Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/446

 370 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9“B.VI.Nov.10,ltll). time chairman of the Assembly of Divines, was my grandmother’s father.” There are some grounds for thinking Charles Wesley was mistaken. It is probable that Johri Wesley was married between the vears 1656 and 1658. F. B. T. ° _ “ Cnarsruxs cnnsns.”-An editorial article in the Evemng Standard of 17 October thus begins :- . °‘The Earl of Carlisle and Lady Cecilia Roberts. are taking some interest in the suppression ot ‘ Christmas cheers,’ which have long been associated with drinking customs. The correspondent who sends this item of news should have told us what, ‘Christmas cheers’ are. The term is familiar as* household words in North Yorkshire, doubtless, but it conveys nothing to the Southerner against which reasonable persons could protest.” to what_a “Christmas cheer” precisely is, though its general meaning is sufficiently obvious. A, F. R, [See, under ‘ Cheer,’ ‘ English Dialect Dictionary] The use of the phrase to signify a raiile for Christ- mas provisions in a public-house seems confined to Yorkshire.]. HEALING S'roNs.-There is a stone in the chancel of the church of Christchurch, Mon- mouthshire, to which healing properties used to be attributed. The stone bears the follow- ing legend: “Hic jacent Johannes Colmer et Isabel a uxor ejus qui obierunt Anno Domini 1376 qu’um a’iabus p’picietur Deus. Amen.” In Archwologaa, vol. v. p. 73, Mr. Strange says that in l770_ no fewer than sixteen sick children were laid upon the stone. Arch- deacon Coxe, on in uiry in 1800, reports that the number had dlwindled to six or seven. Donovan, in his book on ‘South Wales and Monmouthshire] gives in vol. i. a picture of a man lying on t e stone as he saw him in 1803. T e act is also attested by Williams, Manby, and others. Can you kindly inform me w ence the Colmer stone derived these healing properties, or where 1 can procure information on the subject? I may add that the time of year when the stone had these properties is variously given. Donovan men- tions the eve of Trinity Thursda ; Strange, who is followed by Coxe and Williams, gives the eve of Ascension Day. Donovan derives his information from parishioners whom he questioned, and is presumably correct. EDWARD CARTER. ' “ J ocoun. ”-In old travels to the East this word is used of some article presented to native rulers. What does it mean 'l _ W. Caooxn. Langton House, Charlton Kings. - ' [Is this not late Latin jocale, a jewel 2] v The query can, therefore, be fairly put asg Qzglizs. “ HURTLING.” (9th S. vi. 48, I75.) THE movement and the apgarent thrusting and jostlinqgf the Aurora realis are quite fairl descri d by the epithet “hurtling.” The word; in its origin and earlier uses, does not necessarily imply noisy accompaniments; it indicates merely hurling, rushing, pushing, or butting as rams do. Essentia ly it is the same word as “ hurling.” The phrase “ hur- lande goteg," ag., equivalent to “ rushing streams,” occurs in the poem on the Deluge (circa 1360) given in ‘ Specimens of Early English# . 157 (ed. Morris and Skeat). At l. 59 of the Cleo atra section of Chaucer’s ‘ Legende of Good) Women ’ this occurs:- With grisly soune out goot-h the te gonne And herte y they hurtelen [pushfiil attones, And fro the toppe doune cometh the grete stones. Similarly clear and explicit is the use of the word in the ‘ Knightes Tale,’ l. 1758 :- He foyneth on his feet with his tronchoun, And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun. This is even as the butting of rams, and illustrates the transitive use of the word. It is similarly used by Lan land (‘ Richard the Redeles,’ iii. 27, ed. Skeet in the phrase “ to hurlle with haras,” whic means to “perse- cute with annoyance,” as the learned editor of the poem ex lains. Cp. “ He hurtlith him down ” in the Wycliiiite version of St. Mark ix. 17. For the idea of miscellaneous crowd- ing and pushing as denoted by the word, see Plutarchs ‘Life of Caesar] p. 82, ed. Skeat ; and compare the ‘ Faerie Queene’ passzm, especially these lines in book iv. canto iv. st. 29 :- Now cufhng close, now chaciug to and fro. Now hurtliug round advantage for to take. In these lines there is a fairliy adequate description, not only of the fig it between Cambell and Satyrane, which is Spenser’s object, but of a specially lively display of the “merry dancers, as we sometimes call th' Aurora Borealis in Scotland. ,|» Noise is easily sug ested by the appear ’ these electrical prodicts make, just as readil associated with the active pushii and thrusting of rams, duellists, and mobs. Noise, ag., is implied, although not necessarily expressed. in the version Gavin Dogglas gives of ‘/Eneid,’ iii. 676, “ Excitum ruit portus,” which he thus presents to the readers of his ‘ Third Buik of Eneados,’ cap. x. 1. 39 :- W lknit with the a huge peple we se Oftbicoplescum hitijidyand to the port.