Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/498

 490

NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. ix. JUNE 21, 1902.

Gaul, was so called from the long breeches or trousers worn by its inhabitants (Rich's 'Diet, of Roman and Greek Antiquities,' 1873, s.v. ' Bracse or Braccse '). " Coverings for the legs and thighs, feminalia, tibiala, were worn by the Romans only on occasion of sickness. However, under the Caesars, braccce, breeches, were introduced, being borrowed from foreign nations ; but I suppose they were not very prevalent, and used at a late period " (Fuss's
 * Roman Antiquities,' 1840).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

"MASE" (9 th S. ix. 369). Masefield is cer- tainly a place-name. It is probable that we have here one of the numerous redundancies met with in place-names. In the west of England these redundancies often consist of the conjunction of Welsh and English par- ticles, and this seems to be a case in point. The first half of the name is pretty certainly the Welsh maes, a field.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

Masefield or Maserfield was probably a field where the maser or field maple grew. The mediaeval alms-dish, known to the virtuoso as the " mazer-bowl," was made from maser- wood roots. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

"CADAVER" (9 th S. ix. 188). The ridiculous derivation of cadaver from the union of the first syllable in each of the words " caro data vermibus" belongs, of course, to the prescientific days of etymology. That the word is connected with cado (like TTTM/JLO. with 7ri7TTiv) seems to be pretty certain, though the theory that it preserves traces of a perfect active participle is highty ques- tionable.

It is interesting, by the way, to note that St. Jerome, in his commentary on St. Matthew, anticipated the philologers in assigning the origin of cadaver to cado, though he lived in an age that could derive aurora from "aurea hora " and virgo from " vir egeo."

ALEX. LEEPER.

Trinity College, Melbourne University.

MARRIAGE LICENCES (9 th S. ix. 368). The phrase "about" in the recorded age of a party to a formal document of this kind was used merely to save possible error, like the words " be the same more or less" in a conveyance of land. One may safely assume that the age was accurately stated by the number of years given in the case of a man, at all events. " Circa setatem viginti quinque annorum vel infra" was the phrase always used in referring to the next of kin in an Inquisitio post mortem.

The same (minus the last two words) was applied to deponents in Exchequer suits. The words were purely formal.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

CASTLE CAREWE, PEMBROKE (9 th S. ix. 428). I have been unable to discover T. W. C.'s authority for his statement that " the first known holders of it were the Hoels." Carew (the usual spelling) is locally pronounced Carey which is also the pronunciation still in use by some representatives of the ancient Carew family and this has been held to pre- serve the derivation of the place-name, caerau = " forts." The oldest part of the existing ruins may belong to the castle of Gerald de Windsor, temp. Henry I. C. S. WARD.

Is your correspondent acquainted with the description of this castle from the time of its building in the reign of Henry I. (1100-35), given in Archceologia, iii. ; also with some instructive articles in ' N. & Q.,' 6 th S. ii. ; 7 th S. iii. ? EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BICYCLE (9 th S. viii. 304, 490, 530; ix. 36, 117, 171, 231, 397). It may interest those who are collecting facts for an early history of the bicycle to know that two specimens of the velocipede, or " walking accelerator," used to be preserved in one of the gateways at Alnwick Castle. I saw and tried them there many years ago, and I doubt not that there they still remain. HERBERT MAXWELL.

GREEN AN UNLUCKY COLOUR (9 th S. viii. 121, 192; ix. 234). The following couplets, indicative of what combination of colours country children in Dorset consider should be adopted or avoided, together with the belief obtaining amongst the country folk there that it is unlucky to wear a wedding dress of the last combination of colours men- tioned in the rime, would seem to bear out what some of your correspondents have stated as to green being generally considered to be an unlucky colour :

Pink and blue

Will never do.

Pink and green Fit for a queen.

Green and white Forsaken quite.

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

"CHic" (9 th S. ix 306). The attitude of the Academic Frangaise regarding this word recalls to mind the sarcasm of Saint-Evre- mond : " Passer huit ou dix ans a reformer