2»<" S. V. 127., June 5. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



463 



the mouth of Mr. L , a clergyman of the Church 



of England : — 



" One evening some two years since my brother, 

 an officer in the army residing at Westminster, 

 surprised me with a late visit at my house in 

 Holloway, just as were retiring to rest. ' Bro- 

 ther ! ' exclaimed he, in an excited manner, 

 ' mother is dead ! ' ' When, and how did you 

 hear ? ' I replied ; as she was living some consider- 

 able distance from town, and was, as far as we both 

 knew, although aged, in good health. ' I have 

 seen her pass me twice this evening in my room 

 with her head bandaged up, and I could not rest 

 till I saw you,' was his answer. 



"Inconsequence of his conviction and entreaties, 

 it was determined to take the first train in the 

 morning to the locality where our mother resided, 

 and, upon our arrival, sure enough we found to 

 my surprise that our mother had died suddenly 

 the previous evening at the exact hour my brother 

 had witnessed the apparition." 



I send this without the knowledge of Mr.L : 



I do not, therefore, feel myself at liberty to give 

 his name, but subscribe my own as a voucher for 

 the truth of it. T. J. Allman. 



Talbot Road, Tufnell Park. 



ST. OLAF S DAT. 



(2"" S. V. 416.) 

 The answer to this question is just what I 

 anticipated ; and I will, with your permission, give 

 my reasons for having asked it, and point out the 

 great importance of the answer. It is distinctly 

 stated by Snorro Sturleson that the battle of 

 Stiklastad, in which King Olaf was killed, took 

 place on Wednesday, the 29th July. The 29th 

 July fell on a Wednesday in the year 1030, when 

 it is expressly stated in the Saxon Chronicle that 

 this battle was fought. As to the year of this 

 event, there can be no question ; but Professor 

 Hansteen conceives that it took place thirty-three 

 days later, on Monday, the 31st August, when the 

 sun must have been totally eclipsed in some parts 

 of Norway ; though not at Stiklastad, if the latest 

 Lunar Tables are to be relied on. His reason for 

 supposing this is, that Snorro speaks of a dark- 

 ness having taken place at the time of the king's 

 death, which he would attribute to this eclipse ; 

 though it is said to have lasted for the three hours 

 preceding the king's death, and to have been pre- 

 ceded by the sun's becoming red. Professor Han - 

 steen's theory has been very generally adopted. 

 The Astronomer Royal, Lord DufFerin, and the 

 compiler of Murray's Guide Book, all regard it 

 as a settled point that the date of this battle is 

 determined by the eclipse of the sun which took 

 place in the course of it. It appeared to me, 

 however, that the concurrence of a week day 



date and of a" month day date as those of the 

 event added great weight to the testimony of 

 Snorro ; while the impossibility of the phenomena, 

 as described by him, having been produced by 

 the moon's shadow, rendered Professor Hansteen's 

 assumption a very improbable one. To decide 

 the question, I sought for some farther evidence ; 

 and it occurred to me that, as St. Olaf would be 

 commemorated on the day of his death, and as 

 the ecclesiastical tradition for this day would be 

 independent of Snorro's statement, and probably 

 of very high antiquity, it would be of great im- 

 portance to ascertain what it was. It appears 

 that it corroborates Snorro's date for the battle. 

 The pretended "Eclipse of Stiklastad" must, 

 therefore, be dismissed as a figment of the Nor- 

 wegian professor. E. H. D. D 



aaepItciS t0 MiviOt ©uerCcS. 



Dives (2°'' S. v. 415.) — The introduction of 

 Dives as a proper name in connexion with Lazarus 

 is probably due to a misapprehension of the Latin 

 text in Luke xvi. 19. and 22. Our version has, 

 " There was a certain rich man " {irXoitnoi), and 

 " The rich man also died ; " the rendering of the 

 Vulgate is " Homo quidam erat dives" and " Mor- 

 tuus est autem et dives." Now it does not appear 

 improbable that the common name dives, at the 

 period when the Latin language had passed out 

 of general use, but still continued to be employed 

 in the Western Church for ecclesiastical purposes, 

 was mistaken for a proper name ; or, in other 

 words, that dives became Dives. This error may 

 have been favoured by pictorial representations of 

 Scripture narratives. A person reading under or 

 over a painting in a church the words " Dives et 

 Lazarus," or seeing one figure labelled " Laza- 

 rus " and the other " Dives," and not knowing 

 that the latter term meant " a rich man," may 

 have very naturally concluded that " Dives," as 

 well as " Lazarus," was a proper name. 



It is but fair to remark that the Fathers appear 

 to have had no hand whatever in this mistake. 

 On the contrary S, Augustine and the Venerable 

 Bede both comment, at an interval of about three 

 centuries, on the fact that our Lord did not name 

 the rich man, though he did the beggar. (Aug. 

 Se7'm. xxii. de Verbis Ps. cxlv., and Serm. xli. de 

 Verbis Ecclus. xxii. ; Bede, in Lucce Evan. Expos. 

 lib. V.) Augustine supposes our Saviour to have 

 been reading from a certain Book [the Book of 

 Life ?], where he found the beggar's name in- 

 scribed, but not the rich man's. " Nonne videtur 

 vobis de libro recitasse, ubi nomen pauperis 

 scriptum invenit, divitis non invenit ? " 



Thomas Boys. 



Nell Gwyns Funeral (2"'' S. v. 107.) — By way 

 of appendix to a former note of mine, I would 



