Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/264

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. MARCH 29, 1902.

new leaf. "He had two or three times

resolved to put in the pin " (Maybew's

'London Labour and London Poor,' i. 345). "Putting in the peg" is, according to Barrere and Leland's * Diet, of Slang,' military slang, meaning " taking a pull at one's self ; being on the sober or quiet tack, voluntarily or by superior orders." Still another phrase derived from the custom of the peg tankard is appar- ently that of "to peg out" he who in drinking was overcome by too many pegs, and succumbed to their influence, being said to be " pegged out." Before this stage was arrived at the convivial were said, by having another peg, " to screw themselves up a peg " in the event of feeling " a peg too low ":

Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg !

But do not drink any further, I beg.

Longfellow, ' Golden Legend,' iv.

Cf. also " to be in a merry pin ":

" The Dutch, and English in imitation of them, were wont to drink out of a cup marked with cer- tain pins, and he accounted the man, that could nick the pin ; whereas to go above or beneath it, was a forfeiture." Dr. Fuller's ' Eccles. Hist.,' lib. iii. p. 17.

The ornamental band round the modern tankard appears to be a survival of the hooped drinking-mug, in which the hoop served a purpose similar to that of the peg or pin. Nash, in his ' Pierce Penniless,' says, "I be- lieve hoops in quart-pots were invented that every man should take his hoop, and no more." (See further Timbs's ' Things not Generally Known,' Second Series, 1861, p. 41.)

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

With reference to the Glastonbury cup, I shall be glad if I may be allowed to correct an error in my reply, printed at the last reference. I then represented Lord Arundell of Wardour as having spoken of the author of the ' History of Winchester ' as Dr. Milman. That was incorrect, as, of course, Lord Arun- dell of Wardour referred to him as the Right Rev. Dr. Milner, Bishop of Winchester.

RONALD DIXON.

4b, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

" PATTLE " (9 th S. ix. 105). It is worthy of note that Sir Walter Scott uses both " pattle " and " pettle." He may have simply followed Burns ; but as he had a direct knowledge of agriculture, his employment of the term in both spellings probably illustrates a usage in the Scottish Border counties. In 'The Monastery ' (chap, xi.) he says, in his own character of narrator, that if young Halbert Glendinning "liked a book ill, he liked a plough or a pattle worse." In chap. xiii. JJame Glendinning, talking with the miller of her son Edward's future, observes, "He

will take to the pleugh- pettle, neighbour " ; but why it should be the " pleugh -pettle," and not simply the " pleugh," the uninitiated reader may be at a loss to know. It may be that at one time the ploughboy learned his business by walking at the side of the man engaged in ploughing, and using the pattle or plough-spade, as occasion required, to clean the refuse from the coulter.

THOMAS BAYNE.

GORDON, A PLACE-NAME (9 th S. ix. 29, 133). Before sending you a reply on this query I waited until the Gordonia in Macedon, the De Gourdon in France, and the Gore-down theories should all have been advanced. But, seriously, is there any reason to suppose that Chalmers, in his 'Caledonia,' vol. ii. p. 385, was wrong when he said that Gordon in Gaelic signifies " upon the hill "; and, in vol. i. p. 544, that the renowned family, who from that small beginning have almost girdled the earth with their name, derive it from the Berwickshire village? The last seems to me capable of proof, but it depends on one thing the date of the earliest De Gordun whose existence can be proved. For the place of Gordun we find mentioned in a charter of Cospatric the earl, who died in 1147, and apparently then owned by him (' Liber de Calchou,' ch. 288).

Can any human being named Gordon or De Gordun be dated, in Scotland, before 1200? That is the approximate date which, by comparing the witnesses with other dated charters, I give to ch. cxvii. in Raine's 'North Durham,' in which Richard de Gordun and Adam de Gordun, the tradi- tional brothers, make what is, I believe, their first appearance. Anyway, this charter cannot be earlier than 1182, in which year its grantor, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, great- grandson of the above-mentioned Cospatric, succeeded.

I am aware that Douglas, in his * Peerage,' puts down the charter in which this same Richard de Gordun appears as granting land to the church and monks of Kelso, in com- bination with the church of Gordun (' Liber de Calchou,' ch. 118), as between 1150 arid 1160; but the charter is undated, and, as whoever transcribed it into the chartulary omitted the names of the witnesses, it is practically undatable. Moreover, the church of Gordun was under the priory of Colding- ham up to 1171, in which year it was trans- ferred to Kelso in exchange for Ercildoun (Raine, ch. dcxliii.). Richard's charter must, at any rate, be after that transfer. I am aware also that it is a tradition that De Gorduns fought under Malcolm Caenmore