HEXHAM-MONSTRELLET-FORDUN. 249 dients; and she found out a method to remind this prince of their former amity. Craftine, a musician of her father's court, was her confidant. [Antiquity and Use of Rings.] tians ought to do. "SOME do say, that the first rings knowne to She sent him privately to France, with a letter be worne, was in the remembrance of Promeand a rich present of jewels to Maon. After de-theus, who (as the Poets faigned), beeing chained livering his credentials, he played on his harp, to a rocke by the appointment of Jupiter, was and sung to it an ode in which he was praised delivered by Hercules, with the permission of with great delicacy, and his principal actions Jupiter; with this condition neverthelesse, that boldly recorded; concluding with a wish, that in perpetual memory of his imprisonment, the he would for the future exert his power to re- said Prometheus stood obliged to weare incescover his country, and revenge the blood of his santly a ring of gold, enchased with a stone of father and grandfather. He enquired who the the rocke whereto hee was prisoner; and thereauthor of this ode was. To be praised by the by some hold that the use of rings tooke thence fair, is the highest gratification to a generous the first beginning. Pliny and many other aumind: Craftine told him it was the lovely Mo-thors reputed this discours for a fable, as al Chrisriat herself. At once all his former tenderness revived, and love and glory now only employed his thoughts. He sends back the harper, with private instructions to his friends; and solicits aid of the monarch of France, to support his pretensions to the throne of Ireland. His request is granted, and with a select body of Gauls, he invades both Scotland and Ireland. He himself landed in the harbour of Wicklow; and being informed that Cobhthaigh kept his court at Dindrigh, near the Barrow, in Leinster, thither he immediately marched his troops, attacked this fortress sword in hand, and put the garrison to the sword, &c."-O'HALLORan. [Curious Custom in the Netherlands of the Widow laying the Keys upon the Coffin of her Insolvent Husband.] In the Netherlands there is a custom, when a man dies insolvent, that the widow lays the keys upon the coffin, to signify that she is not able to pay his debts. This they call de sleutel op de kist leggin.-HEXHAM'S Dictionary. [Custom of placing Girdle, Purse, and Keys on the Coffin of a Deceased Husband, and so renouncing his Debts.] AFTER the death of the good Duke of Burgundy (1404), the corpse was placed in his chapel, where a solemn service was performed. The duchess Margaret there renounced her claim to his moveables, from fear of the debts being too great, by placing her girdle, with her purse and keys, on the coffin, as is the usual custom in such cases, and demanded that this act should be put into writing by a public notary there present. MONSTRELLET, vol. 1, p. 112. [Further Instance of a Wiaow's Renunciation of Debts and Estates, by placing Belt and Purse on her Husband's Tomb.] "1415. AFTER the death of Waleran, Count de Saint Pol, his widow publicly renounced, by her attorney, all the debts and estates of her late lord, excepting her dower, by placing on his tomb his belt and purse, of which act she demanded from the public notaries present to have certificates drawn up."-MONSTRELLET, vol. 4, p. 123. "Plinie discoursing on the antiquitie of rings, saith, that they were not in use in the war time betweene the Greekes and Troians: considering that Homer, who wrote thereof very amply, maketh no mention at all of rings, much lesse that they sealed then with rings. And yet notwithstanding, he speaketh sufficiently of chains and bracelets, which were at that time worne, and of the manner of closing and sealing letters: so that if rings had then bin in use, Homer would never have let it sleepe in silence. "But the good olde man Plinie, cannot overreach us with his idle arguments and conjectures; for we read in Genesis that Joseph, who lived above five hundred and fifty yeares before the warres of Troy, having expounded the dreame of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was by the sayde prince made superintendent over his kingdom, and for his safer possession in that estate, he tooke off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand. And surely kings did not onely weare rings in those times, because we reade that Thamar, desiring to have issue by the race of Judah, her father-in-lawe (who was brother to Joseph), had his company under colour of beeing a common whoore, and received as presents from him, his staffe and his ring. In Moses' time, which was more than foure hundred yeares before Troy warres, wee find rings to be then in use; for we reade that they were comprehended in the ornaments which Aaron the high priest should weare, and they of his posteritie afterward, as also it was avouched by Josephus. 66 Whereby appeareth plainely, that the use of rings was much more ancient than Plinie reporteth them in his conjectures: but as he was a Pagan, and ignorant in sacred writings, so it is no marvell, if these things went beyond his knowledge."-Treasurie of Auncient and Moderne 1619. Times. [Why there are no Venemous Animals in Ireland.] "IRELAND is now much cleared from venemous animals, and this by the merits of Saints Patrick, Columba, and Bridget. And the cause of this purification is, as I have found in an old writing, that these saints foreknowing by the Spirit the nature of the people who would inhabit that land, and who would have hearts so venemous, and 250 STODDART-LE MOYNE-JOHNES-ZURITA-F. LOPEZ, ETC. filled with cunning and malice, prone to theft, rapacity, and murder, that if the reptiles should be according to their nature as violently venemous, few or none could possess the Irish soil. But expecting that if the poison should be taken away from beasts, and from the surface of the earth, and the land itself cleared from all hurtfal infection, it would be to them as a polished glass for contemplating their own proper species, and for reforming their wild and inhuman manners. And as BEDA says, so great is the virtue of the Irish soil, that even being brought to distant nations, by its touch all venemous animals die and perish. But, oh grief! the venom which God has withheld from spiders, toads, and reptiles, acquires strength beyond measure in the human nature."-FORDUN. Rosline Castle. [Ancient Arms of the Flemings.] WHEN the Flemings assembled under the Duke of Burgundy to besiege the town of Ham (1410), "they had twelve thousand carriages, as well carts as cars, to convey their armour, baggage and artillery; and a number of very large cross-bows, called ribaudequins, placed on two wheels, each having a horse to draw it. They had also machines for the attack of towns, behind which were long iron spits, to be used towards the close of a battle, and on each of them was mounted one or two pieces of artille ry."-JOHNES's Monstrellet, vol. 2, p. 288. [Change of Arms in Spain.] WHEN Trastamara brought his White Company from France, estava toda la tierra llena de Franceses, Gascones, Normandos, Bretones, y Ingleses, con differentes armas y trages; y entonces se affirma, que començaron a usar en España las armas que llamavan de bacinetes, y cotas, y arneses de pieças de piernas y braços, y los que dezian glavios, y dagas y estoques; porque en lo antiguo usaron perpuntes y capellinas y lanças, y como antes dezian hombres de cavallo de armas, y ahorrados, por lo que agora se dize a la ligera, de alli adelante dixeron lanças." "A SINGULAR instance of a kind of chivalrous superstition was related to me by the Hon. Mrs. Mackay, who, with her amiable daughters, resided here a few seasons ago. As these ladies were sitting together one morning, they were surprised by the arrival of a party of soldiers, who requested permission to explore some of the subterranean chambers, where they had learnt from tradition that a knight was kept confined by enchantment. It would have been a pity to-ZURITA, vol. 2, p. 342. balk the enterprising spirit of these young heroes, and they were accordingly suffered to descend with torches. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the adventure terminated as unsuccessfully as Don Quixote's visit to the cave of Montesinos."-STODDART. [Change of Military Terms in Portugal.] "SABEY que antiguamente em Portugal nom nomeavom nas batalhas a vanguarda, nem reguarda, nem ala discita, nem esquerda; mas chamavao a vanguarda dianteira, et a reguarda catua, et as alas costaneiras, et depois que os Ingreses vierom em tempo del R. D. Fernando, entom lhe chamarom estes nomes."-F. LOPEZ, 2, c. 32. [Martin de Clocestra's Translation of L'Histoire de Bretaigne from the Latin into the Romaunt.] "L'HISTOIRE de Bretaigne quon nommi Brutus, que Maistre Martin de Clocestre translata de Latin en rommant."-MERLIN, 1, ff. 13. [Ancient Care of Sheep in Wales.] "SHEEP ought to be housed in the beginning of spring, when they are bringing forth lambs, and in winter they should be turned to places under the influence of the sun; and thou art not to fold them too much on fallow land. Shear them at Michaelmas, so that the marks of the shears may disappear upon them against the winter, and do not milk them later than August."-Ancient Welsh Husbandry. Commercial and Agricultural Magazine, vol. 2, p. 181. [Fanciful Danger from Umbrellas.] "In hot regions, to avoide the beames of the FYNES MORYSON-BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, ETC. 251 sunne, in some places (as in Italy) they carry ily sleeps not so heavily that he is not ready and umbrels, or things like a little canopy over their prepared, for as often as they suspect the apheads, but a learned physician told me, that the proach of an enemy, the watchmen awake him, use of them was dangerous, because they gather to play the man, and repel the enemy from his the heate into a pyramidale point, and thence door, and if need be, to meet them hand to hand cast it down perpendicularly upon the head, ex-in the field, and contend with the sword."— cept they know how to carry them for avoyding that danger."-FYNES MORYSON. [A Faith to Die in.] That we will die in, since from the Black-Guard BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. [Lent-Lard.] LENT-LARD was sold in Paris and other parts of France, as being the fat of the porpoise. LERY RICH. STANIHURSTUS de rebus in Hibernia gestis, lib. 1, p. 33. [The Sword of the Cid.] BAUTISTA DIAMANTI. La Devoicon del Rosario. In the Cancionero General (Seville, 1540) is a says, "it is far too thick for this, and supposes it de Sant Juan, y en la palma una a, y dixo therefore to be the fat of the whale."-C. 3. "THEY particularly protect themselves with Con esta letra demas Otro galan saco el Infierno, y dixo Señora vedes me aqui donde esto y a vos espero; El Adelantado de Murcia. Pedro Fajardo, traya en el lado yzguierdo encima del coraçon un monton de perlas, y una Cruz de oro encima de manera de los mojones que pouen en los caminos donde han muerto algun hombre; y dezia la letra Aqui yaze sepultado Un galan saco por cimera un Diablo que le ponia el nombre de su amiga por la visera del yelmo, y dixo, Vade retro Sathanas, que desse nombre no huyo, y pues sabes que soy suyo a castle watch, lest a nightly attack should be Don Alonso Carrillo saco unas matas de hortigas. Estas tienen las maneras made upon them whilst they slept. Wherefore lest any such evil should by night befall them, they have watchmen on the tops of their castles, who often shout out, and wake the greater part of the night, frequently crying aloud. And they repeat these shouts, that thieves and night travellers may understand that the master of the fam- Gercisanches de Badajoz saco por cimera un Di 1 So Theocritus, in the contest of Pollux with Amycus, ablo, y dixo Mas penado, y mas perdido IDYLL, Xxii., 83. y menos arrepentido. ἔνθα πολυς σφισι μόχθος ἐτειγομένοισιν ἐτύχθη, από τερος κατὰ νῶτα λάβῃ φάος ηελίοιο. 252 M. LUSITANI-MARCA-S. ISIDORE-WALKER. Enrique de Montagudo saco un fierro con que | method very remarkable. The Bishop of Derseñalan los cavallos, y la barva de los esclavos;ry happening to be at dinner, there came in an y dixo en Valenciano. Dun gran mal lostemps ne resta señal. Mossen Luys de Montagudo saco por cimera la coluna que puso Hercoles en cabo del mundo. Si el cabo de hermosura [Story of K. Ramiro and Ortiga.] THAT odd story of K. Ramiro, and Ortiga is so far true that he did leave children by Alboazar's sister, but as the one was called Cid Alboazar Ramirez, the name surely disproves the circumstance of that kingling's death. This Cide was one of the great recoverers of Portugal, and from him the Amayas, the Cunhas, the Tavoras and the Teyves were descended. One branch of the Amayas took this last name, because they were persecuted by Braganza and Affonso V. for their adherence to D. Pedro.-M. LUSITANA, 2, c. 7, p. 26. [Alaric and the Enchanted Statue.] It was believed that Alaric was prevented from crossing over to invade Sicily by means of an enchanted statue, which had a perpetual fire burning in one of its feet, and a perpetual spring flowing from the other.-MARCA, Hist. de Bearn., lib. 1, c. 13, § 6. Olympiodorus in Photius, quoted. [Gothic Skill in the Use of Arms.] "Porro in armorum artibus spectabiles satis sunt, et non solum hastis, sed et jaculis equitando confligunt."-S. ISID. In Gothorum laudem. España Sagrada, c. 6, p. 506. Irish harper, and sung an old song to his harp; his lordship not understanding Irish, was at a "THERE was a recent instance (in 1785) of the grave of an Irish hero being discovered in a manner somewhat similar, it is related in the poem of Cath Gabhra, that Canan, while sacrificing to the sun on one of the mountains of Clare, was treacherously murdered; and that his body was interred near a Druid's altar, under a stone, inscribed with an epitaph in Ogham characters. So minutely is the spot described in the poem, that Mr. Theophilus O'Flannagan was tempted on reading the passage to propose to the Royal Irish Academy to seek for the monumental stone under their auspices; his proposal was acceded to, he went and succeeded."WALKER's Irish Bards. Grave of Arthur. [Hapless Land of Ireland. Bardish Strains.] "OH the condition of our dear countrymen! how languid their joys! how pressing their sorrows! the wrecks of a party ruined! their wounds still rankling! the wretched crew of a vessel tossed long about, finally cast away. Are we not the prisoners of the Saxon nation? the captives of remorseless tyranny? Is not our sentence therefore pronounced, and our destruction inevitable? frightful, grinding thought! Pow er exchanged for servitude; beauty for deformity; the exultations of liberty for the pangs of slavery—a great and brave people for a servile "ON the decease of an hero, it was said, the desponding race. How came this transformaharps of his bards emitted mournful sounds. tion shrouded in a mist which bursts down on This is very probable; for the bards, while sor-you like a deluge; which covers you with sucrowing for their patron, usually suspended to trees their neglected harps, from whose loosen ed strings the passing gales might brush soft plaintive tones. Here we have the origin of the Benshi, an invisible being, which is alledged to be still heard in this country and in the Highlands of Scotland, crying most piteously, on the death of the descendant of an ancient house."WALKER'S Irish Bards. [Origin of the Benshi.] cessive inundations of evil; ye are not the same people! Need I appeal to your senses? but what sensations have you left? In most parts of the island how hath every kind of illegal and extra-judicial proceeding taken the pay of law and equity? and what must that situation be, wherein our only security (the suspension of our excision) must depend upon an intolerable subservience to lawless law? In truth, our miseries were predicted a long time, in the change these strangers wrought in the face of our coun[Interred Gold discovered from a Harper's Song try. They have hemmed in our sporting lawns, in Ireland.] -- "NEAR Ballyshannon were, not many years ago, dug up two pieces of gold, discovered by a the former theatres of glory and virtue. They have wounded the earth, and they have disfigured with towers and ramparts those fair fields which FEARFLATHA O'GNIVE-WALTER HARRIS-FULLER, ETC. 253 Nature bestowed for the support of God's animal | it, that out of the ashes of dead saints living ones creation, that Nature which we see defrauded, should spring and sprout."-FULLER, in his and whose laws are so wantonly counteracted, Epistle Prefatory to Abel Redivivus. that this late free Ireland is metamorphosed into a second Saxony. The slaves of Ireland no longer recognise their common mother, she equally disowns us for her children-we both have lost our forms, and what do we see, but insulting Saxon natives, and native Irish aliens! Hapless land! thou art a bark through which the sea hath burst its way: we hardly discover any part of you in the hands of the plunderer. Yes! the plunderer hath refitted you for his own habitation, and we are new-moulded for his purposes. Ye Israelites of Egypt! ye wretched inhabitants of this foreign land! is there no relief for you? Is there no Hector left for the defence, or rather for the recovery of Troy? It is thine, O my God, to send us a second Moses. Thy dispensations are just! and unless the children of the Scythian Eber Scot return to thee, old Ireland is not doomed to arise out of the ashes of modern Saxony."-Fear flatha O'Gnive. WALKER's Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards. [Fostering.] "As to the particular of fostering, whatever mischiefs might have flowed from the abuse of the custom, yet it cannot be denied but that it antiently proved a strong link to bind affections and interests together for laudable purposes, not only of the fosterers and fostered, but of the friends and relations on each side. An antient writer' of the Life of St. Cadroc has this passage, 'It is the custom of Ireland, that they who nurse the children of noblemen, think themselves ever after intitled to the aid and protection of such children in as high a degree as if they had been their parents.' Stanihurst carries the point very far in regard to the fidelity between foster breth ren. 'You cannot,' says he, 'find one instance of perfidy, deceit, or treachery among them; nay, they are ready to expose themselves to all manner of dangers for the safety of those who sucked their mother's milk; you may beat them to a mummy, you may put them upon the rack, you may burn them on a gridiron, you may expose them to the most exquisite tortures that the cruellest tyrant can invent, yet you will never remove them from that innate fidelity which is grafted in them, you will never induce them to betray their duty.' Even Cambrensis, who upon other occasions could not afford a good word to the Irish, in this particular is forced to own, though with an ill grace, that if any love or faith is to be found among the Irish, you must look for it among the fosterers and their fosterchildren.'"-WALTER HARRIS. Stapleton. "It has been remarked by the Papists, that he was born the very day whereon Sir Thomas More was put to death, Providence so ordering 1 Colgan. Act. Sanct., p. 496, ch. 10. [Elves and Gibelynes.] "THE opinion of faeries and elfes is very olde, and yet sticketh very religiously in the mindes of some. But to roote that rancke opinion of elfes out of men's harts, the truth is, that there be no such thing, nor yet the shadowes of the things, but only by a sort of balde fryers and knavish shavelings so faigned, which as in other things, so in that, sought to nousel the common people in ignorance, least, being once acquainted with the truth of things, they would in time smell out the untruth of their pelfe and massepeny religion. But the soothe is, that when all Italy was distract into the factions of the Geulfes and the Gibelyns, being two famous houses in Florance, the name began through their great mischiefes and many outrages, to be so odious or rather dreadful in the peoples eares, that if their children at any time were froward and wanton, they would say to them that the Guelfe or the Gibelyne came which words now from them, as many things else, be come into our usage, and for Guelfes and Gibelynes, we say Elfes and Gibelynes."-E. K. Comment on Spenser's Shepheard's Calendar. [Airghtheach, or, of Silver: Origin of the Term.] "THE epithet Airghtheach, or of silver, was bestowed on Eadhna, as being the first Irish prince that caused shields and targets of pure silver to be fabricated at Airgidros; which with chariots and fine horses he bestowed on the most intrepid of his soldiers, as the reward of merit. This mode of honour was not peculiar to the Irish nation; since we read that Solomon caused three hundred targets of beaten gold and thirty shields of the same metal to be made for similar purposes."-O'HALLoran. [Moran the Wise.] "So great was the reputation of Moran for wisdom and justice, that the gold collar he wore round his neck was used by all his successors, and so wonderful were the effects attributed to it, that the people were taught to believe that whoever gave a wrong decree with this round his neck, was sure to be compressed by it, in proportion to his diverging from the line of truth; but in every other instance it would hang loose and easy. "The supposed virtue of this collar was a wonderful preservative from perjury and prevarication, for no witness would venture into a court to support a bad cause, as he apprehended the effects of it, if placed round his neck. This cannot be better illustrated than by observing that, even at this day, to swear dar an Joadh Mhoran, by the collar of Moran, is deemed a most solemn appeal."-Ibid. |