Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/84

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NOTES AND QUERIES. l* vn. JAN. a, MOL

deities of those regions would have been offended. Virgil distinctly says that the body of Misenus, after being drowned, lay on the shore. Anybody who reads carefully the first 235 lines of the sixth book of the 'jEneid' will have no doubt about the matter.

E. YARDLEY.

The belief that a corpse will bring pollu- " disaster to a ship in which it is ? widespread among sailors. The

tion and carried

passage which W. C. B. cites from Plutarch shows that the belief is also an ancient one. But as accuracy is of more than ordinary importance in the pages of 'N. & Q.,' it is as well to point out that the passage in Virgil to which W. C. B. refers is not by any means relevant. The point there is that the corpus amid lay on the shore unburied, and so brought a curse upon

those whose duty it

was to perform the funeral rites.

ALEX. LEEPER. Trinity College, University of Melbourne.

SCOTTISH DANCE (9 th S. vi. 404 ; vii. 5). This dance, referred to as " Ghillie Callum,' would appear to be the saltatory exercise popularly known (in this country at least) as the "sword dance." I fancy some local] (Southern) misapprehension exists as to its character. Sometimes in our streets a pair of itinerants, clad in the "garb of ancient Gaul " (so called), perform on a favourite " pitch." These reputed " Highlanders " carry, the one the " pipes." with gaily adorned "chanter," the other a board of about 18 in. square and a couple of weapons swords, invariably, so far as I have observed, old " regulation " naval cutlasses or light cavalry sabres, the blades of both, whether sabres or cutlasses, being more or less curved, but and this is important as illustrating my contention with the flats of the blades in the same plane as the hilt hand-guards. The exercise is presented by these weapons being disposed on the board laid on the ground in the form of a saltire, the performer then, to the sound of the bagpipes, proceeding to execute certain saltatory evolutions his legs clad in the orthodox, chequered socks, and his feet protected by substantial brogues within the angles formed by the St. Andrew's Cross. The blades being flat on parallel with the platform, and the legs and feet substantially covered, it is obvious that the element of danger, the risk of incurring a wound, is, practically, wholly absent. Now this risk, with the dexterity by which the danger is avoided, constitutes the essential character of the dance as so exhibited. But in the real the original "Ghillie

Oallum " this feature is conspicuous. Readers hould appreciate that the weapons must be the ancient glaive mohrs = clay mores, the "regulation" sword of our Highland regi- mental officers. In this weapon the edge not the flat, of the blade is in the plane of the highest convexity of the basket guard, dome- shaped when the claymore is laid flat on a flat surface ; thus the keen edge is uppermost, at right angles to the floor, not parallel with it as in the case of ordinary cutlasses or sabres, so that the risk of receiving a cut when pirouetting within the angles formed by the crossed blades is obviously ever present a risk perceptibly increased when the dance is performed, as at the clan gatherings mentioned by your reverend and esteemed correspondent, with the legs and feet of the performer absolutely bare. I submit, then, that the so-called sword dance, as displayed in our metropolitan thorough- fares and at our popular watering-places- Brighton, for instance, pre-eminently is not the "Ghillie Callum" at all, nor even a plausible imitation of it. GNOMON.

Temple.

"RUNAGATE" (9 th S. v. 513). Spalding, in his ' Memorials of the Troubles in Scotland,'
 * hus alludes to Monro's harsh rule in Aber-

deen in 1640 : " He causes put up betwixt the crosses a timber mare, whereon runagate knaves and runaway soldiers should ride. Uncouth to see sic discipline in Aberdeen."

W. S.

ARNOLD OF RUGBY (9 th S. vi. 446, 491, 512). I must enter a strong protest against the growing innovation of "finding" a Jewish progenitor for every man who attains front rank in literature, politics, or art. This absurd practice adds a new terror to life and embitters the pursuit of distinction. It almost makes a non-Jew turn resolutely from "a career." To know beforehand that some idiot is carrying in his pockets your genealogical tree, which he has ruthlessly stolen from the gardens of Judea, is enough to make the grapes of success turn sour and almost to dispose you to prefer " otium cum dignitate " to a large space in the * D.N.B.' The present writer, fortunately, need not look backwards or forwards. He is a Jew who will not get into the National Portrait Gallery. So far he is safe. But, joking apart, this sort of thing does considerable harm to the Jewish name. I will cite an example. Some years ago a clever writer in the New Age, in order to bolster up some fatuous argument about financial jugglery, sought to discover Jewish blood in Mr. Gosehen's arteries. Really I am