480 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 268. 



Oing, the whip employed to spin a top. 



Goss, the name of the reed called by botanists 

 Arundo phragmites. Whitaker, in his Cathedral 

 of Cornwall, says that goss means a wood ; and 

 he takes occasion to say that the Ooss Moor, near 

 Helston, took its name from a large wood that 

 once existed there. It is certain, however, that 

 this moor is well stocked with reeds ; and goss 

 signifies a reed. 



Her. The word her is in common use instead 

 of the pronoun she; and in verbs of the third 

 person singular, the termination in th has not been 

 generally superseded by the more modern s. 

 Hence, " her goeth " is often heard instead of 

 " she goes ; " " her telleth me " instead of " she 

 tells me." 



Highto, the infantine name of a horse : aqd 

 much more frequently, because more easily used 

 , by very young children than the word horse. 



Klunk. A word used through Cornwall as a 

 verb to express the action of swallowing ; but its 

 meaning is more precise than the common ex- 

 planation of it would imply. The hlunker is the 

 portion of the mouth named the uvula. The word 

 to hlunk means that action by which food passes 

 from the tongue into the pharynx. 



Lake. With us it does not signify a large ex- 

 panse of water inclosed by land, but a small 

 stream of running water. In two instances, also, 

 it Is the name of a space in the open sea, where a 

 current particularly runs : as Gvvavas Lake, often 

 called Gover's Lake, near Penzance ; and " the 

 Lake," not far from Polperro. 



Meader. A mower of hay ; but since the use 

 of the scythe has also been introduced in the cut- 

 ting of corn (which Is within a few years), this 

 word has been applied to a mower generally. 

 This word appears in the following verse of an 

 old, and I supposed unpublished, song : 



" Summer now comes, which makes all things bolder ; 



The fields are all deck'd with hay and with corn ; 

 The meader walks forth with his scythe on his shoulder, 



His firkin in hand, so early in the morn." 



Merry Dancers. The flickering Aurora horealis. 



Paddick, a small pitcher. 



Tidy, plump, and in good condition. " Tidy as 

 a mur " is a common phrase, as comparing a well- 

 fed person or animal with the bird so named. 



Video. 



TBANCE-LEGENDS. 



(^Continued from p. 458.) 



I may as well give a portion of the Welsh le- 

 gend referred to, as it has some resemblance to 

 the ancient Legend of Epimenides : 



" In a retired little spot in the neighbourhood of Pen- 

 cader dwelt Sion Evan o Glanrhyd, a shepherd. One 

 day his son went out to look after their flock, which used 



to pasture on the hills. In the course of his walk he met 

 with a fairy circle, and, stepping in, immediately felt an 

 irresistible inclination to dance. This went on apparently 

 for a short time, and Evan then stepped out, with the in- 

 tention of returning home. But he had not gone far 

 before he paused in amaze. Everything around seemed 

 to have been suddenly altered ; instead of an uncultivated 

 waste, enclosures met his eye; and houses reared their 

 heads, where of late the heathcock harboured. The face 

 of the country, in short, was entirely new to him ; but he 

 still went on anxiously looking for his own home. He 

 rubbed his eyes, for, lo ! his father's cottage had vanished, 

 and a substantial farmhouse rose in its stead," &c. 



The Legend proceeds to enumerate the astonish- 

 ing changes which await our poor shepherd at 

 every step, and make him doubt whether he be 

 in possession of his senses. It winds up with his 

 going to a very old woman, who for a long time is 

 unable to remember having ever heard of his 

 name ; at last she exclaims, — 



" Oh ! now I recollect, when I was very young, hearing 

 my grandfather, Evan Shenkin Penferdir, tell that Sion's 

 son went out amongst the hills one day, and was never 

 heard of more ; he fell, no doubt, amongst the Tylwyth 

 Teg." 



The Legend of Epimenides is thus narrated by 

 Diogenes Laertius : 



" He once, when he was sent by his father into the 

 fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid- 

 day, and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and 

 slept there fifty-seven years: and after that, when he 

 awoke, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking he had 

 been taking a short nap : but as he could not find it, he 

 went on to the field, and then he found everything 

 changed, and the estate in another person's possession ; 

 and so he came back again to the city in great perplexity, 

 and as he was going into his own house he met some 

 people who asked him who he was, until at last he found 

 his younger brother, who had now become an old man, 

 and from him he learned all the truth. And when he was 

 recognised, he was considered by the Greeks as a person 

 especially beloved by the gods." 



Todd, in his admirable Student's Manual, has 

 some remarks which may be appropriately ap- 

 pended to these legends. 



"Locke observes, 'that we get the idea of time or 

 duration by reflecting on that train of ideas which suc- 

 ceed one another in our minds ; that for this reason, when 

 we sleep soundly without dreaming, we have no percep- 

 tion of time, or the length of it, while we sleep ; and that 

 the moment wherein we leave off to think, till the mo- 

 ment we begin to think again, seems to have no distance. 

 And so, no doubt, it would be to a waking man, if it were 

 possible for him to keep only one idea in his mind without 

 variation, and the succession of others ; and we see that 

 one who fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, so 

 as to take but little notice of the succession of ideas that 

 pass in his mind, while he is taken up with the earnest 

 contemplation, lets slip out of his accovmt a good partof 

 that duration, and thinks the time shorter than it is.' 

 Hence on this principle you will notice that life always 

 seems short, in looking back, to those who have been 

 troubled with but few thoughts. Idiots and sick people 

 frequently have weeks pass away, while to them they 

 seem scarcely so many days .... The curious remark of 

 the philosopher Malebranche is far from being impro- 



