Oct. 4. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



261 



tiles of the island, and banished them for evei-, 

 just as St. Patrick is said to have afterwards 

 treated those of his f-ivourite isle. Whatever be 

 the cause of it, the flict is alleged by travellers to 

 be certain, that there are no venomous animals in 

 Malta. "They assured us" (says Brydone in his 

 Tour throu2;li JSici/i/ and Malta, vol. ii.p.So.) "that 

 vipers have been brought from Sicily, and died 

 almost immediately on their arrival." 



Although perhaps more strictly coming under 

 the head of folk lore, I may here advert to the 

 traditions found in several parts of England, that 

 venomous reptiles were banished by saints who 

 came to live there. I have read that Keynsham — 

 the hermitage of Keynes, a Cambrian lady, a.d. 490 

 — was infested with serpents, which were converted 

 by her prayers into the " Serpent-stones " — the 

 Cormia Anunonis — that now cover the land. A 

 similar story is told at AVhitby, where these fine 

 fossils of the Lias are called " St. Hilda's Serpent- 

 stones;" and so, too, St. Godric, the famous hermit 

 of Finchale, near Durham, is said to have destroyed 

 the native race of serpents. AV. S. G. 



Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



Kao,for Naw,for Ship (Vol. iv., pp. 28. 214.). 

 — I am obliged to Gomek. for his reference to 

 Davies. In the cited passages from Taliesin and 

 IMeigant, Jieb naw means without being able to 

 swim. The word nawv drops its final letter in order 

 to furnish the rhyme. That appears, not only from 

 the rejection of the word by all lexicographers, 

 but from one of the manuscripts of Meigant, which 

 actually writes it nawv. I esteem Davies's trans- 

 lation to be Daviesian. 



By way of a gentle pull at the torrpies, I will 

 observe, that I am not in the habit of proving that 

 people " did not possess" a thing, but of inquiring 

 lor the evidence that they did. And when I find 

 tliat tattooed and nearly naked people used cora- 

 cles, and do not fiml that they used anything 

 grandei', I am led to suspect they did not. 



-■ My answer to the Query, whether it be probable 

 that British warriors went over to Gaul in coracles 

 is, " Yes, higlily so." llude canoes of various sorts 

 convey the expeditions of savage islanders in all 

 seas. And the coracle rendered the Scots of 

 Erin formidable to the Roman shores of Gaul and 

 Britain. I do not see that the Dorsetshire folk 

 Ixiing " water-dwellers" (if so be they were such) 

 proved them to have useil proper ships, any more 

 tiian their being "water-drinkers" would prove 

 them to have used glasses or silver tankards. 



No doubt the name vavs is of the remotest heroic 

 anti([uity, and the fu'st osier bavk covered with 

 hides, or even the first excavated alder trunk, may 

 liavo been so termed ; in connexion with tiie verbal 

 form nan, contract. 110, wis, pret. wini, to float or 

 swim. But to " ailvanc; that opinion" as to Britain, 

 liccause t.wo revolted lloiuau subjects iii this pro- 



vince used the word in the sixth and seventh 

 centuries after Christ, would be late and tardy 

 proof of the fact ; even supposing that the two 

 bards in question had made use of such a noun, 

 which I dispute. A. N. 



[This communication should have preceded that in 

 No. 99., p. 214.] 



Be Grammont (Vol. iv., p. 233.). — On the 

 united authority of messieurs Auger and Renouard, 

 editors of the works of le comte Antoine Hamilton, 

 it may be affirmed that there is no edition of the 

 Menioires du comte de Grammont anterior to that 

 of 1713. M. Renouard thus expresses himself: 

 "En 1713 parnrent Ics Memoires, sans nom d'au- 

 tcur, en un vol. in -12, imprime en Hollande sous 

 la date de Cologne." Bolton Cornev. 



The Termination "-ship" (Vol. iv., p. 153.).— 

 The termination "-ship" is the Anglo-Saxon sci/9e, 

 sci/pe, from verb scipan, to create, form ; and 

 hence as a termination of nouns denotes form, 

 condition, office, dignity. Thos. LAURENCt:. 



Ashby de la Zouch. 



The Five Fingers (Vol. iv., pp. 150. 193.).— 

 With something like compunction for lavishing on 

 Macrobius and his prosy compeers so manv pre- 

 cious hours of a life that is waning flist, permit me 

 to refer you to his Saturnalia, vii. 13., ed. Gryph. 

 1560, p. 722., for the nursery n.ames of the five 

 fingers. They nearly coincide with those still de- 

 noting those useful implements in one of the Low- 

 ISTorman isles, to wit, Gros det, ari det Qiari det ?), 

 longuedon or mousqneton, Jean des sceas, cowtelas. 

 The said Jean des sceas Is, of course, " John of the 

 Seals," the "annularis" or ring-finger of Macro- 

 bius and the Anglican Oflice-Book. Among the 

 Hebrews Q''n'?N* ysyX, "the finger of God," de- 

 noted His power ; and it was the forefinger, among 

 the gods of Greece and Italy, which wore the ring, 

 the emblem of divine supremacy. G. M. 



Maj-rlages within mined Churches (Vol. Iv., 

 p. 231.). — The beautiful old church of St. John 

 in the Wilderness, near Exmouth, is in ruins. 

 Having In 1S50 asked the old man who points out 

 Its battered beauties, why there were still books In 

 the reading desks, he informed me that marriages 

 and funeral services were still performed there. 

 Tills, however, is my only authority on the subject. 



Seleucus. 



Death of Cervantes {Yo\. iv., p. 116.).— No doubt 

 now exists that the death of Cervantes occurrcil on 

 the 23rd of April, 161G, and not the 20th of that 

 month, whi<:h Smollett represents .as the received 

 date. In the Spanish Academy's edition, the mag- 

 nificent one of 1780, as v^ell as in that of 1797, It is 

 so affirmed. In the former we read that on the 

 l.Slh he received the sacrament of extrouvi unction 

 with great calmness of spirit. It then adds ; 



