Aug. 10. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



163 



the latter, he would have been docked of his title, 

 had he ever been Chief Justice of the reigning 

 king? 



Allow me to take this opportunity of thanking 

 L. B. L. for his extracts from the Hospitaller's 

 Survey (Vol. ii., p. 123.), which are most interest- 

 ing, and, to use a modern word, very suggestive. 



Edward Foss. 



Street..End House, near Canterbury. 



AN OLD Gur ? 



No one would at present think of any other 

 answer to a Query as to the meaning of this term 

 than that the phrase originated with the scare- 

 crows and stufied apings of humanity with which 

 the rising generation enlivens our streets on every 

 fifth of November, and dins in our ears the cry, 

 " Please to remember the guy," and that it alludes 

 to the Christian name of the culprit, Guido. 

 Have, however, any of your readers met this title, 

 or any allusion to it, in any writer previously to 

 1605? and may its attribution to the supposed 

 framer of the Gunpowder Plot only have been 

 the accidental appropriation of an earlier term of 

 popular reproacli, and which had become so since 

 the conversion of the nation to Christianity ? This 

 naturally heaped contumely and insult upon every 

 thing relating to the Druids, and the heathen su- 

 perstitions of the earlier inhabitants. 



Amongst others, Guy was a term by which, no 

 doubt, the Druids were very early designated, and 

 is cognate, with the Italian Guido and our own 

 Guide, to tlie Latin cuidure, which would give it 

 great appropriativeness when applied to the offices 

 of teachers and leaders, with which these lordly 

 flamens were invested. Narrowly connected 

 with their rites, the term has descended to the 

 present day, as is decidedly shown in the French 

 name of the mistletoe, le Gui, and as denoting the 

 priesthood. The common cry of the children at 

 Christtnas in France, au gui C an neuf, marks the 

 winter solstice, and their most solemn festival ; so 

 ai-guil-lac, as the name of new year's gifts, so neces- 

 sary and expensive to a Frenclnnan, which they 

 particularly bear in the diocese of Chartres, can 

 only be explained by referring it to the same 

 origin. In the French vocabulary at present this 

 word, as I have before observeil, is restricted to 

 the mistletoe, the visnirn ulhum of Linuieus : but in 

 Germany we have pretty much the same conver- 

 sion of a favourite druidieal plant, the trefoil, or 

 shamrock, and the cincjuefoil ; Ijoth of them go in 

 Havaria and many other parts of (iermany under 

 tiie name of Trulcn-fuss, or Druid's foot, and arc 

 thought [)otent charms in guarding fields and cattle 

 fromiiarm; but lln-re too, as witii us, possibly the 

 oldest title of guy, the term Druid, has grown into 



a name of the greatest disgrace : " Trute, Trute, 

 Saudrech" " Druid, Druid, sow dirt," is an in- 

 sidting phrase reserved for the highest ebullitions 

 of a peasant's rage in Schwaben and Franken. 



Whilst on the subject of the mistletoe, I cannot 

 forbear to mark the coincidences that run through 

 the popular notions of a country in all ages. Pliny, 

 in his very exact account of the druidieal rites, tells 

 us, when the archdruid mounted the oak to cut the 

 sacred parasite with a golden pruning-hook, two 

 other priests stood below to catch it in a white linen 

 cloth, extremely cautious lest it should fall to 

 earth. One is almost tempted to fiincy that Shak- 

 spenre was describing a similar scene when he 

 makes Hecate say — 



" Upon the corner of the moon. 

 There hangs a vap'rous drop profound, 

 I'll catch it ere it come to ground." 



In a vei-y excellent note to Dr. Giles' transla- 

 tion of Kichard of Cirencester, p. 432., he adduces 

 the opinion of Dr. Daubeny, of Oxfoixl, that as the 

 mistletoe is now so rarely found in Europe on oaks, 

 it had been exterminated with the other druidieal 

 rites on the introduction of Christianity. I am not 

 sufficiently botanist to determine how far it is 

 possible to destroy the natural habitat of a plant 

 pi'opagated by extrinsic means, and should be more 

 inclined to account for, the diffijrence then and now 

 by supposing that the Druids may have known the 

 secret of inoculating a desirable oak with the seeds 

 where birds had not done so, and practised it when 

 necessary. 



P.S. Since writing the above, I recollect that the 

 Latin verse, 



" Ad viseum Druidce : Druidce clamare solebant," 



is frequently quoted from Ovid, sometimes, and 

 that recently, specifying the Fasti. I need not 

 tell you that it is not to be found there, and I wish 

 to inquire if any of the numerous readers of your 

 valuable publication can say where I can meet 

 with it ; if classical, it is another remarkable 

 evidence of the endurance of popular customs to 

 the present day. In the ibllowing quotation from 

 Kcyssler's Treatise de Visco, the Anklopferleinstag 

 would be also a noisy demonstration datin"- from 

 druidieal times, at a period of the year not far re- 

 moved from the beginning of November. 



" In superior! Germaniae parte, Marchionatii Onols- 

 b.icensi comprehi.'nsa, cujus incolse jjlurimas Gentilismi 

 relicpiias retiiicnt, regio ipsa inultis Druidum vestigiis 

 abuiidat, tem])ore adveiitus Christ!, sive niociia Ilyeme 

 (am .^nkk)i>it;rleinstag), vulgiis per vias et pagos currit 

 malleisrjiie jiulsat fores et feiicslias iiidcsiiienter chi- 

 nians Gnlheyl! Cutheyl ! Quod (|uidein iion salutcin 

 per Christ! .idveiituin partani iudicat, tjiiasi diceres : 

 Gilt Ileyl ; Ijoiia salus ; inulto minus lictltam Sanctaiii 

 CJiintliildeni, (piam rustic! illlus tractus mlris (abuiis 

 ac imgis cclel)rant, scd nomcn ipsum visci est." 



