160 



l^OTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 253. 



word crumb ; but it is often applied to time, as 

 " after a crim" or in a very short time. 



Crowd, a fiddle ; crowder, a fiddler (a genuine 

 British word). We have a proverb : " If I can't 

 croivdy, they won't dance;" meaning, they will 

 take no notice of me, when I have no power to 

 feast or entertain them. 



Crowst, for crust, as of bread. 



Cuttit, sharp in reply, impudently sharp. It 

 implies pertness, but is not equivalent to cutting, 

 as descriptive of speech. 



Video. 



THE HIGHLANDS OP SCOTLAND AND THE GBECIAN 

 AECHIPELAGO. 



In Hahn's Albanesische Studien (4to. Jena, 

 1854), it is stated (p. 259.), as a remarkable point 

 of resemblance between these countries, that the 

 band of music belonging to the garrison at Athens 

 was accustomed for a long time to play a piece of 

 music, at hearing which, even the Greek (to 

 whom the music of the Franks is quite unintelli- 

 gible) feels his heart thrilled, for he listens to a 

 well-known melody which he has been accus- 

 tomed to hear and to sing from his youth : " That 

 sounds like a song of Kalamata."* Dr. Hahn 

 (who was Austrian Consul for Eastern Greece), 

 when he heard the music, supposed it for a long 

 time to be a Greek dancing-song somewhat im- 

 proved, until he learned, to his astonishment, that 

 it was a highland Ecossaise, as he terms it. Owing 

 to the fundamental diflference between the music 

 of the Greeks and of the Franks, — a difference so 

 great, that Dr. Hahn says it is hardly possible for 

 one Frank in a hundred to retain and to repeat a 

 popular Greek melody, — the fact now recorded 

 deserves the attention of the musical connoisseurs. 

 The study of the national music of the Greeks 

 would certainly be fertile in results regarding an- 

 cient ethnography. . . This similarity in the national 

 music is not the only point of resemblance be- 

 tween the Highlands of Scotland and the Greek 

 Archipelago. The square-formed cloth on the 

 ancient Greek vases, and the twofold Caledonia, 

 occurs to mind. Caledonia, however, is a Celtic 

 word, and signifies a wood. That the kingdom of 

 Macedon was founded by a race of shepherds, 

 appears both from the tradition of Perdikkas 

 (Herodot. viii. 137.), and from the taking of the 

 city of Edessa, or Mgx, by Caranus, the Argive, 

 who followed a herd of goats. Justin remarks, 

 at the conclusion of his history, that the goat was 

 the leader of the Macedonian army in all its 



* Kalamata was one of the first towns in the Morea 

 that freed itself from the Turkish yoke in 1821. The 

 first National Assembly of the Greeks was held at Kala- 

 mata in the same year. In 1825 it was almost totally 

 destroyed by the savage troops of Ibrahim Pasha. 



campaigns, owing to that kingdom having been 

 founded by a race of shepherds. Strange to say, 

 a similar custom has been continued to our 

 day among the Scottish Highlanders; and it is 

 not long since the he-goat, which formerly used 

 to march, splendidly adorned, at the head of every 

 regiment, was taken away from the Highland 

 troops of the English army. So far Dr. Hahn. 

 Perhaps some of your correspondents, who have 

 been at Athens, can enlighten us farther as to the 

 name of this reputed Scottish melody. Respect- 

 ing the part enacted by the goat, I fear the worthy 

 consul has been strangely mystified. 



Logan, in his work, The Scottish Gael, says 

 that — 



"When the chief was aware of the approach of an 

 enemy, he immediately, with his own sword, killed a 

 goat; and dipping in the blood the ends of a cross of 

 wood that had been half-burned, gave it, with the name 

 of the place of meeting, to one of the clan ; who carried 

 it with the utmost celerity to the next dwelling, or put it 

 in the hands of some one he met ; who ran forward in the 

 same manner, until, in a few hours, the whole clan, from 

 the most remote situations, were collected in arms at the 

 place appointed." — Vol. i. p. 140. 



J. Macrat. 



Oxford. 



rOLK LORE. 



Curious Custom at Wells, Somerset. — A few days 

 ago chance led me into the churchyard of St. 

 Cuthbert here, and seeing a new grave had just 

 been completed, I went to it, and there found two 

 men engaged in covering in the sides of the gr^ve 

 with white plaster. On asking the reason, the men 

 informed me that when a person died whose trade 

 l^ad been that of a plasterer, it was customary to 

 plaster his grave ip the way they were then doing. 

 On farther inquiry I found that this custom 

 could be traced back for several hundred years. 



Such a custom may possibly exist in other places, 

 but never having heard of it myself, I send the 

 above for insertion in " N. & Q." if considered suf- 

 ficiently interesting. Ina. 



Wells. 



Northern Counties Folk Lore : Cattle watering. — 



Man alive, an Ox may drive 



Unto a springing well : 

 For to drink, as he may think, 



But this he can't compel. 



Lambing Season. — 



The best shepherd that ever " run," 

 Can't tell whether a sheep goes twenty weeks or twenty- 

 one. 



Robert Rawlinson. 



Marriage CMstom. — I was informed lately by a 

 lady that it was the custom many years ago, at a 

 solemnisatioii of marriage at Hope Church in 

 Derbyshire, for the clerk to call out aloud, while 



