Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/196

188 In the same village until the last few years the stocks were in constant requisition, but instead of being fixed they were placed on a trolly and were moved round to the more conspicuous and open places so that the neighbours might see the occupant to the greatest advantage with the least trouble to themselves. Also I have a proverb which may perhaps be of use to the Proverb Committee, viz.:—"What you gain by dancing you lose by turning round," that is to say, "More haste, less speed."

'Nointer or 'Nainter.—A word used by natives of the town of Watlington (to which it seems to be strictly confined) to signify a troublesome person.

Instances:—(1.) David Loveday, Lord Macclesfield's shepherd at Shirbum Model Farm, names his dog Nainter," because it is troublesome as a sheep-dog, barking at the wrong time, and sometimes worrying the sheep. Loveday comes of an old Watlington family. On being asked the meaning of the name which he had given to the dog, he explained that it meant a "reg'lar Bedlam."

(2.) Mrs. Hoare, of Watlington, calls her grandchild a nointer" when she is troublesome and restless. Mrs. Hoare feared that a lady would have great trouble in painting the child because she is such a nointer."

Many people have wondered as to the real meaning of the word, and some have taken trouble to find it out. The word is not used by natives of Shirburn or Lewknor or other places near Watlington. The true explanation is at once apparent in the following quotation from Dr. Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677), page 204, paragraph 32. I was enabled to make out the explanation by reading this quotation to Miss Mary Watson, of Shirburn Model Farm. Miss Watson kindly gave me the above-mentioned instances, and had herself often wondered about the word:—

"Yet but a few miles off, at the Town of Watlington, I was told of a sort of Sectaries, perhaps never heard of in the world before; which, if so, is as strange as the thing itself, for one would have thought there could have nothing been so absurd in Religion but what must have needs been embraced already. These by the rest of the people are called Anointers, from the ceremony they use of anointing all