Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/263

 9*8. VII. MARCH 30, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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(Boulogne mouth), formerly in St. Martin le-Grand. Analogy, "Bull and Gate" (a Kentish Town)=Boulogne Gate, the entranc into the Continent through France ; pr bable derivation temp. Henry VIII.'s cam paign in Picardy.

His breeches were of rugged woollen

That had been at the siege of Bullen (Boulogne

Butler, ' Hudibras.'

GNOMON. Temple.

The term " Last " is probably a corruptio of leash, a leather thong or rope which woulc be attached to the ring in the nose of th bull for the purpose of leading it.

JOHN RADCLIPFE.

SHAKESPEARE THE "KNAYISH" (9 th S. vi 162). Perhaps "knavish" is here used in playful sense, as we now often use " roguish. Bos well says that when Davies introducec him to Dr. Johnson he said " roguishly " tha Mr. Bos well came from Scotland. Bos we] does not mean that Davies was a rogue. In the novel called 'Lena' the heroine Ceci awaits her lover's proposal with a look o " coy malice," but Cecil's feeling for him i the reverse of malice. M. N. G.

MR. AXON'S interesting note suggests the question, Was " knavish " never used as "roguish" is now, in a humorously affec tionate sense 1 H. T.'s letter is, as MR. AXON says, conceived in a vein of humour, and il seems but a slight ground on which to founc a charge of detraction of Shakespeare.

C. C. B.

WORCESTERSHIRE FOLK-LORE (9 th S. vi. 410, 496). Your first correspondent speaks of this as "a symbol language which is unknown " to him. This sort of language is common in war time our usual condition, that is in South American republics. Messages, verbal or written, cannot be delivered, and wit and humour must go to work to find another way of communication.

The best instance I know was in Mosquera's revolution in Colombia (1860-4), the situa- tion being this : General Mosquera in prison in Bogota; "El Tuso" Gutierrez with an army on the way to his relief had arrived in Cipacira, a few leagues distant. Mosquera's daughter, who was in Bogota, wished to let her father know the good news. Now the nickname " El Tuso " means " the pock- marked." Tuso also means a husk of Indian corn, which rather looks like small-pox marks when the seeds are removed. Cipacira is a famous salt town. Therefore Amalia Mos- quera managed to have conveyed to her

u, y the J ailer a green us o corn which she said he was very fond, and out of which, on the under side, she had removed the grains, placing the corn in a plate of salt. So that Mosquera, on turning it over, perceived "a husk in the salt," and rightly read the riddle, "'El Tuso' Gutierrez is in Cipacira." IBAGUE.

^ " BANDY-LEGGED " = u KNOCK-KNEED " (9 th & vii- 124). -Bandy legs are crooked legs, and the term is commonly used both of bow- legs and of knock-kneed ones. So far as my experience goes, however, the latter use is, I think, most frequent, and I should never myself call bow-legs bandy. Huloet's identi- fication of "bow-legged" with "knock- kneed" is absurd. The difference between them is well set forth in a supposed planta- tion song in a tale of slave life which appeared many years ago in Tait's Magazine. I quote it from memory :

Our wench Sal, She hab two beau ;

Dere 's bow-legged Jim And knock-kneed Joe.

To win dis gal

To dere embrace, Poor Jim and Joe

Would run a race.

Jim couldn't run,

Him tread him toe ; De skin rub off

De knees of Joe.

Oh, Sally she look sad, And cry at de disgrace

Dat neder Jim nor Joe Was made to run a race.

Littleton (1693) under 'Bandy-leg' has valqus, varus" his definition of the former vord being " that hath his legs bowed out- ward," of the latter "having crooked legs which bend inward." C. C. B.

" Bandy-legged " is in use on Tyneside, but n quite the opposite sense to " knock-kneed." A local song gives :

The space between my bandy legs Ts about a foot and a half.

' The Westoe Darling.' R. B-R.

When I was an apprentice in the West liding of Yorkshire during the late fifties the ommon and graphic definition of a bandy- egged man was that he was one who "couldn't hat the person's misformed lower limbs were o bowed that a chance errant hog, meeting lim in a narrow passage, would easily
 * op a pig in an entry." This, of course, meant

cape capture by running between his legs. HARRY HEMS.