Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/364

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. ix. MAY 3, im.

by the old chorus. In the absence of any evidence as to the orignal date of a term like this, proof is impossible, of course. F. M.

"FLITTINGS" (9 th S. ix. 49, 239). Con- cluding his account of Isobel Pagan in the 'Contemporaries of Burns,' Paterson says that an old quern at the door of her last dwelling-place " had been carefully conveyed along with her in all her * Sittings.' " This is the common use of the word flitting in Scot- land, where it is not applied to the feeing- market or (except figuratively) to death. Thus Laidlaw, in celebrating * Lucy's Flittin',' enlarges merely on the maid's de- parture from the situation which she had held throughout the summer : 'Twas when the wan leaf frae the birk tree was fa'in',

And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year, That Lucy row'd up her wee kist wi' her a' in,

And left her auld maister and neebours sae dear.

The song, no doubt, concludes with the report of the heroine's death, but the Ettrick Shep- herd (to whose 'Forest Minstrel' the lyric was contributed) used to say that he added the stanza containing this announcement. But whether this was the case, or whether the author himself was responsible for the whole song as it now stands, the stanza is essentially extraneous to the motive of the ballad. Luoy flits from her situation, heavy at heart because of an unfaithful Jamie whom she leaves behind her, and whose " Fare ye weel, Lucy," haunts her as she goes. The conduct of her faithless lover may have been the proximate cause of her death, but the fact of her flittirt is not of itself indicative of that issue. It should be added that the term fiittiri is also applied in Scotland to the goods of the flitter, and it is so used by Laidlaw in his song, thus : As doun the burnside she gaed slow wi' the flittin',

Fare ye weel, Lucy ! was ilka bird's sang, She heard the craw sayin't, high on the treesittin',

And robin was chirpin 't the brown leaves amang.

THOMAS BAYNE.

I used to hear in Derbyshire of "flittings and quittings "servants leaving their old farm places for new ones. After a "long jaw" gossips said, "Ah'l flit," or "It's abart time ah flitted." There were "moonlight flitters " householders who flitted their goods by night in order to evade the rent due to the landlord, or cheat the "bum- bailiff" when his coming was expected.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

STONE PULPIT (9 th S. yiii. 325, 394, 489 ; ix. 56, 157). John Britton in his ' Dictionary of

Architecture and Archaeology of the Middle Ages,' 1838 (s.v. ' Crosses '), says :

"Attached to the wall of the Abbey at Shrews- bury is an octagonal stone pulpit, ascended by a flight of steps, covered with a canopy, and open at the sides, although from its situation it is not strictly a preaching cross. The preaching crosses still remaining at Hereford and at Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, may be considered the most per- fect examples."

The former was attached to the monastery of Blackfriars in that city, whilst the latter is represented in plate i. fig. 6 of * Crosses,' and was probably erected in the reign of Henry IV. There is still another at Hoi- beach in Lincolnshire. A fine specimen of the Shrewsbury Abbey class, says Britton, is that now placed in the grounds of Stour- head, Wiltshire, taken from the College Green, Bristol. But Britton states elsewhere, I believe, that the Hereford and Iron Acton examples were the only perfect ones that had come under his notice. The former stood in a garden belonging to Coningsby Hos- pital, in the northern suburbs of the city. On the dissolution of the monasteries the site and buildings were granted to John Scudamore. Esq., of Wilton, and William Wygmore, gent., of London ; but early in the reign of Elizabeth they came into the possession of the Coningsby family, from whom the estate descended to the Earl of

Essex. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

In ' Sixty Views of Endowed Schools,' by J. C. Buckler, quarto, published in 1827, are two engravings of the Grammar School at Chester, formerly the refectory of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, one of the interior and another of the exterior from the cloister court. The following description of the school seventy - five years ago, and thirty years before the description given in Parker's prove of interest :
 * Mediaeval Architecture of Chester,' may

" Part of the Refectory (about two-thirds of the J original room) is used as the School-room. Prior to I its being reduced in size the dimensions of the I apartment must have been upon a noble scale. At I the east end of the south wall are the remains of a I stone staircase with trefoil-headed arches open to I the Hall. This might have served the purpose of I the Reader's pulpit, as well as an ascent to the I Dormitory over the adjoining cloister."

The book is scarce, and very useful as showing how many of the buildings of ancient I schools have either been altered in modern I times or improved off the face of the land. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

THE HAWSON OAK AND ITS GREEK CROSS (9 th S. viii. 522). MR. W- G - THORPE'S story relative to the interesting fragments of an