32 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. VII. Jan. 8. '59. 



affinity, then, between Mercury's three legs and 

 those of the Isle of Man ? It is difficult to sup- 

 pose that so singular a device should have been 

 twice independently excogitated. 



The ancient ensign of Man was a ship in full 

 sail. But Alexander III. of Scotland, when in the 

 thirteenth century he reduced the Island to feodal 

 submission, took away the emblem of fast sailing, 

 and substituted an emblem of fast running — three 

 legs. Why ? May it not have been because the 

 Isle of Man, from its central position between 

 England, Ireland, and Scotland, had become the 

 common resort and asylum of refugees, vagabonds, 

 and runaways ? The Island is stated by IBoethius 

 (after Tacitus) to have been, even so far back as 

 the time of Nero, when Man was invaded by the 

 Komans under Paulinus Suetonius, a receptacle 

 for this peculiar class of emigrants — " transfuga- 

 nim receptaculum." {Scot. Hist. 1575, p. 53.; 

 " receptaculum perfugarum" Tac. An. xiv. 29.) 

 But of all such " ill-used " individuals Mercury 

 was the patron ; and his three legs would aptly 

 symbolise their nimbleness in running. Mercury 

 in fact, more properly Hermes, was the patron of 

 gymnastics, as well as of loose characters. May 

 not his three legs, then, have been substituted for 

 the ship by King Alexander III. (jocularly, per- 

 haps unjustly,) to symbolise the conquered Island, 

 as still bearing the character of such an asylum 

 as we have described ? 



Each of the three Manx legs, in such represen- 

 tations as I have had an opportunity of examining, 

 has, appended to it, a spur of large dimensions, 

 fixed high up, not level with the heel, but with the 

 ancle. There is evidently something peculiar 

 about these spurs. Generally speaking, in mediae- 

 val remains, the spur is rather the appendage of 

 riders than of runners. These Manx spurs, then, 

 attached to three legs which are evidently run- 

 ning, not riding, invite examination and inquiry, 

 to say the least. There must be a why and a 

 •wherefore for spurs appearing under such pecu- 

 liar conditions. Now Hermes, from the nimble- 

 ness of his heels, was in process of time represented 

 as having winged feet; the wings, however, are 

 not seen appended, strictly speaking, to the feet 

 themselves, but rather to the uncles, on one side 

 or behind, and somewhat above the heel. Hence 

 the name, talaria. May not, then, the ancle-spurs 

 of Man's three legs be representatives, somewhat 

 modified by time, of Mercury's talar wings ? 



These few hints are submitted for the consider- 

 ation of those of your correspondents who are 

 better able to follow out this curious subject. 

 Respecting the mode in which Mercury came by 

 his third leg, you will perhaps allow me to offer 

 a ievr remarks hereafter. The term TpurneKts, 

 three-legged, is in one instance (Theoc. Epig.) ap- 

 plied to the image of another deity ; but tigura- 

 tivdy, as it seems, and with an allusion of a 



peculiar kind, limited to the passage in which the 

 term occurs. Thomas Bots. 



The badge of Sicily, as proved by old Roman 

 coins, consisted of three naked legs joined toge- 

 ther at the thigh, adopted in reference to the 

 triangular shape of the Island and its three pro- 

 montories, Lilybaeum looking towards Africa, 

 Pachynus towards Greece, and Pelorus towards 

 Italy ; from which it was called Trinacria. The 

 arms of the Isle of Man, of comparatively recent 

 date, were probably copied from those of Sicily, 

 with the difference of the legs being armed, not 

 so much from the shape of the Island, as from its 

 being nearly equidistant from England, Scotland, 

 and Ireland. I have a silver coin (5 lire) of 

 Joseph Napoleon (Le Roi Joseph) when King of 

 the Two Sicilies, or rather of Naples, anno 1806, 

 on the reverse of which are the following arms :— 

 Parted per fess, azure and or, two cornucopise sal- 

 tireways and a mermaid in chief, and three naked 

 legs conjoined in triangle at the thigh, in base ; 

 over all the imperial arms of France, supported 

 on the dexter by a merman, and on the sinister 

 by a mermaid. The cornucopia is a favourite 

 figure on Roman coins, and on those relating to 

 Sicily ears of corn are used to represent fertility, 

 as it was called the granary of Rome. The sirens 

 or mermaids were the ancient supporters of Si- 

 cily. On the coins of the recent legitimate sover- 

 eigns of Naples, neither the naked legs nor the 

 sirens appear, although they have quarterings by 

 the dozen. It is amusing to find the arms of the 

 upstart Buonapartes more classical than those of 

 the long-descended Bourbons. R. R. 



FAMILT OP WAKE. 



(2°* S. vi. 489.) 



The intermediate links, for which Meletes in- 

 quires, are thus succinctly given by Abp. Wake, 

 in his Brief Enquiry into the Antiquity, Honour, 

 and Estate of the Name and Family of Wake, pub- 

 lished at Warminster, 8vo. 1833. P. 12. — 



"Among other places to which he [Hereward] tra- 

 velled, Flanders was one, where he married a Noble 

 Virgin, Turfride by Name : by whom he had one onely 

 Daughter, whom he married to Hugh Evermnr, Lord * 

 of Doping, which by that means descended, together 

 with Brnnne " [co. Line, which came from Here ward's 

 father, Leofricus le Brun, p. 10.], "to our Family, and from 

 thenceforth became part of the Inheritance of it . . . ." 

 p. 17. "fThis Hugh also left but one Daughter, his 

 Heir; who marryed Richard de Rulos, Chamberlain to 

 King William the Conquerour, and carried away both 

 the Honour and Estate of her Family to Him. Jit was 

 now a kind of Fate to this Family to have no Male Issue 



* " Dugdal. Baronag., to. ii. pp. 541, 542." 



t " Ingulf, p. 77." 



X " Ingulf, pp. 77, 78." 



