Aug. 14. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



157 



Saynt Dounstones paryshe at the Syne of the George, 

 by me Robert Redman." 



On the last page Redman's device : 4to., containing 

 three sheets. 



Without regarding Margaret's troubles, the 

 miraculous assistance rendered by an angel bring- 

 ing her 



" Parte of the crosse that God was on done," 



which had the effect not only of slaying the 

 dragon, but enabling her to come " out hole and 

 sounde," after having been swallowed " body and 

 bone" by the aforesaid monster, I will transcribe 

 the first few lines, in order to identify the work, 

 should any other copy come to light : 



" Here begynneth of Saynt Margarete 

 The blessed lyfe that is so swete. 

 To Jesu Christ she is full dere. 

 If ye will lystcn ye shall here ; 

 Ilerken nowe unto my spell, 

 Of her lyfe I wyll you tell, 

 Olde and yonge that here be, 

 Lysten a whyle unto me." 



The dragon, concerning whom your correspon- 

 dent more particularly inquires, is thus shortly 

 described : 



" She loked a lytell her besyde, 

 And sawe a fowle dragon by her glyde. 

 That was of coloure grasse grene. 

 With flamynge fyre on to sene, 

 Out of his mouthe brenynge bryght, 

 She was a frayde of that syght." 

 &c. &c. 



The copy here described was found In a volume 

 of tracts at a farmhouse In Somersetshire, and is 

 now in my possession. P. B. 



The church at Stoke- Golding, in this county, is 

 also dedicated to St. INIargaret the Virgin ; and 

 wliile prosecuting my researclies for an historical 

 account of tlie fabric, I fell in with the following 

 notice of the legend in Brady's Clavis Calendaria, 

 London, 1813, 2nd edit., vol. ii. pp. 103-105. : 



" Saint Margaret, wliose festival (20th July) has 

 been restored to our calendar, after having been once 

 expunged, was the daughter of an idolatrous priest at 

 Antioch, in Syria, a person distinguished as having 

 been one of the greatest enemies to the Christian doc- 

 trine. Being remarkable for personal charms, Olybius, 

 the president of the east, became enamoured of our 

 saint, and used every effort in his power, supported by 

 the autliority of her father, to make her ajyure the 

 Christian religion, to which she had recently been 

 converted ; but not being able either to induce or to 

 terrify her into such renunciation, he caused her to be 

 put to the most cruel torments, and afterwards to be 

 decapitated, about the year 275. The history of St. 

 INIargaret, in the earliest breviaries of the Romish 

 Church, was fraught with such impious and absurd 

 anecdotes, that they have been from time to time so 

 much altered and amended as scarcely to retain any 



part of her original legend ; though, as she has been 

 worshipped with extreme fervour by both the Eastern 

 and Western Churches, for a supposed power in assisting 

 females in child-birth, one miracle was necessarily 

 preserved, until nearly the end of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, as an explanation of the cause of tliat peculiar 

 province having been assigned to this saint. Neither 

 Olybius, nor her father, having been capable of divert- 

 ing her from a steady adherence to the Christian faith, 

 recourse was had, say her monkish historians, to the 

 assistance of Satan himself, who, in the shape of a 

 dragon, swallowed her alive ; though she speedily burst 

 from that horrid confinement, and effected her escape. 

 So miraculous a circumstance naturally pointed out 

 the peculiar powers over which Providence designed 

 her to have etnpire ; for who could so well be capable 

 of aiding the struggle of the yet unborn infant, as one 

 who had extricated herself even from the body of the 

 arch enemy. The girdle of this virgin saint was long 

 stated to have been kept in pious custody at St. Ger- 

 main's Abbey at Paris ; and being girt with it, was 

 universally esteemed of the utmost service to ladies 

 who were likely soon to require the assistance of the 

 obstetric art ; hut the holy friars were obliged to super- 

 intend the ceremony : ' a piece of charity,' says an old 

 author, ' to give them their due, they were seldom 

 wanting in.' 



" The Eastern Church records this saint under the 

 appellations of St. Pekigia and St. Marina, while the 

 Western Church pays reverence to her by the name of 

 St. Geruma, or, as our calendar retains it, St. Margaret." 



There is a representation of this virgin saint In 

 stained glass In the north aisle of the choir In 

 Winchester Cathedral ; she Is represented tread- 

 ing a blue dragon, spotted yellow, under her feet. 

 There Is also a representation of her on the font 

 at Stoke-Golding In the same attitude, with a 

 small female figure praying to her. On the com- 

 partment on the left Is a representation of St. 

 Nicholas ; and on that of the right, one of St. 

 Catlierine. See Papers on Architecture published 

 by J. Weale, 1844, Plate VI., art. "An His- 

 torical Account of the Church of Saint Margaret, 

 Stoke-Golding, Leicestershire." 



At the time I took my sketches of the church, 

 on a boss In the centre of the ceiling-beam In the 

 south aisle, a little eastward of the south entrance, 

 was a rude carving representing a female In the 

 act of self-delivery, but whether it now exists I 

 cannot tell. Thos. L. Walkee. 



Leicester. 



I happen to have a cast from a small oval seal 

 representing St. Margaret standing on a dragon, 

 surrounded by the legend, " Margareta . ora . pro 

 nobis." I believe the original matrix is In the 

 possession of Mr. Chalmers of Auldbar. E. N. 



SRfpItf^ tfl i^t'nor <SL\\txitti. 



Donne versus Francis Davison (Vol. vl., p. 49.). 

 — The translation of Psalm cxxxvii., as Inserted In 

 Select poetry of the reign of Elizabeth, ssems to have 



