Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/522

 434 NOTES AND QUERIES. P» s. vi. DEC. i, 1900. Wesley, was their son. He married, as is well known, Susanna, daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley by his second wife, who was a daughter of John White, of Pembroke- shire, M.r. for Southwark and a member of the Westminster Assembly. Mrs. Clarke, from whose life of Susanna Wesley I borrow these particulars of the Wesleys' maternal ancestry, quotes the quaint inscription on the tablet to this John White's memory in the Temple Church:— Here lyeth a John, a burning, shining light, Whose name, life, actions all were white. C. C. B. CRACK-NUT SUNDAY (9th S. vi. 348).—'A Garland for the Year,' by John Timbs, F.S.A., contains the following paragraph :— " Within the memory of aged parishioners of Kingston-upon-Thames the congregation of the parish church were accustomed to crack nuta during Divine Service, on the Sunday next before the eve of St. Michael's Day. Young folks and old alike joined in the cracking; and the custom is thought to have had some connexion with the choosing of the corporation officers on Michaelmas Day, and of the annual feast attending it. Still, the oddity was not peculiar to Kingston ; for Goldsmith makes his Vicar of Wakefield say of his parishioners: ' They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true-love knots on Valentine morning, and pancakes at Shrovetide, showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas Eve.'" For further information on this subject, taken from a recent handbook to Kingston- on-Thames, see ' N. <fc Q.,' 5th S. viii. 346. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. The nut in mediaeval days was the emblem of fertility, and it was the custom to place a basketful in the nuptial chamber. They were scattered, too, at weddings, as we now scatter rice. They were also used for divination in love affairs at Hallowe'en (see Brand's ' Popular Antiquities,' ed. Hazlitt, vol. i. pp. 213-4). W. B. GERISH. Bishop's Stortford. NOTE ON A PASSAGE IN CHAUCER'S 'PRO- LOGUE ' (9th S. vi. 365).—The proposal to read hrteyelees for rtcchelees is out of the question. Anglo-Saxon forms were not used, unaltered, in the fourteenth century. Just as the A.-S. /icfrjel became h'ril, and A.-S. ncegel became nail, so did A.-S. hr&tjel become mil, a word which is now obsolete, but was once common. This word was explained by Nares, and occurs even in Johnson's dictionary; and I have explained it further in my 'Etymo- ogical Dictionary.' As to the date when hraer/el assumed its monosyllabic form we have the clearest evidence; for in the A.-S. 3ospels, John xiii. 4, we find : "he nam linen hraegel and begyrdo hyne"; and the latest VIS. (of the time of Stephen) has : " he nara inen rail and begyrte him." Hence the monosyllabic form rail was already in use 3efore A.D. 1200. The remark that hrasgelees nas "nearly the same sound as recchelees" is not even true of the A.-S. form, in which the </, being between two vowels, had the sound of the modern English ?/, as in saying. A proposal to ignore all pnonetic laws cannot be accepted. It is, perhaps, worth while to say that rails are usually described (see Nares) as being made of white linen, and used for towels, sheets, and night-dresses. WALTER W. SKEAT. '"SDEYNs"(9th S. vi. 347).—In Ben Jonson's comedy of 'Every Man in his Humour,' as given in R. Cumberland's "British Drama," this word is printed 'sdains. Downright, " a plain squire, makes use of it several times. Was it a rustic interjection coined out of disdain I B. D. MOSELEY. Burslem. Sdeiqn, v.a., Ital. sdegnare, used by Spenser and Milton for disdain :— They now, puft up with sdeignful Insolence, Despise the brood of blessed sapience. Spenser. Lifted up so high, I sdeigned subjection. Milton. ALFRED JOHN KING. 101, Sandmore Road, Clapham, S.W. Is this from disdain, spelt variously sdayn, ideir/n, sdein ? Cf. Spenser's ' F. Q.,' iii. Iv. 4 : " Rudely sdeigne a gentle hart's request." Or may it not rather be formed on the same principle as 'sdeath, which is a corruption of " God's death " ? And so 'sdei/ns would be God's favour or God's condescension, from "God's deign." REES KEENE. Gosforth, Cumberland. "TlIE CHAP AS MARRIED HANNAIl" (9th S. vi. 346).—This is common here, and in many other localities. It is a woman's saying, though men occasionally use it. When some- thing has been successfully done, comes out, " There! That's the chap as married Hannah." It would certainly bo interesting to discover its origin. TUGS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop. EARLY MENTION OF RIFLING (9th S. v. 516 ; vi. 292).—In all probability the weapon used by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, in his assassi- nation of the Regent Murray at Linlithgow, 23 January, 1569/70, was the caliver, a short gun. A gun of this description is represented