224 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 255. 



origin, to the continual sieges which the Castle 

 of Tickhill, or Tichil, underwent in the times of 

 the Norman kings. During two centuries, it ap- 

 pears from tlie chroniclers that it was continually 

 an object of attack. (See Hoveden passim.') 



Henky T. Riley. 



Queen Annes Bounty. — Can you give me any 

 information relative to Queen Anne's Bounty to 

 the orphans of naval officers? A. G. 



Andrea Ferrara. — Did Andrea Ferrara ever 

 live in the Highlands, or were the claymores im- 

 ported into Scotland from Italy ? Centueion. 



Ill Luck averted. — Can you tell me the origin 

 of the superstition that taking off the hat, or kiss- 

 ing the hand to a magpie, will avert ill luck ? 



CONNIS. 



Noon. — What is the derivation of "noon?" 

 Can it be Nona Hora., the ninth hour ? In that 

 case, would not noon be not so much a point as a 

 period of time, extending from 12 to 3, and the 

 " afternoon" be that part of the day which comes 

 " after" 3 p.m.? William Fkasek, B.C.L. 



Alton, Staffordshire. 



[King; Edgar, a.d. 958, made an ecclesiastical law that 

 the Lord's Day should be observed on Saturday at noon, 

 till the light should appear on Monday morning (Selden, 

 Angh, lib. II. cap. vi.). Mr. Johnson, in his Ecclesiastical 

 Laws, part i. anno 958, No. 5., speaking of this law, says, 

 " The noontide signifies three in the afternoon, according 

 to onr present account : and this practice, I conceive, con- 

 tinued down to the Reformation. In King Withfred's 

 time, the Lord's Day did not begin till sunset on the 

 Saturday. Three in the afternoon was hora nona in the 

 Latin account, and therefore called noon : how it came 

 afterwards to signify mid-day, I can but guess. The 

 monks, by their rules, could not eat their dinner till they 

 had said their noon-day song, which was a service regu- 

 larly to be said at three o'clock ; but they probably anti- 

 cipated their devotions and their dinner, by saying their 

 noon-song immediately after their mid-day song, and 

 presently falling on. I wish they had never been guilty 

 of a worse fraud than this. But it may fairly bo supposed 

 that when mid-day became the time of dining and sajing 

 noon-song, it was for this reason called noon by the monks, 

 who were the masters of the language during the Dark 

 Ages. In the Shepherd's Almanack, noon is mid-day; 

 high noon, three o'clock." But if there were the least 

 doubt of the derivation of this word, the authority of 

 Matthew Paris in the following extract would remove it ; 

 " In quadragesima usque ad nonam jejunare solebant. Sit 

 ad tcrtiam pomeridianam, ([use hora nona veteribus dici- 

 tur. Nondum enim laxarant Monachi jejunii primitivi 

 ligorem. Verum ante aliquot saecula, in gratiam delica- 

 tulorum indultum est, ut officium illud ecclesiasticum, 

 quod hora tertia sive nona recitari solebat, citiiis j)er tres 

 horas anticiparetur, et sub meridiem cancretur. Atque 

 hinc est, quod Belgicfe Anglicfeque Meridiem Noone dici- 

 TOus." (See his Glossary, in voce.') In Lent they were 

 wont to fast till noon ; that is, till the third hour after 

 mid-diiy, -which the ancients call the ninth hour ; for the 



monks had not yet relaxed the rigour of primitive fasting. 

 But in course of time it was allowed, for the purpose of 

 feasting and sensual indulgence, that this office of the 

 Church, which was wont to be performed at the third or 

 ninth hour, should be anticipated sooner b}' three hours, 

 and be sung about mid-day. And hence it' is, that in the 

 Dutch and English languages we call mid-day noon.'] 



Ossiaris Poems. — In common with others of 

 your readers, I should be glad to be in possession 

 of any data by means of which the perplexing 

 question of the authenticity of Ossian's Poems 

 might be determined. It is as difficult to believe 

 Macpherson to have been the author as to believe 

 that such beautiful compositions could have been 

 produced in a barbarous age, and handed down 

 by oral tradition alone for so many centuries : at 

 least it is so to my mind. Could any of your cor- 

 respondents do anything towards solving this diffi- 

 culty ? Edward West- 

 15. Paul Street, Finsbury Square. 



[On the mere ground of want of room we cannot re- 

 open in our pages the controversy respecting Ossian's 

 Poems ; but more especially as their merits and authen- 

 ticity have been so frequently and keenly discussed. la 

 the Penny Cyclopcedia, vol. xvii. p. 50., will be found an 

 able article, giving a bird's-eye view of the nature, pro- 

 gress, and present state of the controversy relating to 

 them, as well as the most important facts and arguments 

 which bear upon their authenticity. Sir Walter Scott 

 said that Dr. Johnson's account of Ossian's Poems is that 

 at which most sensible people have arrived, namely, that 

 " Macpherson had found names, and stories, and phrases, 

 nay, passages, in old songs, and with them had blended 

 his own composition, and so made what he gives to the 

 world as the translation of an ancient poem." See Bos- 

 well's Johnson, Sept. 23, 1773, Croker's edition.] 



Clarendon's '■'■History of the Irish Rebellion." — 

 In what respects is the Dublin edition (8vo., 

 1719-20) of this work "much more correct than 

 that of London?" and on whose authority is the 

 assertion so frequently made ? Abhba. 



[The assertion is made on the authority of an adver- 

 tisement prefixed to the Dublin edition of 1719-20, which 

 states that " this edition is much more correct than that 

 of London, having been compared with two manuscripts 

 in his Grace [William King] the Lord Archbishop's li- 

 brary, in one of which his Grace has writ these words 

 with his own hand, which we set down here for thd 

 reader's satisfaction : ' This Vindication, as I was in- 

 formed by the late Lord Clarendon, was writ by his 

 father Lord Chancellor Clarendon (if I remember right) 

 at Cologne, with the assistance of the Duke of Ormond, 

 and by the help of Memoirs furnished bj' the said Duke. 

 I had it from Captain Baxter, a servant, I think steward, 

 to the Duke of Ormond, in the year 1686. — William 

 Dublin.' " The Dublin edition was not known to either 

 Watt or Lowndes : it is not in the Bodleian Library ; and 

 it was not till 1849 that a copy was to be found in the 

 British Museum. From a curious anecdote respecting it, 

 noticed in our Second Volume, p. 357., it would seem to 

 be the Jirst edition ; but, if so, the advertisement quoted 

 above must have been added after the publication of the 

 London edition of 1720. The Dublin edition was re- 

 printed in 1816, in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion ; 

 but the edition of 7 vols., 1849, edited by Dr. Bandinel, is 



