Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/60

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vn. JAN. 19, uoi.

in meaning and application, e.g., booty, bootless.

In ironworks, where two men frequently manage a forge, one superintending by day and the other by night, each often describes the other as his butty.

In the same Black Country district there is one rather curious use of the expression butt}/. A man and woman living together irregularly sometimes describe each other as his or her butty, and other people would so describe such relations. C. T. SAUNDEES.

Birmingham.

"To PALMER" (9 th S. vi. 470). Edie Ochil- tree, returning from his impressive inter- view with Lord Glenallan (' The Antiquary,' chap, xxix.), suddenly encounters a group of eager peasantry engaged in characteristic sports, and the scene recalls his earlier days :

"The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in

games of strength and agility 'At that time of

day,' was his natural reflection, '1 would have thought as little about onyauld palrnering body that was coming clown the edge of Kinblythemont as ony o' thae stalwart young chiels does e'enow about auld Edie Ochiltree."

Derived, no doubt, from the " palmer," whose professional devotion took him to the Holy Land and made of him a revered wanderer on his return, the word was applied to vagrants, whose movements were aimless except in so far as they might secure means of subsistence. Walking aimlessly, infirmly, clumsily, are all notions readily deducible from this source. THOMAS BAYNE.

To palmer i.e., to go about feebly, like an old palmer is duly explained in Jamieson, with a quotation from Scott's 'Antiquary.' It lias no analogy with saunter, for there is no such substantive as saunter; and even if there were, it would not mean the Holy Land, but a person. Compare palmer-worm Joel i- 4. WALTER W. SKEAT.

The term is packed with interest to the student. Setting aside the " palmare, or pylgryme which the ' Prornptorium Parvu- loruin gives as " peregrinus et pereerina " used in contradistinction to the Roman civis and forming an earlier parallel to our Middle Age 'denizen," when the word meant one who was not a native - as antedating the meaning, but not the derivation required and passing by the question as to whether the palmer was so called because "palm" meant cross or because it meant staff (Halli-

well asserts the former), one finds from Jamieson that " To pawmer " = " to go from place to place in an idle, aimless way." This phase of meaning is said to owe its origin to the time when pilgrimages had fallen into contempt, and, whether the " palmer " used a Palmried (Ger.) or no, it is certain that, being a wandringman, he used a staff. One may take one's choice of the contus, ferula, or fustis, but so long as the use of a staff be necessary, then one may infer that the user walks infirmly ; and, of course, " to palmer in bauchles " (old shoes, or even with lumps of snow under the feet) intensifies the condition. A study of the staffs depicted in the National Gallery will repay observation, and one knows the stage's traditional method of portraying the bent form and shambling gait of the pilgrim. ARTHUR MAYALL.

DUKE OF BOLTON'S REGIMENT (9 th S. vi. 508). This regiment was probably levied by Charles Powlett, Marquis of Winchester, created Duke of Bolton by William III. in 1689. In a communication printed in *N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. i. 68, is a letter dated 11 June, 1696, concerning the capture in Romney Marsh of the unfortunate Sir John Fen wick, in which it is said : " Here is now in towne one Ensigne Scroop, belonging to the Duke of Bolton's regiment of foot, who says he thinks verily 'tis S r John Fenwick that is here."

The duke had married the illegitimate daughter of Emanuel Scrope, Earl of Sun- derland, and was one of the staunchest sup- porters of William III. It was a usual thing to name the regiments in those days after those who had raised them. For instance, the Royal Horse Guards (Blue) were called the Oxford Blues, and sometimes Lord Ox- ford's Horse, raised by Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford, who com- manded the regiment at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

PALL-MALL AND GOLF (9 th S. vi. 444). There is but one authoritative book on pall- mall, ' Le Jeu de Mail,' by Joseph Lauthier (Paris, 1717). It is very rare. Dr. R. C. A. Prior abridged it in his ' Notes on Croquet ' (Williams & Norgate), 1872 ; but " the trans- lation seems inaccurate and is, iri places, un- intelligible." At least, so said Mr. A. Lang (?), some years ago, in a morning paper. There is no resemblance in that game to cricket, extremely little to croquet, and less to golf. Palla-corda, or (more properly) the giuoco della corda, is first described, in his i * Trattato del Giuoco della Palla,' by Antonio , Scaino da Sal6, Vinegia, MDLV., and has been