Dec. 10. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



565 



" It rained cats and dogs and little pitchfoi-Jis." — 

 Helter-skelter. — What can be the origin of this 

 saying? I can imagine that rain may descend 

 with such sharpness and violence as to cause as 

 much destruction as a shower of " pitchforks" 

 would ; but if any of your readers can tell me 

 why heavy rain should be likened to " cats and 

 dogs," I shall be truly obliged. Many years ago 

 I saw a most cleverly drawn woodcut, of a party 

 of travellers encountering this imaginary shower ; 

 some of the animals were descending helter-skelter 

 irom the clouds ; others wreaking their vengeance 

 on the amazed wayfarers, while the "pitchforks" 

 were running into the bodies of the tei'rified party, 

 while they were in vain attempting to run out of 

 the way of those which were threatening to fall 

 iupon their heads, and thus striking them to the 

 ground. So strange an Idea must have had some 

 .peculiar origin. — Can you or your readers say 

 -what It is ? M. E. C. 



P. S. — I find I have used a word above, of 

 •which every one knows the signification, " helter- 

 ■ekelter;" but I, for one, confess myself ignorant 

 of its derivation. And I shall be glad to be in- 

 formed on the subject. 



[As to the etymology oi helter-skelter. Sir John Stod- 

 ^art remarks, " The real origin of the word is obscure. 

 1i we suppose the principal meaning to be in the first 

 part, it may probably come from the Islandic hilldr 

 pugna ; if in the latter part, it may be from the Ger- 

 man schalten, to thrust forward, which in the dialect of 

 the north of England means 'to scatter and throw 

 ■abroad as molehills are when levelled ; ' or from skeyl, 

 which in the same dialect is ' to push on one side, to 

 overturn.' "] 



Father Traves. — Can any of your Lancashire 

 readers refer me to a source whence I might 

 obtain information on matters pertaining to the 

 life of one Father Travers [Traves], the friend 

 and correspondent of the celebrated martyr John 

 Bradford ? 



As yet I have but met with the incidental men- 

 tion of his name in the pages of Fox, and in Hol- 

 Jingworth's Mancuensis, pp. 75, 76. A Jesuit. 



[The name is spelt by Fox sometimes Traves and 

 sometimes Travers ; but who he was there is no par- 

 ticular mention ; except that it appears from Brad- 

 ford's letters that he was some friend of the family, and 

 from the superscription to one of them, that he was 

 the minister of Blackley, near Manchester, in which 

 place, or near to which, Bradford's mother must then 

 have resided. Strype says, he was a learned and pious 

 gentleman, his patron and counsellor. — Mem. Eccles., 

 vol. iii. part i. p. 364,] 



Precise Bates of Births and Deaths of the Pre- 

 tenders. — Win any one be so kind as to tell me 

 the date of the birth and death of James VIII. 

 ^nd his son Charles III. (commonly called Prince 



Charles Edward Stuart) ? These dates are given 

 so variously, that I am anxious to ascertain them 

 correctly. L. M. M. R. 



[We believe the following to be the precise dates : — 

 James VIII., born June 10, 1688; died January 2, 

 1765-6. Charles Edward, born December 20, 1720 

 (sometimes printed as New Style, Dec. 31); died 

 January 31, 1788.] 



Clarence. — Whence the name of this dukedom ? 

 Was the title borne by any one before the time of 

 Lionel, son of Edward III. ? W. T. M. 



[The title Clarence was, as we learn from Cam- 

 den ( finVannia, edit. Gough, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74.), derived 

 from the honour of Clare, in Suffolk ; and was first 

 borne by Lionel Plantagenet, third son of Edward III., 

 who married Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter and heir 

 of William, Earl of Ulster, and obtained with her 

 the honour of Clare. He became, jure uxoris. Earl of 

 Ulster, and was created, September 15, 1362, Duke of 

 Clarence.] 



aUepItfiS. 



mackey's "theory of the eabth." 



(Vol. viii., p. 468.) 



•About the year 1827, when the prosecutions for 

 blasphemy were leading hundreds and thousands 

 to see what could be said against Christianity, 

 with a very powerful bias to make the most of all 

 that they could find, some friends of mine, of more 

 ingenuity than erudition, strongly recommended 

 to my attention the works of a shoemaker at 

 Norwich, named Mackey, who they said was more 

 learned than any one else, and had completely 

 shown up the thing. It is worth a note that I 

 perfectly remember the cause of their excitement 

 to have been the imprisonment of the Rev. Robert 

 Taylor, for publishing various arguments against 

 revelation. I examined several works of Mackey's, 

 and I have yet one or two bound up among my 

 wonders of nature and art. As in time to come, 

 when neither love nor money will procure a copy 

 of these books, some tradition may set Inquirers 

 looking after them, perhaps it may be worth while 

 to preserve a couple of extracts for the benefit of 

 those who have the sense to hunt the index of 

 " N. & Q." before they give up anything. 



" The Virgin Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus 

 and Cassiopeia, was the representative of Palestina ; a 

 long, narrow, rocky strip of land ; figuratively called 

 the daughter of Rocks and Mountains ; because it is a 

 country abounding with rocks and stones. And the 

 Greeks, really supposing Cepha, a rock or stone, to 

 have been the young ladies father, added their sign of 

 the masculine gender to it, and it became Cepha-ws. 

 And mount Cassius being its southern boundary was 

 called Cassiobi ; from its being also the boundary of 

 the overflowed Nile, called Obi, which the Greeks 



