Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/419

 9" S. IX. MAY 24, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

411

in 1899, and called * One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories.'

CHARLES R. DAWES.

DRAGON TREE (9 th S. ix. 369). TYRONE may still obtain the * Child's Guide to Knowledge ' from Simpkin & Marshall. It will tell him very little about the dragon tree. There are five plants bearing that name. The best known are Calamus draco and Calamus rotang, palms with reed -like stems, and Dracaena draco, a liliaceous tree, which attains extraordinary size. To this last be- longed the famous dragon tree of Teneriffe, seventy-eight [sic] feet in circumference, in whose hollow stem an ascending staircase was constructed. It was believed to be the oldest tree in the world, but was destroyed by a storm in 1867. W. T.

The following interesting account of this tree, accompanied by an illustration, appears in Dr. Annandale's * Imperial Dictionary ' :

"A genus of endogenous, evergreen trees, nat. order Liliaceae, remarkable for their elegant palm- like appearance. As formerly constituted the genus contained thirty-six species, but, as remodelled by Dr. Planchon, it includes only the dragon tree of Teneriffe (D. draco], celebrated for producing the resin called dragon's blood, and for the age and immense proportions of an individual at Orotava in Teneriffe, totally destroyed by a hurricane in 1867, which was forty-eight [sic] feet in circum- ference and seventy feet high. It was hollow inside, and ascended by a staircase. It was of the same circumference in 1402."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

"HOG" (9 th S. ix. 305). MR. HARRISON expresses his surprise "that the 'New Eng- lish Dictionary ' marks this important sub- stantive 'origin unknown,'" and kindly tells us of his discovery that "it is, of course, Scandinavian from O.Nor. hogg, a cut," &c. He omits to say that the 'N.E.D.' has dealt with that suggestion in the words :

"Some have thought hog possibly related to Hag, v.\* with the notion of castration. But the notion of ' yearling ' aeems to run through most of the uses. Cf. 2b, 4, 4b, 5, 13b." MR. HARRISON does not say why this evi- dence should be set aside. Nor does he attempt to solve the difficulty of a word implying castration being applied on the one hand to a chilver-hog, a ewe hog, and a gimmer- hog, and, on the other hand, to a tup-hog. He seems to run counter to the ordinary phenomena of language in his theory that one and the same word may be treated as meaning castrate when you want it for the

wan:0. Teut. *hauwan) ] To cut, hew, chop.
 * " Hag, v.\ north, dial. [a. O.N. hogyva (:*hagg- }

etymon of the name of a gelded animal, and shear when a shorn animal is in question.

Perhaps he will give us details and quota- tions from " Moisy's Caen publications." Few of us have access to them. I have not time just now to find out whether or not they are accessible to me, but I shrewdly sus- pect that the words occur only in an inventory compiled in England, and entered in the car- tulary of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Caen for Benedictine nuns, in the diocese of Bayeux (Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. 5650), from fo. 45 VO of which Du Cange gives a quotation, which is transferred in part to the * N.E.D.,' s.v. hoggaster.

Round's* Calendar of Documents preserved in France,' &c., 1899, describes the document from which the quotation is taken (which covers folios 41 to 87 of the cartulary) as a

"detailed inquest on the manors of the abbey

in England, evidently made under Henry II This

inquest is followed by one precisely similar for the Norman manors" (op. cit., p. 144, No. 430).

Q. V.

The derivation from O.Nor. hoggva (base hagg-} is not satisfactory, as the vowel does not correspond. A better solution is to de- rive it from the Norwegian hogga, to cut; for which see Ross and Aasen. Rietz, s.v. hagga, to cut (whence E. hag, to cut), notes that some Swedish dialects likewise employ the form hogga. The o appears as u in Dan. hugge. An A.-S. eg appears as E. g in a few cases, as in docga, a dog ; frocga, a frog ; but both these nouns are weak. CELER.

To the list of surnames beginning Hog may be added " Hogg-gogin," which appears among the list of deaths in a recent number of the Church Times. The Rev. J. F. Hogg- Goggin, J.P., is rector of Rufford. J. A.

BLACK BOTTLES FOR WINE (9 th S. ix. 7, 175, 276). In January, 1901, some workmen, while demolishing some old buildings in Gallow- gate, Newcastle, broke into a cellar in which were many of these squat early eighteenth- century black bottles, filled with some kind of liquor, said to have been ale. Some of the workmen imbibed rather too freely. Three of these bottles two empty and one full- were presented to the Museum of the New- castle Society of Antiquaries. An illustra- tion of the bottles is given in the Proceedings of the society, vol. x., facing p. 2.

K. D R.

ARMS OF DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY (9 th S. ix. 9, 118, 272, 312).-It appears doubt- ful if this Company ever had a regular coat of arms. The regiment "de Meuron" was