432 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 158. 



FOLK LORE. 



Judge Jeffrey's Ground. — I have met with a 

 curious instance of traditionary influence in Devon- 

 shire, and on inquiry find it current in the neigh- 

 bouring counties ; it is this. The children, in 

 playing at a game called, in this part of the 

 country, " Tom Tiddler's Ground " (and which 

 consists in making fornys into the ground of Tom 

 Tiddler, for the purpose of " picking up gold and 

 silver," until Tom can catch one of the marauders, 

 who then takes his place), instead of calling the 

 auriferous territory " Tom Tiddler's ground," style 

 it " Judge Jeffrey's ground ;" and as the holder 

 of the territory is supposed to be an ogre of vin- 

 dictive and sanguinary habits, is it supposing too 

 much that the memory of the terrible judge of the 

 " Black Assize " is still retained in the very sports 

 of the children in the districts over which he exer- 

 cised his fearful sway ? 



Supposing this to come under the head of " Folk 

 Lore," &c. (at any rate, being a curious foct), I 

 have ventured to send it to you. S. J. E. 



Turning the Bed after Childbirth. — An attend- 

 ant was making a bed occupied by the mother of 

 a child born a few days previously. When she 

 attempted to turn it over, to give it a better 

 shaking, the nurse energetically interfered, per- 

 emptorily forbidding her doing so till a month 

 after the confinement, on the ground that it was 

 decidedly unlucky ; and said that she never allowed 

 it to be done till then on any account whatever. 



When reason was made use of, she gave no pre- 

 cise effects likely to follow the breach of her direc- 

 tions, contenting herself with making the general 

 assertion that it was unlucky. A. B. 



Liverpool. 



Finger Nails (Vol. v., p. 142.). — It is believed 

 throughout the county of Kent, that if nails be 



f>ared upon a Sunday, the individual will be un- 

 ucky during the following week. Alfred. 



iHinor §,aUi, 



'■^Scorning the Church." — A peculiar custom 

 prevails here (Norham), that if banns of marriage 

 are thrice published, and the marriage does not take 

 place, the refusing party, whether male or female, 

 pays forty shillings to the vicar as a penalty for 

 scorning the church. (Raine's North Durham.) 



E. II. A. 



Be Morgan's '■'■ Book of Almanacs." — Would it 

 be any great addition to the size or cost of this 

 useful work, if future editions were to give a tevr 

 tables and formula? to enable one to calculate 

 roughly the moon's distance from her nodes at any 

 given lunation, and consequently to find at which 

 lunations in any year eclipses might have taken 



place ? We can find from this book the dates on 

 which full moon occurred for every month in the 

 years b. c. 413, 331, and 168 ; but must refer to 

 other works to find the particular one at which 

 the eclipse, so fatal to the Athenian army before 

 Syracuse, took place, or those Avhich preceded the 

 battles of Arbela and of Pydna, and which serve 

 to fix the dates of those important events. 



The professor has in one place made a material 

 error against himself: in p. xvi., calculating the full 

 moon for 1st May, 1851 : he brings out April 30, 

 twenty-one hours astronomical time, as 1 1 a.m. civil 

 time on the 1st May, instead of 9 a.m. ; thus- 

 making his formula one hour fifty-eight minutes 

 wrong, instead of only two minutes. 



J. S. Warden. 



Descent of the Queen from John of Gaunt. — It 

 is singular that, while Her Majesty is descended 

 by three distinct lines from the Beaufort offspring 

 of John of Gaunt, her ancestry cannot, I believe, 

 be traced to him in the strictly legitimate line;, 

 widely as his blood has been diff"used among the 

 royal races of Europe through his daughters, the 

 queens of Portugal and of Castile. 



All the peerages that have come under my 

 notice contain an evident mistake about the first 

 of the Queen's Beaufort ancestresses, Joane, 

 Countess of Westmoreland: her first husband, 

 Robert, second Lord Ferrers of Wemme, is said 

 to have died in 1410 ; a date which, considering 

 that her second husband died in 1425, and that 

 she had thirteen children by the latter, appears too 

 late ; but what decides the matter is, that one of 

 her grandsons by the Earl of Westmoreland, John 

 Moubray, third Duke of Norfolk, attained majority 

 in 1436. J. S. Warden. 



^xitxiti. 



PAROCHIAL LIBRARIES. 



In the seventh year, 1708, of the reign of Anne, 

 c. 14., an act was passed for the better preserva- 

 tion of parochial libraries : it states that — 



" In many places the provision of the clercry is so 

 mean, that the necessary expense of hooks for tlie better 

 prosecution of their studies cannot he defrajed hy 

 them ; and whereas, of late years, several charitable 

 and well-disposed persons have by charitable contri- 

 butions erected libraries within several parishes, but 

 some provision is wanting to preserve the same, &c. &c., 

 Be it enacted, &c., That in every parish or place wliere 

 such a library is or shall be erected, the same shall be 

 preserved for such use or uses as the same is and shall 

 be given, and the orders and rules of the founder of 

 such libraries shall be observed and kept. 



" II. And for the better encouragement of such bene- 

 factors, and to the intent they may be satisfied that the 

 charitable intent may not be frustrated. Be it enacted. 

 That every incumbent, rector, vicar, minister, or curate 



