Sept. 22. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



229 



The writings of Wormius, Kalm, Magnusen, 

 Grimm, Riihs, &c., inform us that all over the 

 North a demon bearing tliis designation, slightly 

 modified by dialectic variations, is commonly ac- 

 knowledged. He is the Anglo-Saxon Nicer; 

 Dan. Nocke or Nokke (Nikke) ; Swedish Neck, 

 Necken ("ejusdem signiticationis," as Finn Mag- 

 nusen observes, " ut et Anglorum Nick — Old 

 Nick; Belgarura, Nicker — qui jam nunc diabo- 

 lum indicant") ; Finnish Nceki ; Esthonian iV«A ; 

 Scotch Nicneven ; German Nicks, Nicks, Nichse ; 

 the Nikar of the people of the Feroes, and the 

 Nickel of those of llugen; terms, all of them, 

 which are referred to the very Nickar or Hnikar 

 whom F. would so unceremoniously bereave of his 

 offspring. 



This being the case, it is obviously quite as 

 impossible to accept your correspondent's expla- 

 nation of the origin of the expression, as it is to 

 adopt that which, with equal knowledge of our 

 folk lore and the original sources of our language, 

 is proposed by Butler and Spence; who would 

 have us believe that the Devil is styled Old Nick 

 in compliment to Nicholas Machiavel, the famous 

 Florentine political philosopher of the sixteenth 

 century. If we must go out of the way for the 

 derivation of the term, why not assign to it a clas- 

 sical root, and adduce it at once from vik-6.w ? 



As to the otlier popular names of the Devil, re- 

 ferred to by F., it is to be suspected that the 

 paternity of" Old Scratch" must be sought for in 

 the Scrat, Schrat, Schretel, or Sckretlein, a house 

 or wood demon of the ancient North ; and that of 

 "Old Harry" in the Scandinavian Hari and 

 Herra (identical with the German Herr, and 

 nearly so with Baal or Beel in Beelzebub), which 

 titles of Hari and Herra, as in the case of Hnikar 

 or Nickar, were appellatives of Odin ; who, with 

 his fellows ^sir and Asynja, came in time, as we 

 all know, to be degraded in popular estimation 

 from their rank of gods and goddesses to that of 

 fiends and evil spirits. 



In conclusion, I would, whilst asking F. from 

 what goatish characteristic he would derive Deuce, 

 another common designation of the Devil, remind 

 him that the latter tiile itself is merely a modified 

 form of the Scandinavian Dol, fastus, dissimulatio, 

 vanitas, superbia. Wm. Matthews. 



Cowgill. 



MOTHERING SUNDAY. 



(Vol. xi., p. 372.) 



F. C. H., whose " object is to correct an erro- 

 neous expression" at p. 353., writes thus : 



« What I certainly meant to say was, that the candles 

 on the altar were of white wax ; whereas, on the other 

 Sundays in Lent, they are yellow or unbleached. The 

 only difference in the vestments is, that those of the 



No. 308.] 



deacon and sub-deacon are not folded as on the other 

 Sundays of Lent, but let down and worn full as at other 

 seasons." 



Will F. C. H. be so good as to bring forward any 

 authority, either from rubrics or out of liturgical 

 writers, for this two-fold assertion which he lays 

 down with such distinct clearness ? 



For the use of yellow wax at the altar, or in 

 the church, on any Sunday in Lent, or of white 

 wax, as a distinction, on Mid-Lent Sunday, there 

 neither is, nor has been any rubric that I know of; 

 and thankful should I be, if one exist, to have it 

 shown me. So far as practice goes, I can answer 

 for it, that no such observance is followed any- 

 where that I ever witnessed, either here in Eng- 

 land or on the Continent. 



With regard to the vestments, F. C. H. is mis- 

 taken. On the Sundays during Lent, Mothering 

 Sunday excepted, the deacon and sub-deacon are 

 each arrayed in a purple planeta plicata, or folded 

 chasuble, whenever the church they serve is rich 

 enough to find them in such vesture : in poorer 

 churches, they minister in their albs. In Mid- 

 Lent, or Mothering Sunday, however, the deacon 

 wears a purple dalmatic, the sub-deacon a purple 

 tunicle, both of which are far different vestments 

 from the so-called planeta plicaia. F. C. H., I sus- 

 pect, does not understand what the planeta plicata 

 really is : for he seems to think it some sort of 

 vestment which can be "let down and worn full 

 as at other seasons," and in this form worn com- 

 monly by deacon and sub-deacon. No such thing. 

 As now made, the planeta plicata cannot be let fall, 

 being just like a priest's chasuble; but without 

 the most part of the front, which is cut away as 

 high up as the breast. Moreover, the chasuble is 

 the priest's, not the deacon's nor sub-deacon's, 

 usual vesture ; and therefore never worn by 

 either of the latter " let down and full " at any 

 time or season. Cephas. 



RELATIVE VALUE OF MONEY. 



(Vol. xi., pp. 248. 335.) 



Agreeing with your correspondent A. H. in his 

 remark that " questions with respect to the value 

 of money are seldom so stated as to admit of a 

 definite answer," I am at the same time inclined 

 to think he has overlooked the fact that my former 

 communication had reference to a period con- 

 siderably subsequent to that (1604) of which he 

 speaks ; when the practice which had previously 

 been so long in existence (from the year 1257), 

 of making payments in both metals, either gold or 

 silver, according to a regulated proportion, under- 

 went a change, and silver became the only legal 

 tender. The difficulty therefore which he points 

 out, attending the reduction of silver coins then in 

 circulation to their present value as bullion, in 



