14 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 114. 



your correspondents who could inform me con- 

 cerning the origin of this game, and also any works 

 which may treat of it. " John Fhost." 



Paisley. 



[Appended to Dr. Brewster's account of curling, 

 quoted in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, vol. xvii. 

 p. 469., occurs the following historical notice of this 

 winter amusement : — " Curling is a comparatively 

 modern amusement in Scotland, and does not appear 

 to have been introduced till the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, when it probably was brought over 

 by the emigrant Flemings. It was originally known 

 under the name of kuting, which perhaps is a corrup- 

 tion of the Teutonic kleiiyten, kalhyten, rendered by 

 Kilian in his Dictionary, ludere massis sive glohulis 

 glaciatis, certare discis in mquore glaciatd. In Canada 

 it has become a favourite amusement, on account of 

 the great length of the winters."] 



SAINT IBBNE AND THE ISLAND OF SANTOEIN. 



(Vol. iv., p. 475.) 



Your correspondent 2 asks for information 

 about St. Irene or St. Erini, from whom he thinks 

 the Island of Santorin in the Grecian Archipelago 

 acquired its name ; and in reply, you have re- 

 ferred him to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and 

 jRoman Biography, for particulars of the canonized 

 Empress Irene. 



But 2 is, I suspect, mistaken in supposing San- 

 torin to be indebted either to saint or empress 

 for its present appellation ; although he errs in 

 company with Tournefort and a succession of 

 later geographical etymologists, who in this in- 

 stance have trusted too much to their ear as an 

 authority. Another correspondent in the same 

 number, F. W. S. (p. 470.), has directed attention 

 to a peculiarity in the formation of the modern 

 names of places in Greece, the theory of which 

 will guide S to the real derivation of the word 

 Santorin. F. W. S. states truly that many of the 

 recent names have been constructed by prefixing 

 the preposition els to the ancient one ; thus 

 Athens, «js rks 'Aevji'as, became Satines, and Cos, 

 €ts r^v Kaiv, Stanco. Lord Byron has explained 

 this origin of the alteration in one of the notes to 

 Childe Harold, I think ; but I apprehend that the 

 barbarism is to be charged less upon the modern 

 Greeks themselves, than upon the European 

 races, Sclavonians, Normans, and Venetians, and 

 later still the Turks, who seized upon their 

 country on the dismemberment of the Lower 

 Empire. The Greeks themselves no doubt con- 

 tinued to spell their proper names correctly ; but 

 their invaders, ignorant of their orthography, and 

 even of their letters, were forced to write the 

 names of places in characters of their own, and 

 guided solely by the sound. Negropont, the 



modern name of Eubcea, is a notable instance of 

 this. In the desolation which followed the Roman 

 conquest, Eubcea, as described by Pausanias and 

 Dion, had become almost deserted, and, on its 

 partial revival under the Eastern Empire, the old 

 name of Eubcea was abandoned, and the whole 

 island took the name of Euripus, from a new town 

 built on the shore of that remarkable strait. 

 This, pronounced by the Greeks, Evripos, the Ve- 

 netians, on their arrival in the thirteenth century, 

 first changed into Egripo and Negripo, and next 

 into 'Segvo-ponte, after they had built a bridge 

 across the Euripus. This last name, the island 

 retains to the present time. Another familiar ex- 

 ample is the modern name of Byzantium, Stamboul, 

 by which both Greeks and Turks now speak of 

 Constantinople. The Romans called their capital 

 par excellence " the city " (In which, by the way, 

 we ourselves imitate them when speaking of 

 London). Among the ancient Jews, in like 

 manner, to " go to the city," vvayeTe €»c tV Tr6\iv, 

 meant to go to Jerusalem (Matt. xxvi. 18., xxvili. 

 11.; Mark, xiv. 13. ; Luke, xxil.lO.; John, iv. 18. ; 

 Acts, ix. 16.). The Greeks of the Lower Empire 

 followed the example in speaking of Constanti- 

 nople ; and the Turks, on their conquest in the 

 fifteenth century, adopting the provincialism, wrote 

 fie rr/v ■k6kiv, Istampoli, and thence followed Is- 

 tambol and Stamboul. The same theory will ex- 

 plain the modern word Santorin, about which your 

 correspondent 2 requests information. The an- 

 cient name was Thera, and by this the island is 

 described both by Herodotus and Strabo, and 

 later still by Pliny. Thera, submitted to the usual 

 process, became, from elg tV &fipav, Stantheran, 

 Santeran, and finally Santorin. In the latter form 

 it almost invited a saintly pedigree, and accord- 

 ingly " Richard," a Jesuit, whose work I have seen, 

 but cannot now consult, wrote, about two cen- 

 turies ago, his Relation de TIsle de St. Erini, in 

 which, for the glory of the Church, he explains 

 that the island obtained its name, not from the 

 Empress Irene, but from a Saint Erine, whom he 

 describes as the daughter of a Macedonian prefect, 

 and from whom he says it was called Nijiroc tvq 

 "Ayiag Elpr]vr]s. I incline, however, to etymology 

 rather than hagiology for the real derivation. 



J. Emekson Tenkent. 



THE OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND — WHO WAS SHE ? 

 NO. II. 



(Vol. iv., pp. 305. 426.) 



My "Notes and Queries" coming to me 

 monthly, I am as yet In Ignorance whether any of 

 your numerous correspondents have answered my 

 Inquiry (Vol. iv., p. 306.) : " Whether the por- 

 traits of ' the old Countess of Desmond, ' at Knowle, 

 Bedgebury, or Penshurst, correspond with my 



