2»d S. No 102., Dae. 12. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES, 



477 



paintings of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 

 and of St. Malcolm, there is a large packet with 

 relics of many saints put up in wrappers (car- 

 tones), with two relics, each of which has its in- 

 scription, which says * Sta Margarita.^ One is a 

 piece that looks like skin, and seems to have been 

 of the size of half a dollar ; but it is injured and 

 lessened, at least on one side. The other is a frag- 

 ment of bone, apparently from the thigh, three 

 inches long." The writer adds, " It is to be ob- 

 served, that there is a document to testify the au- 

 thenticity (procedencia) — a word which cannot be 

 well rendered, but means whence they came, or how 

 come by — of the above relics of St. Margaret, 

 with all the forms and authorisation necessary to 

 preclude every doubt as to their identity (legiti- 

 macy), and the delivery of them with all formality 

 to this royal house." 



I also have a copy of the rare little book, the 

 Life of Si. Margaret, printed at Paris in 1661, 

 for which I paid two guineas. 



I presume it is known to most readers of 

 "N. & Q.," that Queen Margaret and King Mal- 

 colm were first interred in the nave of the church 

 of Dunfermline, and in 1250, on the finishing of 

 the eastern church or choir, their bodies were 

 lifted and translated, by order of Alexander III., 

 to the more honourable part, the choir, above the 

 great altar, or Lady Chapel, where the position is 

 still marked by large, blue, plinth stones, with eight 

 circular impressions of pillars for supporting the 

 canopy. I may add that I was one of a few per- 

 sons who first saw the remains of King Robert the 

 Bruce, on the discovery in 1819 of his tomb, 

 directly westward of this position, and now before 

 the pulpit of the new church ; a full account of 

 which, and of his second Queen, Elizabeth's tomb 

 in the immediate vicinity, is given in the first 

 volume of the History of Dunfermline. 



Petee Chalmebs. 



Manse, Dnnfermline. 



I 



" TESSONE," ETC. 



(2"'* S. ii. iii. passim.) 



Having recently been favoured with a copy of 

 the volume of Vocabularies of the Tenth Century 

 to the Fifteenth, privately printed under the direc- 

 tion and at the expense of Mr. Joseph Mayer, 

 F.S.A., and edited by Mr. Thos. Wright, F.S.A., 

 I wish to point out how it decides two or three 

 questions formerly discussed in " N. & Q." 



Tessone (2""^ S. iii. 270. 336.) — At p. 166. of 

 the Vocabularies, "Teissoun" is glossed "a brok." 

 Again, at p. 78., "taxo vel melus-broc;" and at 

 pp. 188. 220., "hie melota broke, hie taxus idem 

 est." This completely proves that the tessone was 

 the same as the broccii, and that tesso is derived 

 from taxus. 



Hops (2°* S. ii. 314. 392. ; iii. 376.)— At p. 69. 

 of the Vocabularies is " Humblonis, hege-hymele," 

 and at p. 289,, " Volvula hymele." These are 

 Anglo-Saxon lists ; and I think it is fair to infer 

 from the word hege-hymele, or hedge-hops, that in 

 those days they had cultivated hops. 



lieleat (2"'^ S. ii. 12.)— This Query of F. C. B. 

 has, I think, never been answered. 



At p. 37. is Lat. "compita;" Anglo-Sax., "weg 

 gelaeta;" and at p. 53., "Trivium wege Iseton." 

 These are clearly the original of Releat. 



Mr. Mayer has conferred a great boon upon 

 archasologists and philologists by printing this 

 handsome volume. A more interesting work it 

 has seldom been my privilege to study. The 

 typography is excellent, and the judicious care 

 and research of the editor is only exceeded by the 

 public spirit of Mr. Mayer in making such a class 

 of documents more generally available. 



The Vocabularies are Anglo-Saxon, semi-Saxon, 

 and early English, with Latin and French trea- 

 tises with interlinear glosses. The two largest are 

 a Nominale of the fifteenth century from a MS. in 

 the possession of Mr. Mayer, and a Pictorial 

 Vocabulary, also of the fifteenth century, from 

 one belonging to Lord Londesborough. From 

 the subjects and execution of the illustrations to 

 the latter, I conjecture that they w*lre the handi- 

 work of some schoolboy, trying to relieve the 

 drudgery of his task by amusing himself, as many 

 a schoolboy does in the present day, by adding 

 figures in the margin of his dictionary. E. G. R. 



THE KENTISH HORSE. 



(2"<i S. iv. 307.) 



This symbol may be as recent as Hengest and 

 Horsa, for Odin brought his As-es from a country 

 noted for its horses, the Tagarmah of Ezekiel; 

 and their oath was by " the shoulder of a horse 

 and the edge of a sword." They must have passed 

 through Hanover to reach Asciburgum on the 

 Rhine. But I think I have read that the Nisaean 

 horses appropriated to the use of the Persian 

 kings were white ; hence we must infer a later 

 importation of the symbol to Hanover. I look 

 much farther north than Jutland for the first in- 

 habitants of Kent. Our eastern counties are, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Latham, much more Norse than 

 Saxon. 



" Whatever is provincial in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolns., 

 and S. Yorks., is Norse. The fenmen about Boston, 

 Thurlby, Thurkill, &c., bear the names of the Icelandic 

 heroes. Whatever towns end in by, and streams of water 

 are called becks, there, to be sure, was a Norse settle- 

 ment." — Latham's Norway, ii. 13. 



Our expression " Rime Frost " is Norse. At 

 this moment I can recall but one link between Nor- 

 folk and Kent ; the name of a river Wantsum in 



