Bk. iii. chap. vii. p. 310.

' Berlin, Feb. 5. A Drummer, who was mounted

upon the Wooden Horse here, to punish him for a certain Fault, which he had committed, fell off to the Ground dead with the Cold." Farley's Exeter Journal, 18 Feb., 1726.

In his 'Autobiography' James Neild relates having visited in 1779 the prison at Ghent called La Maison de Force, and having seen there " a large wooden horse, to ride by way of punishment" (Gent. Mag., April, 1817, p. 308). T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D.

Salterton, Devon.

In the first series of 'Carmina Quadra- gesimalia,' edited by Charles Este, published at Oxford in 1723, is the following poem on this military punishment, showing it to have been in use at that date, the reign of George I. :

An Ars sit perfectior Natura ? Neg r. Haud procul hincpedibus stat machina lignea rectis,

Quam vocat e solito munere vulgus equum : Nee minus e forma nomen datur : ardua cervix,

Argutum caput est, aure et utraque micat : Sed desunt costee, in cuneum sed tergora surgunt ;

Ah ! prseacuta riimis, nee satis apta premi. Hunc tristes scandunt, onerantque inamabile dorsum,

Maia nate, dolos qui didicere tuos. Huic hserent. Ormonde, tibi quicunque salutem,

Cum mentem abstulerint pocula plena, vovent. Saucius artifici miles mala multa precatur,

Tarn dirum primus qui fabricavit equum. Debueras vel equo, faber improbe, fessile dorsum,

Vel quernas equiti suppeditasse nates. Hoc equitare vocas ? quam mallem vel pedes ire,

Vel, Proctere, tuo serpere tutus equo. P. 115.

Many of the poems in both series of the 1 Carmina Quadragesimalia ' are interesting as they mark the manners and customs of the times. They were written by students of Christ Church on determining, i. e., in the Lent succeeding the bachelor's degree, and recited in the School of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. In the above elegiac poem the structure of the wooden horse is described, which was used as a punishment for stealing, and for drinking treasonable toasts. James Butler, Duke of Ormond, who had been Com- mander - in - Chief, was banished for high treason in 1715, and remained in exile until his death in 1745. A note says upon the name Procure, "Procter Equos quam pessimos locare solitus." JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge,

I have seen a seventeenth-century Latin treatise 'De Equuleo,' with many illustrations.

W. C. B.

"TANKAGE" (9 th S. v. 28). MR. HEDQER WALLACE'S guess is wrong. "Tankage," in the quotation, means the refuse left after wood ashes have been leached, or that de- posited in tanks where fat has been rendered. It is used as a fertilizer. M. C. L.