506 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 61. 



change in tbe passage from one country to another. 

 At least the "Douglas Tragedy" betrays one very 

 singular mark x)f' having lost something of the 

 original. 



In "Ribolt and Guldborg," when the lady's 

 brothers have all but overtaken the fugitives, the 

 knight addresses her thus : 



" Light down, Guldborg, my lady dear, 

 And liald our steeds by the renyes liere. 

 And e'en sae be that ye see me fa' 

 Be sure that ye never upon me ca' ; 

 And e'en sae be that ye see me bleed. 

 Be sure that ye name na' me till dead." 



Ribolt kills her father and her two eldest bro- 

 thers, and then Guldborg can no longer restrain 

 herself : 



" Uald, hald, my Ribolt, dearest mine, 

 Now belt tliy brand, for its 'mair nor time. 

 My youngest brother ye spare, O spare, 

 To my mither the dowie news to bear." 



But she has broken her lover's mysterious 

 caution, and he is mortally wounded iu conse- 

 quence : 



" When Ribolt's name she named that stound, 

 'Twas then tliat he gat his deadly wound." 



In the Scottish ballad, no such caution is given ; 

 nor is the lady's calling on her lover's name at all 

 alluded to as being the cause of his death. It is 

 so, however, as in tlie Danish version : 

 " She held his steed in her milk-white hand, 

 And never shod one tear. 

 Until that she saw her seven brethren fa'. 



And her father hard fighting, who loved her so 

 dear. 



" O hold your hand, Lord William, she said. 

 For your strokes they are wondrous sair; 

 True lovers I can get many a ane. 

 But a father I can never get mair." 



There is no note in the Kampe Viser, says Mr. 

 Jamieson, on this subject ; nor does he attempt to 

 explain it himself It has, however, a clear refer- 

 ence to a very curious Northern superstition. 



Thorkelin, in the essay on the 13erserkir, ap- 

 pended to his edition of the Kristni-Saga, tells us 

 that an old name of the Berserk frenzy was haiii- 

 remmi, i. e., strength acquired from another or 

 strange body, because it was anciently believed 

 that the persons who were liable to this freuzy 

 were mysteriously endowed, during its accesses, 

 with a strange body of uneartlily strength. If, 

 however, the Berserk was called on by his own 

 name, he lost his mysterious form, and his ordi- 

 nary strength alone remained. Thus it happens 

 in the Svarfdala Saga : 



" Gris called aloud to Klanfi, and said, ' Klanfi, 

 Klanfi I keep a fair measure,' and instantly the strength 

 which Klanfi had got in his rage, failed him ; so that 

 now he could not even lift the beam with which he had 

 been fighting." 



It is clear, therefore, continues Thorkelin, that 

 the state of men labouring under the Berserk 

 frenzy was held by some, at least, to resemble 

 that of those, who, whilst their own body lay at 

 home apparently dead or asleep, wandered under 

 other forms into distant places and countries. Such 

 wanderings were called hamfarir by the old north- 

 men ; and were held to be only capable of per- 

 formance by those who had attained the very 

 utmost skill in magic. Richard John King. 



THE KED HAND. — THE HOLT FAMILY. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 248. 45 L) 



Your correspondent Este, in allusion to the 

 arms of the Holt fiimily, in a window of the church 

 of Aston-juxta-Birmingham, refers to the tradition 

 that one of the family " murdered his cook, and 

 was afterwards compelled to adopt the red hand 

 in his arms." Este is perfectly correct in his con- 

 cise but comprehensive particulars. That which, 

 by the illiterate, is termed " the bloody hand," and 

 by them reputed as an abatement of honour, is 

 nothing more than the "Ulster badge" of dignity. 

 The trailition ad<ls, that Sir Thomas Holt nmrdered 

 the cook in a cellar, at the old family mansion, by 

 " running him through with a spit," and afterwards 

 buried him beneath the spot where the tragedy 

 was enacted. I merely revert to the subject, be- 

 cause, within the last three months, the ancient 

 family residence, where the murder is said to have 

 been comiaitted, has been levelled with the ground; 

 and among j)ersons who from their position in 

 society might be supposed to be better informed, 

 considerable anxiety has been expressed to ascer- 

 tain whether any portion of the skeleton of the 

 murdered cook has been discovered beneath the 

 flooring of the cellar, which tradition, fomented by 

 illiterate gossip, pointed out as the place of his 

 interment. Your correspondents would confer a 

 heraldic benefit if they wovdd point out other in- 

 stances — which I believe to exist — where family 

 reputation has been damaged by similar ignorance 

 in heraldic interpretation. 



The ancient liimily residence to which I have 

 referred was situated at Duddeston, a hamlet ad- 

 joining Birmingham. Here the Holts resided 

 until May, 1631, when Sir Thomas took up his 

 abode at Aston Hall, a noble structure in the 

 Elizabethan style of architecture, which, according 

 to a contemporary inscription, was commenced in 

 April, 1618, and completed in 1635. Sir Tlionias 

 was a decided royalist, and maintained his alle- 

 giance to his sovereign, although the men of Bir- 

 mingham were notorious for their disaffection, and 

 the neighbouring garrison of Edgbaston was occu- 

 pied by Parliamentarian troops. When Charles I., 

 of glorious or unhappy memory, was on his way 

 from Shrewsbury to the important battle of Edge- 



