2°3 S. VIII. Oct. 8. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



299 



I tell them that in this vast collection are deeds 

 of all kinds relating to landed property, — con- 

 veyances, settlements, leases, &c. &c. &c. ; in 

 short, deeds of every conceivable nature, and 

 amounting to many hundreds of thousands. 



Y. S. M. 



English and Fot'eign Custom of eating Goose 

 (2"'* S. viii. 243.) — In England the custom is 

 supposed to be derived from the fact of Queen 

 Elizabeth being at dinner and eating goose (29th 

 Sept.) when the news arrived of the defeat of the 

 Spanish armada ; thence the appearance of a 

 goose at table on that day was perpetuated. 



F. K. S., Bibl. Aul. Regis. 



Dublin. 



The Termination "-hayne" (2"^ S. viii. 171. 

 237.) — This is doubtless, as has been already 

 suggested, from the A.-S. haej or heje, a hedge, 

 or that which a hedge encloses. My object is 

 not so much to state that as to give an instance 

 (one out of many that I have met with, but the 

 only one I can lay my finger upon just now) in 

 which the very word ha)/7i occurs in an English 

 poem : — 



" All liounderd plows in demaynus 

 fFayere parkes in-w\'th haynus." 



Sir Deyrscant, v. 70. (Cam. Soc.) 



It is hardly necessary to say that the modern 

 hedge, ha-ha (as applied to a sunk fence% and 

 i^ai«;-thorn (called haigh in Yorkshire) are from 

 the same root. In mediteval Latin haga meant a 

 house, perhaps (says Spelman) because houses 

 were first constructed of twigs wattled together ; 

 haia meant a park as well as a hedge ; thus, "Do- 

 minus Rex habet unam capellam in haia sua de 

 Kingeste." Haga was also applied to a military 

 fort, such as was otherwise called burgtis, and 

 from any one of these meanings hai/ne might very I 

 easily become a local terminal ; just as Rothwell I 

 Haigh and Thornhill Haigh are the names of j 

 hamlets in the parishes of Rothwell and Thornhill i 

 in the West Riding. J. Eastwood. \ 



De Foe's Descendants (2"* S. viii. 51.) — CM. ! 

 is informed that there are now living six de- I 

 scendants of Daniel De Foe in the Baker line. ! 

 It is believed that the family of De Foe is extinct 

 in the male line, his present representative in I 

 that case being the Rev. H. De Foe Baker, i 

 Thruxton, Hants, to whom C. M. is recom- 

 mended to apply, if he desires farther informa- { 

 tion. M. A. I 



I 



Abbreviated Names of English Counties (2"^ S. I 

 vii. 404. ; viii. 219.) — The manner in which the 

 abbreviated form for Hampshire, Hants, has been 

 formed may be deemed worthy of a note. The 

 original Saxon name was Hamtunscir, a combina- 

 tion of sounds which the Normans altered into 

 Hanieschire, as we have it in Domesday, — the '■ 



nasal liquid being preferred by them, a similar 

 instance of which is found in their mode of spell- 

 ing and pronouncing Lincolnshire. From Haii- 

 teschire, Hants is derived by the simplest process 

 of abridgement by curtailing. This fact is of 

 more importance than usually attaches to these 

 abbreviated names ; for Camden, regarding Hants 

 as an original form, ventured to identify the 

 Antona of Ptolemy with the Test, and referred to 

 Southampton, and to Andover, Amport, ^c, in 

 proof of his hypothesis. The oldest name of the 

 Test is Tairstan. B. B. Woodward. 



Haverstock Hill. 



Patron Saints (2"* S. viii. 141.) — The catalogue 

 of W. T. M. may be enlarged with a few not no- 

 ticed therein, from the Second Booh of the Mo- 

 narchy of the famous Sir David Lindsay of the 

 Mount (edit. Edin, 1776), and in his own graphic 

 versification : — 



" Some to saint Koch with diligence, 

 To save them from the pestilence. 

 For their teeth to saiut Appolline. 

 To saint Trodwel to mend their een. 

 Some make offerings to saint Eloy, 

 That lie their horse may well convoy. 

 They run when they have jewels tint, 

 To saint Syeth ere e'er they stint : 

 And to saint Germane to get remead, 

 For maladies into their head. 

 Tliej' bring mad men on feet and horse, 

 xVad binds to Saint Mungo's cross. 



For good novels, as I heard tell. 

 Some take their way to Gabriel. 



To saint Anthon to save the sow. 

 To saint Bride for calf and cow. 



Saint Ninian of a rotten stock. 

 , Saint Dutho horded out of a block. 



A thousand more I might declare." 



G.N. 



Extraordinary Birth (2°'* S. viii. 257.)— On the 

 subject of extraordinary births, it is worth re- 

 cording in the pages of " N. & Q." that rather 

 more than forty years ago the wife of a man in 

 humble life, near Bromsgrove, had four children 

 at one birth. They were all girls ; and this in- 

 stance is, to my mind, the most extraordinary on 

 record, because all these children lived, I myself 

 saw them all four together when they were about 

 eleven years old. They lived near the high-road 

 to Worcester, a short distance from Bromsgrove. 

 When I saw them they were all dressed alike, and 

 I could detect no difference in their features. 



F. C. H. 



Bell Metal (2"'^ S. viii. 249.) — If B Natukal 

 will visit any bell founders when they are melting, 

 and give the men a shilling or two, and throw as 

 many more as he pleases into the furnace, they 

 will tell him the proportion of tin they put in ; 

 and he will have practical knowledge of the pro- 



