Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/342

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. v. APRIL 28, im

record in question, is represented in th British Museum only by an odd part unavail ing for the present purpose,* I recpnstruc the passage from the two works (to wit, Twa Ching-Shih's 'Yu-Yang-Tsah-Tsu,' ninth cen tury A.D., Japanese reprint, 1697, lib. xiii fol. 6 a, and the * Yuen-kien-lui-han,' 1701 clxxviii. 19 and cccxxi. 5) where it is variedly quoted with different omissions :
 * Han-Wei-Tsung-shu ' (1592), comprising th

" In the time of the dynasty of Yuen-Wei [sixtl century A.D.] it happened that a monk namec Datta, while opening old graves to gather earthei wares, found a man buried, but alive, and brough him to the presence of the Dowager-Empress (namer Hu-Tai-hau), then staying in Hwa-Lin Palace wit! the Emperor Ming-Ti (whose accession took place in 516 A.D.). The empress, considering the matte very extraordinary, ordered a courtier, Chii Kih, tc question the man about his name, how long he had been lying dead, and what he used to eat and drink during the time. His answer was, 'I am namec Tsui Han, with a cognomen Tsze-Hung, and am a

native of Ngan-Ping, in Poh-Ling I died in my

fifteenth year, and am now twenty-seven years 01 age. For these twelve years I was lying down under ground in a condition of a drunken man, and took no food. Sometimes, however, I went out wander ing, but then, as if in a dream, I could not discern what food and drink I took even when I did so. Subsequently the empress dispatched a secretary, Chang Tsiuen, to the man's asserted home, and found his parents there. He was sent back home, where, seeing his mother handling a branch of a peach-tree, he entreated her to throw it away instantly, f At length he renounced the world, and coming to Lo-Yang, then the capital of the empire, stayed in Bodhi Church, where he was endowed by the King of Jii-Nan with a suit of yellow eccle- siastical costume. One day, in the Pau-Lo quarter of that city, abounding with undertakers, he saw a man from his village purchasing a coffin, and said, * Make the coffin of cypress wood, but never line it with mulberry wood ; for, while I was staying so long underground, I once saw a troop of demon-soldiers about to carry away a (dead) man. One of them tried to excuse the man on the ground that his coffin was of cypress wood, but the captain declared him inexcusable, because, though the coffin was of cypress, it was lined with mulberry wood.' In consequence of this narration cypress wood was very much raised in its price throughout the capital. He was ever in fear of the sun, on which he could never look, as well as of water, fire, and weapons of all descriptions. His habit was to run on the roads, only stopping when much fatigued. He could not walk slowly, all his contemporaries

opining him a ghost.'

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA.


 * MS. 16,338, Plut., ccxviii. F.

t From very early times the Chinese esteemed the peach-tree as holy and to have the power of sup- pressing all spiritual beings (* Yuen-kien-lui-han,' cccxcix. 10, seqq.). In Japanese mythology the peach is made- instrumental for driving away eight thunder-gods when the first father of the nation, Izanagi-no-Mikoto, was pursued by them in his flight from the nether world (' Nihongi,' book i.).

SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAITS. Those who are interested in this subject may be glad of a reference to the sale catalogue of the Earl of Oxford's collection, sold in March, 1741/2. No. 35 in the first day's sale is a three- quarters (i.e., 30 in. by 25 in.) of Shakespeare by an unknown artist. It was purchased for two guineas by one " Barrett."

W. EGBERTS.

HOT CROSS BUNS. On the last Good Friday of the nineteenth century may I make note of the tampering with the "hot cross bun " which, where practised, despoils this thoroughly English cate of its characteristic qualities ? Fifty years ago the traditional bun was a spiced bun the spice recalling to the few who cared about its religious suggestiveness the embalming of our Lord marked with a slight cross, and not with deep indentures, made, for convenience of division, after the manner of the scone, a modern immigrant southward.* Being a Lenten bun, it was innocent of currants ; indeed, currants in a "cross bun" would have been as great a sur- prise to me as, had I been a Hebrew boy, would have been their appearance in a Pass- over cake. Somewhere between this and the forties bakers (London bakers, at least) began to supply the currant variety ; and gradually spice came to be regarded as a non-essential ingredient that spice which gave a peculiar, semi-sacred savour to the carefully preserved bun the gratings of which were held to be a " sov'ran cure " for internal aches. The vul- garized cross bun differs so little from the 3very-day article that it is not unfrequently Duttered, a la tea-cake ! I do not know whether the decadence is widespread, but ' cross bun " is, in Greater London, fast supplanting the welcomed friend of ourchild- lood that brought with it a Good Friday itmospherelam well assured. Plum-puddings and mince-pies retain their integrity in spite of countless varieties of recipe, but the "cross )un," if it loses its ecclesiastical character, >ecomes meaningless. It may be that my plea will be regarded by most people as un- worthy of consideration. Those who think >therwise have the restoration of the tradi- ional " hot cross bun " in their own hands :
 * hat the currant, spiceless bun which is no


 * I am not unaware that the hot cross bun may be

lassed among other "funeral baked meats," and

hat the quartering may have suggested the sacred

ymbol, itself pre-Christian. In the Museo Bor-

onico at Rome is an ancient sculpture represent-

ng the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand,

n which the five barley loaves are each marked

ith a cross. It would be interesting to know

hether the marking is distinctly symbolical.