152 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 146. 



to me; but I have been informed that the distin- 

 guished ethnologist Dr. Latham had commenced 

 collecting them with a view to publication : 



Semet, a sieve. 

 Wiesfe, dreary, desolate. 

 JEddish, stubble. 

 3Iabsant, a marriage feast. 

 Vlaithens, a species of porridge. 

 Perch, to sit down. 

 Toil, free, gay, imtrammelled. 

 Film, dust. 



Drownd, a greyhound. 

 Vo7'ion, the headlands of a ploughed field. 

 Nummet, anything eaten in the hand, equivalent 

 to luncheon in English. &c. &c. 



The names also which prevail amongst them are 

 very different from those of their Welsh neighbours : 

 as Holland, Hullin (perhaps a corruption of the last), 

 Guy, Clement, Givelin, &c. They keep carefully 

 apart from the Welsh, who also regard them with 

 contempt, and wlio still designate them by the name 

 of "The Flemings." Intermarriages are of the 

 rarest occurrence, and, ethnologically speaking, 

 the differences of the two races are most striking. 

 The Flemings are taller, and less finely knit, 

 than the Cymry ; yet they have fine independent 

 upright figiu'es, the expression of which is made 

 more emphatic by their large clear blue eyes, 

 their placid — perhaps almost phlegmatic — coun- 

 tenances, and the quietude of their movements. 

 Tiie most striking trait, however, of the physiog- 

 nomy is the great length from the inner corner of 

 the eye to the nostril. 



If they were indeed, as is generally affirmed, 

 planted by Henry I., for the purpose of instructing 

 the Welsh in the weaving of woollens, they have 

 admirably fulfilled their task ; and even yet their 

 whittles, scarfs, &c., are celebrated for their fine 

 texture and brilliant scarlet colour. Seleucus. 



Your correspondent F. M. will find many parti- 

 culars on this subject in Fuller's Worthies, article 

 "Pembrokeshire;" and in Norris's Etchings of 

 Tenby, &c., 4to. : London, 1812. S. S. S. 



See " N. & Q.," Vol. iv., pp. 370, 371. and 453. 

 J. Lewejlyn Curtis. 



SPRINGS AND WELLS, JIONKISU BURIALS, ETC. 



(Vol. vi., p. 28.) 



The Note of Mr. Rawlinson respecting cele- 

 brated springs and wells, is one calculated to draw 

 forth much curious and interesting information on 

 a pleasing subject, and I beg to send you the fol- 

 lowing particulars in aid of this result; although, 

 as fur as I am aware, no lingering belief exists tliat 

 " fairy elves their watch are keeping " over any of 

 the wells in this locality. 



In the western suburbs of the town of Leicester, 

 by the side of the ancient via vicinalis, leading 

 from the Roman Ratce to the Vosse Road, and 

 about seventy yards beyond the old Bow Bridge 

 (so romantically associated with the closing scenes 

 in the eventful life of Richard III.), rises a con- 

 stant spring of beautifully limpid water, and known 

 as St. Augustine's, or, more commonly, St. Austin's 

 Well. It derived its designation from its vicinity 

 to the Augustine monastery, situated immediately 

 on the opposite side of the river Soar. The well 

 is now covered and enclosed ; but within the me- 

 mory of persons still living it was in the state thus 

 described by Nichols (Hist. Leic. vol. i. p. 300.) — 



" The well is three quarters of a yard broad, and the 

 same in length within its enclosure, the depth of its. 

 water from the lip, or back-edging on the eartli, where 

 it commonly overflows, is half a yard. It is covered 

 with a millstone, and enclosed with brick on three 

 sides ; tiiat towards the Bow Bridge and the town, is 

 open." 



This well will come under the list of those men- 

 tioned by Mr. Rawlinson as " good for sore eyes," 

 it having been formerly in great repute as a re- 

 medy in these cases ; and even since the enclosure 

 of the well, many applications for water from the 

 pump erected in the adjoining ground have, I 

 know, been made for the same purpose. Permit 

 me to record, as a further instance of the strange 

 metamorphoses which proper names undergo in the 

 oral traditions of the people (see the articles on the 

 " Tanthony Bell " in " N. & Q.," Vol. iii., pp. 428, 

 484.), that on making some inquiries a few years 

 ago of " the oldest inhabitant " of the neighbour- 

 hood, respecting ^S"^, Angustine's Well, he at first 

 pleaded ignorance of it, but at length, suddenly 

 enlightened, exclaimed " Oh ! you mean l^ostings's 

 Well ! " Nor may it be uninteresting to mention, 

 as an illustration of the modes of burial anciently 

 pi'actised by some of the religious orders*, that in 

 the year 1842, on making some excavations in the 

 ground lying between the Avell and the river Soar 

 (which is said to have been the burial ground of 

 the monastery, and in Avhicli now moulders all that 

 remains of " the last of the Plantagenets "), several 

 skeletons were discovered. They had evidently 

 been interred without coffins, and one, which was 

 carefully uncovered, was found lying with the arms 

 crossed, not over the breast, but over the abdomen, 

 in a similar manner to that delineated on the rare 

 brass of a priest at Fulbourn, Cambridge. 



In addition to this holy well, we have also an- 

 other in the town called St. James's Well, but I 

 am not aware that there is any legend connected 

 with it, except that it had a hermitage adjoining 



* " The xxvj day of July (1556) was bered at the 

 Sayvoy a whyt monke of the Ciiarterhowsse, and hered 

 in ys monkel's) wcde witl) grett lyglit." — Machyn's 

 Diary, p. 110. 



