Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/274

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NOTES AND QUERIES, p* s. VIL APML e, 1001.

in this Church without consulting its Rector, Vicar, or Curate, nor, indeed, of any other Church fn this Kingdom that 's the la,w.'Chelm*ford Chronicle." I think this should have a place in ' N. & Q.'

W. J. GADSDEN. Crouch End.

THE CANNIBALISM OF ETHNE THE DREAD. Prof. Kuno Meyer prints in the current part of Y Cymmrodor. from the Rawlinson MSS., an account of the tribe of the Dessi. The narrative dates from the latter half of the eighth century, and contains a notice of an Irish settlement in Wales during the third century. There is a curious statement as to anthropophagy. Ethne the Dread was the daughter of Crimthand and his second wife Cuiniu, who was the sister of his first wife :

"In the night when Ethne was born Bri, the druid, son of Bairchid, was in the stronghold. 'The maiden that has been born to-night,' said Bri, ' all the men of Ireland shall know her, and on account of this maiden her mother's kindred will seize the land on which they shall dwell.' When they heard the truth of that story from the druid that it was through the power of the maiden that they would obtain inheritance, they reared her on the flesh of little boys that she might grow quickly. Hence Ethne the Dread was her name, for the little boys dreaded her."

No wonder ! Whether we regard the story as an instance of folk-etymology or not, the reference to the eating of human flesh is curious and interesting.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.

CENTIPEDES : LOCAL NAME. In vol. v. of the ' Cambridge Natural History,' dealing with Peripatus, myriapods, and insects, pt. i., Mr. F. G. Sinclair, M.A., to whom is due the article on myriapods, writes :

"In English we have the names Centipede and

Millipede Of course these are general words,

simply implying the possession of a great number of legs. But we have also among the peasantry a name for Centipedes which conveys a much more accurate idea of the number. The people of the eastern counties (I dare say the term is more widely spread) call them 'forty legs.' This is not quite accurate

but is a better approximation than Centipede.

But another country has a still more accurate term. I found some Scolopendra in Bey rout, and asked my native servant what he called them. He gave them what I afterwards found was the common Arab name for them, 'arba wal arbarin,' forty-four legs."

Evidently, then, the author was not aware that the term "forty-four legs " was actually used in this country. From early childhood I never knew them to be called aught else in the limited circle of the inmates of my parents' home. But until I read the remarks above quoted I had no idea of its rarity. Since then

I have bored my friends and acquaintances on the subject, but without finding one who knows the term " forty-four legs." Many use "forty legs" and some "twinge." This latter, of course, is misapplied when given to the centi- pede ; properly it belongs to the earwig, to which the centipede has a very superficial resemblance. No doubt I learnt the name " forty-four legs " from my father, who is a North Riding man ; and it would be interest- ing to know whether it still obtains, and where. E. G. B.

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC. In Colombia (S.A.) a woman who is expecting to become a mother must not lift nor carry about a newly born infant, lest by doing so she should give it a kind of colic, which is supposed to be her own future pains. These pains would not leave the baby until her own child had been born. For this the remedy is a piece of tape first tied round the woman's waist and then worn by the baby. This idea seems particu- larly odd, for it supposes a transference of future, riot present pain. The superstition has come under my notice more than once, and I have seen the cure tried successfully. If the woman's confine- ment is near at hand, it does not matter very much, but if it is some months distant then the baby with the colic is in evil case, for it would probably die unless cured by the tape as the pains must continue until the woman's begin. The mother's milk can be dried up by putting the baby's damp clothes to dry in the sun the moisture being ori- ginally mother's milk. Drying in the wind does no harm. Striking a match in the room where the child is being fed also dries the milk.

At the birth of a child the placenta, &c., must be buried where no animal can get at it, nor an enemy, otherwise the woman would suffer. In the 'Golden Bough' (vol. i. pp. 53-5) it is the baby which suffers ; riot so in Colombia only the mother. I heard of a case there where, out of revenge, another woman got the placenta and put it in an earthenware pot, keeping this day and night by a hot fire. The woman who had been confined had, of course, a terrible fever, of which she would have died had not the cause been discovered and the contents of the olla buried. IBAGUE.

"DEVIL'S BROTH." When I was quite a little boy in the fifties I often heard the neighbour women, when engaged in the pass- the-time duties of "neighbouring," speak of things objectionable as "devil's broth."