Page:The Mabinogion.djvu/74

Rh —Page 5.

substance is mentioned in the ancient Romance of "The Erie of Tolous,"—

Hur hondys whyte as whallys bonne,"—verse 355.

Upon which Ritson has the following note:—"This allusion is not to what we now call whale-bone which is well known to be black, but to the ivory of the horn or tooth of the Narwhal, or Sea-unicorn which seems to have been mistakeën for the whale. The similé ia a remarkable favourite. Thus, in Syr Eglamowr of Artoys, The erle had no chylde but one,

A mayden as white as whalës bone'

Again, in Syr Isembras, His wyfe, as white as whalës bone.'

Again, in ' The Squyr of low degree,' {{center block|{{fqm|'}}Lady as white as whalës bone.'

It even occurs in Skelton's and Surrey's Poems 3 and, what is still more extraordinary, in Spenser's Faëry Quene, and Shakespeare's Love's Labour Lost (if, in fact, that part of it ever received the illuminating touch of our great dramatist). Mister Steevens^ in his Note on the last instance, observes that whales 'is the Saxon genitive case,' meaning that it requires to be pronounced as a dissyllable (thus, whalës, or, more properly, whaleës), which it certainly is, in every instance."—Rit Met. Rom. III. 343,. 344.

{{center|{{Smallcaps|Winged with. Peacock's Feathers.}}—Page 5.}}

{{Smallcaps|That}} it was fashionable to feather arrows in this manner, we learn from the following description of the Yeman who attended upon the Knight, in the Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

{{center block| {{"}}A shefe of peaoock arwes bright and kene

Under his belt he bare ful thriftily,

Wel coude he dresse his takel yemanly:

His arwes drouped not with feiheres low,

And in his bond he bare a mighty bowe."—line 104–8. }}

In a Wardrobe account, 4th of Ed. II., the following. entry occurs:

"Pro duodecim flecchiis.oum pennis de pavone emptis pro rege, de {{fine block/e}}