Sept. 15. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



201 



observer and fancier says that this has been the 

 case ever since the time of the movements in 

 France, Prussia, and Hungary, up to the present 

 time. He also mentioned a quaint superstition 

 that the death's head moth is very common in 

 Whitehall, according to the wise folk, from the 

 time of the martyrdom of Charles I. 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



P. S. — Do not some old Welsh families, such 



as the Lloyds and Llewellyns, sometimes use two 



U's instead of a capital letter, as the ^'s are 



adopted instead of the F ? (Vol. xii., p. 126.) 



Superstition in the West of England. — I copy 

 the following from The Times of May 9 : 



" At an early hour on the morning of the 1st of May, 

 a woman, respectably attired, and accompanied by an 

 elderly gentleman, applied for admittance to the cemetery 

 at Plymouth. On being allowed to enter, they proceeded 

 to the grave of the last man interred ; and the woman, 

 who had a large wen in her throat, rubbed her neck three 

 times each way on each side of the grave, departing before 

 sunrise. By this process it was expected the malady 

 would be cured." 



P. J. F. Gaktillon, 



St. Goven's Bell. — The following legend is 

 current in Pembrokeshire. On the south-west 

 coast of Pembrokeshire is situated a little chapel, 

 called St. Goven's, from the saint who is supposed 

 to have built it, and lived in a cell ex.cavated in 

 the rock at its east end, but little larger than 

 sufficient to admit the body of the holy man. The 

 chapel, though small, quite closes the pass between 

 the rock-strewn cone and the higli lands above, 

 from which it is approached by a long and steep 

 flight of stone steps; in its open belfry hung a 

 beautifully-formed silver bell. Between it and the 

 sea, and near high-water mark, is a well of pure 

 water, often sought by sailors, who were always 

 received and attended to by the good saint. 



Many centuries ago, at the close of a calm 

 summer evening, a boat entered the cove, urged 

 by a crew with piratical intent, who, regardless 

 alike of the_ sanctity of the spot, and of tbe hos- 

 pitality of its inhabitant, determined to possess 

 thenaselves of the bell. They succeeded in de- 

 taching it from the chapel and conveying it to 

 their boat, but they had no sooner left' the shore 

 than a violent storm suddenly raged, the boat was 

 wrecked, and the pirates found a watery grave ; 

 at the same moment by some mysterious agency 

 the silver bell was borne away, and entombed in 

 a largeand massive stone on the brink of the well. 

 And still, when the stone is struck, the silver tones 

 of the bell are heard softly lamenting Its long im- 

 prisonment, and sweetly bemoaning the hope of 

 freedom long deferred. Dyfed. 



^ Miners' Superstitions. — Can any reason be as- 

 signed for the prevailing antipathy which lead- 

 miners have to whistling in the mine: and the 

 No. 307.] 



almost universal aversion which this class of miners 

 have to enter the interior of a mine on Good 

 Friday, Innocents' and Christmas Days. I visited 

 one of the lead mines in Allendale, and I found 

 that, rather than workon any of those days, they 

 would sacrifice their employment. I interrogated 

 several of them as to the cause of this, but no 

 satisfactory answer could I glean : only that some 

 fatal catastrophe would befall them if they acted 

 contrary to those prescribed customs. Perhaps 

 some of your correspondents can inform me whe- 

 ther this is a vestige of the superstitious idea 

 which was so predominant in remote and out- 

 landish places like Allendale, or they have some 

 reason for such acts. Jack Rag. 



STOPS, ETC. 



In Vol. v. of " N. & Q.," Sir Henrt Ellis in- 

 troduced an inquiry upon the subject of stops. 

 Having " made a note of it," I send you the 

 results, which you can insert if you think proper. 

 The comma, colon, and period I find in all the 

 volumes which I have examined, from the Rule of 

 St. Benedict (Paris, 1491) to the Works of 

 Perkins (London, 1603). In a number of in- 

 stances the colon is a single point ( . ), but more 

 generally as now ( : ), unless the single point in 

 the body of a sentence is to be regarded as the 

 legitimate ancestor of the semicolon ( ; ). It 

 occurs in the book first named ; so also does the 

 note of interrogation (?). In this case, however, 

 and in some other black-letter books, the comma 

 Is a small oblique line ( ^ ). In an edition of 

 Livy printed at London in 1589, the note of in- 

 terrogation is reversed ( 9 )• The earliest in- 

 stances of the note of admiration are these : Calvin 

 On the Gospels and Acts, 1563 ; Ascham's Epistles, 

 London, 1590 ; Bunney's Kesolution, London, 

 1584—1594; Cicero, 1594; Perkins' Works, 

 London, 1605. In some cases the note of inter- 

 rogation is used for that of exclamation, as in 

 Cooper's Thesaurus, London, 1584. As it re- 

 spects the semicolon. Sir Henrt Ellis mentions 

 that Herbert met with it in Coverdale's New 

 Testament, 1538, and in Marsh On Chess, 1568, 

 in each case a solitary example, from which 

 Herbert infers it was there used accidentally. 

 Now, my notes extend to thirty-four books, and 

 I find the semicolon. only in six of them, there are 

 therefore twenty-eight without it. Those which 

 contain it are as follows : Bembi Epistolce, Lug- 

 duni, 1538, where it frequently occurs ; Turrianus, 

 De Eucharistia, Romte, 1576; Bunney's Reso- 

 lution, pt. i., 1584, and pt. il., 1594; Pliny's Na- 

 tural History, Francofurti, 1599 ; Perkins' Works, 

 London, 1605. In some cases the paging is 

 omitted, in others as now ; in some volumes the 

 leaves are numbered, and in others the columns. 



