Aug. 17. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



181 



« Newes from any- whence, or, Old Truth under a 

 supposal of Nouettie." 



Chaucer uses for the newe and of (he nerve (sc. 

 fashion) elliptically. Tiding or Tidings, from the 

 A.-S.Tib-an, evidently preceded newes in the sense 

 of intelligence, and may not ?iewes therefore be an 

 elliptic form of new-tidinges f Or, as our ancestors 

 had newelte and neweltes, can it have been a contrac- 

 tion of the latter ? If we are to suppose with Mr. 

 Hickson that neivs was " adopted bodily into the 

 language," we must not go to the High-German, 

 from which our early language has derived 

 scarcely anything, but to the Neder-Duytsch, from 

 the frequent and constant communication with the 

 Low Countries in the sixteenth century. The fol- 

 lowing passages from Kilian's y/iesawnw, printed by 

 Plantin, at Antwerp, in 1573, are to the purpose, 

 and may serve to show how the word was formed : — 



" Nieuwlijdinge, oft wat niiuivs, Nouvelles, Nuntius 

 vel Nuntium." 



" Seght ons wat nieuivs, Dicte nous quelquechose 

 de nouveau, Recita nobis aliquid novi." 



'■ Nieuwsffierich, vygitrich, Convoiteux de nou- 

 veautez, Cupidus novitatis." 



I trust these materials may bo acceptable to your 

 able correspondents, and tend to the resolution of 

 the question at issue. S. W. Singer. 



Mickleham, August 6. 1S50. 



" News" Origin of the Word (Vol. i., pp. 270. 

 369. 487. ; vol. ii., pp. 23. 81. IOC). —Your corre- 

 spondents who have written upon this subject may 

 not have seen the following note in Zimperley's 

 Encyclopcedia, p. 472. : — 



" The original orthography was newes, and in the 

 shigular. Jolmson has, however, decided that the 

 word newes is a substantive without a singular, unless 

 it he considered as singular. Tiie word ?iew, according 

 to Wacliter, is of very ancient use, and is common to 

 many nations. Tlie Britons, and the Anu;lo-Saxons, 

 had tlie word, though not the thing. It was first 

 printed by Caxton in the modern sense, in the Siege 

 of Hhodes, which was translated by John Kay, the Poet 

 Laureate, and printed by Caxton about tlie year 1490. 

 In the Assemlily of Foulis, which was printed by 

 William Copland in 1530, there is the following ex- 

 clamation : — 



" ' Newes ! newes ! newes I have ye ony newes ? ' 



" In the translation of the Ulnpid, by Uajihe Ro- 

 binsiMi, citizien and goldsniytbe, which was imprinted 

 l>y Abraham Nele in I5.il, we are told, ' As for mon- 

 sters, because they be no newes, of them we were 

 nothynge in(|uysitive.' Such is the rise, and such the 

 progress of the word news, which, even in 1551, was 

 still printed newes! " 



W.J. 

 Havre. 



FOLK LORE. 



Charming forWarts (Vol.i.,p. 19.; vol.ii.p. 150.). 

 — In Lord Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum, or a Natural 

 History in TenCentiiries (No. 997.), the great philo- 

 sopher gives a minute account of the practice, i'rom 

 personal experience, in the Ibllowing words : — 



" The taking away of warts, by rubbing them with 

 somewhat that afterward is put to waste and consume, 

 is a common experiment ; and I do apprehend it the 

 rather, because of mine own experience. 1 had from 

 my childhood a w.irt upon one of my fingers; after- 

 wards, when I was about sixteen years old, being then 

 at Paris, there grew upon both my hands a number of 

 warts (at least an hundred), in a month's space; the 

 English Ambassador's lady, who was a woman far 

 from superstition, told me one day she would help me 

 away with my warts ; whereupon she got a piece of 

 lard with the skin on, and rubbed the warts all over 

 with the fat side, and amongst the rest, that wart 

 which I had from my childhood ; then she nailed 

 the piece of lard with the fat towards the sun, upon 

 a post of her chamber window, which was to the 

 south. The success was, that within five weeks' space 

 all the warts went quite away, and that wart which I 

 had so long endured for company ; but at the rest I 

 did little marvel, because they came in a short time 

 and might go away in a short time again, but the going 

 of that which had stayed so long doth yet stick with 

 me. They say the like is done by rubbing of warts 

 with a green elder stick, and then burying the stick to 

 rot in muck." 



J. M. B. 



i&inar i^att^. 



Capture of Henry the Sixth. — At "Waddington 

 in Mytton stands a pile of building known as the 

 " Old Hall," once antique, but now much indeed 

 despoiled of its beauty, wliere for some time the 

 unfortunate king, Henry the Sixth, was concealed 

 after the fatal battle of Hexham, in Northumber- 

 land. Quietly seated one day at dinner, " in com- 

 pany with Dr. Manting, Dean of Windsor, Dr. 

 Bedle, and one Ellarton," his enemies came upon 

 him by surprise, but he privately escaped by a 

 back door, and tied to Brungerley stepping-stones , 

 (still partially visible in a wooden frame), where : 

 he was taken prisoner, " his legs tied together ' 

 under the horse's belly," and thus disgracefully | 

 conveyetl to the Tower in Londcm. He was be- ; 

 trayed l>y one of the Talbots of Ba^-hall Hall, who i 

 was then liigh-sherilf for the ^Vest Hiding. This ; 

 ancient house or hall is still in existence, but now ] 

 entirely converted into a building f()r farming 

 purjiosus : "Sic transit gloria mundi." Near the 

 vdiage of Waddington, there is stilt to be seen a 

 meadow known by the name of " King Henry's 

 Meadow." 



Jn Baker's Chronicle, ihe capture of the king is 

 described as having taken place " in Lincolnshire" 



