226 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"d S. No 64., Mar. 21. '57. 



tbe sunliglit forms a rainbow. He mentions that 

 if any poisonous reptile is introduced it will at 

 once die ; that poisons lose their virulence on its 

 happy soil ; and even the sprinkling of its dust is 

 certain remedy against poisonous worms. The 

 cock, he adds, crows at twilight ; and as daybreak 

 occurs at third cock-crow elsewhere, here it fol- 

 lows the first. He rather demurs at the story of 

 St. Patrick clearing the island of reptiles, &c. 



To pass over his miserable caricature of Irish 

 caricature, which we may class with his legends, 

 he tells us of wicked old crones who transform 

 themselves into hares which suck the cows dry, 

 and worry the squires' harriers with a fruitless 

 course : of witches, who make fat porkers of a 

 ruddy hue from any thing that comes to hand, 

 which they carry to market ; and like such ill- 

 gotten wares become wood or stone again on 

 crossing water. Their longest existence does not 

 exceed three days. One island, we are informed, 

 is inhabited by immortals, <?ho, when long bed- 

 ridden, are transported in order to die ; another 

 isle never permits children to be born ; and a 

 third makes .mummies of its deceased occu- 

 pants. Then there is St. Patrick's Purgatory, 

 with visions of the unseen world ; and a lough one 

 side of which is visited by spirits of good, and the 

 opposite by imps of darkness. In an islet in Con- 

 naught the folks never bury, but leave their dead 

 in open air, like the modern Australians. The 

 loughs are really marvellous : in one if a man 

 bathes he becomes grey-headed, but he has only 

 to go to another, the waters of which would be a 

 fortune to Mr. Rowland, for they are infallible 

 specifics against such a calamity. One lake, how- 

 ever, he must take care to avoid, for if touched by 

 man it deluges the adjacent province. Beneath the 

 waters of another the fishermen can see the tall 

 round towers of a guilty city submerged. At 

 Glendalough the osiers of St. Kevin produce 

 apples ; and in Lagenia are the tame birds of St. 

 Colman, which if any one injures, the aggressor 

 will undergo condign punishment, and the streams 

 become brackish. Other waters turn an ash into 

 a hazel, and the reverse ; others, if a pole is fixed 

 in their bed, transform it partly into stone and 

 partly into iron. At the southern part of Ireland 

 every seven years an unfortunate couple are 

 transformed into hares, and if they are harassed 

 by dogs and other calamities of their race they re- 

 sume their humanity, and another wretched pair 

 take their place. He tells us in another page of 

 a fall from heaven of reptiles like moles, which ate 

 up all the harvest in 904. 



Lord Bacon presents us with some folk lore ; I 

 have no doubt but there are more specimens in 

 his works : 



" There is a fabulous narration that in the northern 

 countries there should be an herb that groweth in the 

 likeness of a lamb, and feedeth upon the grass in such 



sort as it will bare the grass round about." — 3rd Pt. /«- 

 staur. Sylva., 609. 



" They have an old tale in Oxford that Friar Bacon 

 walked between two steeples, which was thought to be 

 done by glasses, when he walked upon the ground." — lb. 

 762. 



" It hath been observed by the ancients that where a 

 rainbow seemeth to hang over or to touch, there breaketh 

 forth a sweet smell." — lb. 832. 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



Miliar ^attS. 



A New Zealander who knew Captain Cook. — It 

 may interest some of the readers of " N. & Q." to 

 learn that one of the natives who was a boy when 

 Captain Cook visited New Zealand is still living, 

 and entertains a lively recollection of the expe- 

 rienced navigator. Captain Cooper, in his ad- 

 mirable little book, The New Zealand Settler's 

 Ouide, just published, relates the following anec- 

 dote : 



" I have frequently, within the last four or five years, 

 conversed with a native of the province of Auckland, 

 named Tanewa, or Hooknose, who remembered Captain 

 Cook. Tanewa was accustomed to relate to * his friends, 

 the Europeans,' how that celebrated navigator pleased 

 him as a child by patting him on the head, and that 'his 

 love was very great' for the Paheha (English) ever 

 since." 



W. D. H. 



WritiJig with the Foot. — In a volume in the 

 library of St. Paul's Cathedral, being a copy of 

 the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, at folio 

 Ixiij. are written, in what would be called a very 

 firm and excellent hand, but avowedly with the foot, 

 the following lines : 



"Roger Clarke svaunte unto Rog' Evans of London 

 Skynner the 16. June auo 1563. , 



" Per me Eogeru 

 Clericu pede meo 

 pprio." 



J. G. N. 



Almanacks. — Haydn (Diet. Dates, 1741, p. 18.) 

 says Moore's Almanack was first published 1713 ; 

 but I have a copy now before me for 1711, pub- 

 lished for the Stationers' Company. There is no- 

 thing in it which should lead one to infer that it 

 was then for the first time published.* A. 



From an Engraving hy Guil. Faithorne, 1654. — 



" Vera Effigies Roberti Bayfield, ^tat. 25. 1654. 



" The Umbraticke shape y" Artist could but grave, 

 The sollid substance in his Booke you have, 

 This but to life is drawne, that Life gives ; 

 Heere but the Person, there the Patient lives. 



" Jos. Spratts." 



W. COLLTNS. 



Chndleigh. 



■i." 



* The date of Moore's first Almanack is 1698. 

 & Q." 1" S. iii. 381.] 



See 



