Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/346

 338

NOTES AND QUERIES,

. ix. APRIL 26, 1902.

parish where the old volumes are very Vorn the vicar has had a copy made, that you may search that first and only turn to the original when you know that what you seek is there. Two years' "hard " would be a mild punishment for H. G. K.'s vicar. YGREC.

WIND FOLK-LORE (9 th S. ix. 148). On 25 March, 1901, a working man remarked to me, in the course of conversation about the cold wind then prevalent, " The sun crossed the line to-day, so we shall have these east winds for the next three months." So far as this district was concerned his prophecy was wonderfully correct. On two occasions the wind blew hard from the south-west for a day or two, but during the remainder of the time it came most persistently from the east or north-east. F. JR. R.

Betchworth, Surrey.

One of our local sayings is to the following effect : " Where the wind is on Martinmas Eve there it will prevail all through the winter." (See 8 th S. xii. 88, 158, 212.)

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

It is a common belief among Suffolk fisher- men that if the wind is in the east at the vernal equinox it will remain in the east till the turn of the sun. F. J. 0.

The north-east winds that prevail in the spring about the time of the blowing of the blackthorn were known to our rural fore- fathers as the " blackthorn winds " ; and in White's 'Selborne' (Warne's Chandos Classics, p. 429) we are told that the blackthorn usually blossoms while the cold north-east winds blow, so that the harsh, rugged weather obtaining at this season is called by the country people blackthorn winter.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

The same superstition has been already recorded in 6 th S. i. 254, but the query elicited no reply.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

HUXLEY AS REVIEWER (9 th S. ix. 168). In 1884 my friend Alexander Ireland published the twelfth edition of the ' Vestiges,' giving in a long introduction an account of the authorship. In an appendix to the introduc- tion, p. xxix, he quotes from a letter, " The April number of the Edinburgh Review (1860)

Prof. Huxley, of the School of Mines, has

become an ardent apostle of this doctrine." This may give PROF. FRANCIS DA.RAVIN a clue to the review inquired after. CLIO.

Bolton.

WASSAILING THE APPLE-TREE (9 th S. ix. 287). It may be as well to note that " Wootton Basset, near Minehead," is evidently a mis- take for Wootton Courtney, a village some four miles inland from that town. Wootton Basset is a well-known station on the Great Western Railway, six miles from Swindon.

SHERBORNE.

ffiiutllmtonz.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Extract* from Account Rolls of the Abbey of Dur- ham. Edited by Canon Fowler, D.C.L. 3 vole. (Durham, Andrews & Co.)

CANOX FOWLER is a laborious and learned anti- quary. He has already edited for the Surtees and other societies more manuscripts relating to the north of England than we have space to name. Ripon and Selby will be indebted to him for ever for the work he has accomplished in elucidating their monastic history, and his edition of the Latin life of St. Cuthbert, with the companion volume containing the Middle English life, is, as all students know, valuable for the knowledge supplied and the careful manner in which both are edited. We think we have read all that Canon Fowler has published, and must say without hesitation that the volumes before us are by far the most important contribution to history that he has yet produced. The labour expended in compiling the work would have overwhelmed most of us, however enthusiastic we may have felt ourselves to be. There were many hundreds of rolls before the editor, not a few of them in a mutilated and frail condition. Every line of all these had to be carefully pondered over before the extracts for publication could be copied for the press, for we need not say that, with such a vast mass of evidence to deal with, Canon Fowler found it impossible to give everything. We cannot but wish that the whole series could have been preserved in type, but neither the Surtees nor any other society could have ventured on the great outlay which would have been requisite. A time may, and we trust will soon, come when the minds of the rich have become sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the value of historical documents alike for ourselves and those who come after us, at home or far away. When that period arrives we shall doubtless have the Durham rolls printed in their entirety. For the present it is but a counsel of perfection to say that, whatever text is printed, every word of it should be given. The editor of these volumes has gone as near to this as was pos- sible : he has given his readers everything that he regarded as of importance, including all the Middle English words which are blended with the text. Of these there are not a few, for when the mediaeval accountants failed to remember or invent a suit- able Latin term they never had any hesitation in diverging into the vernacular. This, as has been pointed out by Dr. Murray, has been "of immense value in enlarging our knowledge of the English vocabulary of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries." The older school of anti- quaries, when they printed ancient documents, rarely furnished their books with an index, and when they did so it was usually of a very imperfect character. Canon Fowler has avoided this error.