130 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[No. 39. 



made to them by Christ, tliat "The Comforter, 

 which is the Holy Ghost, whom tlie Father will 

 send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and 

 briniT all things to your remembrance, wliatsoever 

 I have said unto you." John, xiv. 2G. When "lie, 

 the Spirit of Truth, came, who shonld. guide them 

 into all truth." John xvi. 13. And tlie consequence 

 of this "unction from the Holy One" was, that 

 they "knew all things," and " needed not that any 

 man should teach them." 1 John, ii. 20. 27. 



Whit-sonduy was, therefore, the day on which 

 the Apostles were endued by (jod with wi.sdom and 

 knowledge : and my Query is, whether the root of 

 the word may not be found in the Anglo- Sa.xon 



verb, — 



Witan, to know, understand (whence our ivit, in 

 its old meaning of good sense, or cleverness ; and 

 the expression " having one"s wit^i about one," &u.) ; 

 or else, perhaps, from — 



Wisian, to instruct, show, inform ; (Ger. weisen). 

 Not beiuT an Anglo-Saxon scholar, I aui unable 

 of myself to trace the formation of the word tvitson 

 from eilher of these roots : and I should feel 

 "■reatly obliged to any of your correspondents 

 who miaht be able and willing to inform me, whe- 

 ther that form is deduceable from either of the 

 above verbs; and if so, what sense it would bear 

 in our present language. I am convinced, that 

 ivisdom day, or teaching day, would afford a very 

 far better reason for the name now applied to 

 Pentecost, than any of the reasons commonly given. 

 I should observe, that I think it incoi-rect to say 

 Whit-Sunday. It should be Whitsun (AVitesone) 

 Dav. If it is Whit Sunday, why do we say Easter 

 Dav, and not Easter Sunday ? "W^hy do we say 

 A\'hitsun-Tide ? Why does our Prayer Eook say, 

 Monday and Tuesday in Whitsun-week (just as 

 beiore, Monday and Tuesday in Easter-week) ? 

 And why do the lower classes, wdiose "vulgarisms" 

 are, in nine cases out of ten, more correct than our 

 refinements, still talk about AVhitsun Monday and 

 Whitsun Tuesday, where the more polite say, 

 AVhit Monday and Tuesday ? 



Query II. As I am u])on etymologies, let me 

 ask, may not the word 3Iass, used for the Lord's 

 Supper — which Baronius derives from the He- 

 brew viissach, an oblation, and which is com- 

 monly derived from the "missa missorum" — be 

 nothing more nor less than mess (mes, old French), 

 the meal, the repast, the supper ? We have it still 

 lingering in the ])hrase, "an officers' mess;" i.e. 

 a meal taken in common at the same table ; and 

 so, "to mess together," "messmate," and so on. 

 Compare the Moeso-Gothic, 7uats, fond : and maz, 

 which Bosworth says {A.-S. Die. sub voc. Mete) 

 is used for bread, food, in Otfrid's poetical para- 

 phrase of the Gospels, in Alemannic or High Ger- 

 man, published by Graff, Konigsberg, 1831. 



H. T. G. 

 Clapton.' 



FOLK LORE. 



Sympathetic Cures. — Possibly the following ex- 

 cerpt may enable some of your readers and Folk- 

 lore collectors to testify to the yet lingering exist- 

 ence, in localities still unvisited by the " iron 

 horse," of a superstition similar to the one referred 

 to below. I transcribe it from a curious, though 

 not very rare volume in duodecimo, entitled 

 Choice and Experimental Receipts in Phi/sick and 

 Chirurgei'y, a.i also Coi'dial and Distilled Waters 

 and Spirits, Perfumes, and other Curiosities. Col- 

 lected by the Honourable and truly learned Sir 

 Kenelm Digbv, Kt., Cluincellour to Her ]\Iajesty 

 the Queen Mother. London : Printed for H. 

 Brome, at the Star in Little Britain, 1668. 



"A Sympathetic Cure for the Tooth-ach With an 



iron nail raise and cut the gum from about the teeth 

 till it bleed, and that .some of the blood stick upon the 

 nail ; then drive it into a woodtlen beam up to the 

 head ; after this is done you never shall liave the tooth- 

 ach in all your life." The author naively adds: " But 

 whether tlie man used any spell, or said any words 

 while he drove the nail, J know not ; only I saw done 

 all that is said above. This is used by severall certain 

 persons." 



Amongst other " choice and experimental re- 

 ceipts" and "curiosities" which in this little tome 

 are recommended for the cure of some of the "ills 

 which flesh is heir to," one directs the patient to 



" Take two parts of the mas'; growing on the skull 

 of a dead man (pulled as small as you can with the 

 fingers)." 



Another enlarges on the virtue of 



" A little bag containing some powder of toads 

 calcined, so that the bag lay always upon the pit of 

 the stomach next the skin, and presently it took away all 

 pain as long as it hung there; but it you left off the 

 bag the pain returned. A bag continueth in force but 

 a month ; after so long time you must wear a fresh 

 one." 



This, he says, "a person of credit" told him. 



Henry Campkin. 

 Reform Club, June 21. 1S50. 



Cxii^e for Ague. — One of my parishioners, suf- 

 fering from ague, was advised to catch a large 

 spider and shut him up in a box. As he pines 

 away, the disease is siijiposed to wear itself out. 



L — Rectory, Somerset, July 8. 1 850. 



Eating Snakes a Charm for growing young. — 

 I send you the following illustrations of this curious 

 receipt tor growing young. Perhaps some of your 

 correspondents will furnish me with some others, 

 and some additional light on the subject. Fuller 

 says, — 



" A gentlewoman told an ancient batchelour, who 

 looked very yovny, that she thought he had eaten a 

 snalte : ' Ko, mistris,' (said he), ' it is because I never 



