60 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 34. 



be induced to offer additions or corrections to what 

 is here attempted, and to extend the inquiry into 

 other localities, your pages will afford a most de- 

 sirable medium through which to compare notes 

 on a very imperfectly understood but most im- 

 portant subject of inquiry. T. T. Wilkinson. 



Burnley, Lancashire, June 5. 1850. 



QUERIES ANSWERED, NO. 8. 



Passing over various queries of eai-ly date, on 

 which it has been my intention to offer some sug- 

 gestions, I have endeuoyred me, as Master Caxton 

 expresses it, to illustrate three subjects recently 

 mooted. 



Trianon (No. 27.). — The origin of this name is 

 thus stated by M. Dolort, in his excellent work 

 entitled Mes voyages mix environs de Paris, ii. 88. 



" Le grand Triauou. — Appele au IS^siecle Triarmun, 

 nom d'une ancienne paroisse, qui etait divisee en trois 

 villages dependant du diocese de Chartres. Cette terre, 

 qui appartenait aux moines de Sainte-Genevieve, fiit 

 achetee par Louis XIV. pour agrandir le pare de 

 Versailles, et plus tard il y fit construire le chateau." 



Wood paper (No. 32.). — At the close of the last 

 century a patent was granted to Matthias Koops 

 for the manufacture of paper from strau', ivood, 

 &c. In September 1800, he dedicated to the 

 king a Historical accoicid of the substances irhich 

 have been used to describe events, in small folio. The 

 volume is chiefly printed on paper made from 

 straw ; the appendix is on paper 7nadefrom wood 

 alone. Both descriptions of paper have borne the 

 test of time extremely well. Murray, in his Prac- 

 tical remarks on modern paper, speaks of Koops 

 and his inventions with much ignorance and un- 

 fairness. 



Tobacco in the East (No. 33.). — Relying on the 

 testimony of Juan Fragoso, physician to Felipe II. 

 of Spain, I venture to assert that tobacco is not 

 indigenous to the East. To the same effect writes 

 Monardes. Nevertheless, it was cultivated in 

 Java as early as the year 1603. Edmund Scott, 

 factor for the East India Company at Bantam, 

 thus describes the luxuries of the Javans : — 



"They are very great eaters — and they haue a cer- 

 taine hearbe called bettaile which they vsually have car- 

 ryed with them wheresoeuer they goe, in boxes, or 

 wrapped vp in cloath like a suger loafe : and also a 

 nutt called pinange, which are both in operation very 

 hott, and they eate them continually to warnie them 

 within, and keepe them from the fluxe. They doe 

 likewise take much tobacco, and also opium." — An exact 

 discovrse etc. of the East Indians, London, 1606. 4°. 

 Sig. N. 2. 



Bolton Cornet. 



MEANING OF " BAWN." 



Bawn (Vol. i.. p. 440.) has been explained as 

 " the outer fortification, inclosing the court-yard 

 of an Irish castle or mansion, and was generally 

 composed of a wall with palisadoes, and sometimes 

 flankers." 



The word hawn or bane (the a pronounced as in 

 the English word hat) is still applied in the south 

 of Ireland to the spot of ground used as a place for 

 milking the cows of a farm, which, for obvious 

 reasons, is generally close to the farm-house. Be- 

 fore the practice of housing cattle became general, 

 every country gentleman's house had its bawn or 

 bane. The necessity for having such a place well 

 fenced, and indeed fortified, in a country and 

 period when cattle formed the chief wealth of all 

 parties, and when the country was infested by 

 Creaghadores and Rapparees, is obvious ; and 

 hence the care taken in compelling the " under- 

 takers in Ulster " to have at least " a good bawn 

 after the Irish fashion." In Munster the word 

 bane or bawn is used to express land that has been 

 long in grass; thoUnff bavm being used to signify 

 grass land about to be brought into cultivation ; 

 and tholluff breagh, or red land, land which has 

 been recently turned. To 7-edden land is still 

 used to express either to ])lough land, or, more 

 generally, to turn land with the spade. 



Now the milking field was, and is always kept 

 in grass, and necessarily receiving a good deal of 

 manure, would usually be luhite from the growth 

 of dnisies and white clover. Hence such a field 

 would be called the white field : and from this to 

 the general application of the phrase to grass land 

 the transition is easy and natural. It may be 

 proper to add, that in Kerry, particularly, the 

 word is pronounced bawn, in speaking Irish ; but 

 the same person will call it bane, if mentioning 

 such land in English. The a in the latter word is, 

 as I said before, pronounced like the a in hat. 



The Irish for a cow being bo, the phrase may 

 have had its origin therefrom. On this matter, as 

 on all relating to Irish antiquities, the readers of 

 "Notes and Queries" may be glad to have a 

 sure person to refer to ; and they cannot refer to 

 a more accomplished Irish scholar and antiquarian 

 than " Eugene Curry." His address is, " Royal 

 Irish Academy, Grafton Street, Dublin." 



Kerriensis. 



ilcpItE^ to iHtiinr CBnerff^. 



Births, Marriages, &,-c.. Taxes on (Vol. ii., p. 10.). 

 — The first instance, that I am aware of, of a tax on 

 marriages in this country, occurs in the 5 of Wm. and 

 Mary, c. 21. The war in which William engaged 

 soon rendered it necessary to tax other incidents 

 of humanity; and accordingly the 6 & 7 Wm.III. 

 c. 6. was passed, granting to his Majesty certain 



