Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851

Meaning of Cefn.—What is the meaning of the Welsh word "Cefn" used as prefix?

    Josephus.

1. The first meaning of the word "Cefn" is, "the back;" e.g. "Cefn dyn," "the back of a man."

2. It also signifies "the upper part of the ridge of some elevated and exposed land." As a prefix, its meaning depends upon the fact whether the word attached to it be an adjective or a substantive. If an adjective be attached, it has the second signification; i.e. it is the upper part of some exposed land, having the particular quality involved in the adjective, such as, "Cefndu," "Cefngwyn," "Cefncoch," the black, white, or red headland.

When a substantive is attached, it has the first signification; i.e. it is the back of the thing signified by the substantive; such as, "Cefnllys," the back of the court.

    E. L.

Portrait of Archbishop Williams (Vol. iii., p. 8.).—There is a portrait of this prelate in the library of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, in the Cloisters. The greater part of the archbishop's library was given to this library, but only one volume of it seems to have been preserved. It is of this library the remark is made in J. Beeverell, Délices de la Grande Bretagne, p. 847., 12mo., 1707:

"Il se trouve dans le cloistre une bibliothèque publique, qui s'ouvre soir et matin pendant les séances des Cours de Justice dans Westminstre."

    μ.

Sir Alexander Cumming (Vol. iii., p. 39.).—In answer to an inquiry relative to Sir Alexander Cumming, of Culter, I may refer to the Scottish Journal (Menzies, Edin. 1848) of Topography, Antiquities, Traditions, &c., vol. ii. p. 254., where an extract from a MS. autobiography of the baronet is given. The work in which this occurs is little known; but, as a repertory of much curious and interesting information, deserved a more extensive circulation than it obtained. It stopped with the second volume, and is now somewhat scarce, as the unsold copies were disposed of for waste paper.

Pater-noster Tackling (Vol. iii., p. 89.).—Pater-noster fishing-tackle, so called in the shops, is used to catch fish (perch, for instance) which take the bait at various distances between the surface and the bottom of the water. Accordingly, hooks are attached to a line at given intervals throughout its length, with leaden shots, likewise regularly distributed, in order to sink it, and keep it extended perpendicularly in the water.

This regularity of arrangement, and the resemblance of the shots to beads, seems to have caused the contrivance to have been, somewhat fancifully, likened to a chaplet or rosary. In a rosary there is a bead longer than the rest, for distinction's sake called the Pater-noster; from whence that name applies to a rosary; and, therefore, to anything likened to it; and, therefore, to the article of fishing-tackle in question.

The word pater-noster, i.e. pater-noster-wise, is an heraldic term (vide Ash's Dictionary), applied to beads disposed in the form of a cross.

    Robert Snow.

Welsh Words for Water (Vol. iii., p. 30.).—

"It is quite surprising," says Sharon Turner (Trans. of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. i. pt. i. p. 97.), "to observe that, in all the four quarters of the world, many nations signify this liquid by a vocable of one or more syllables, from the letter M."

He mentions the Hebrew word for it, mim; in Africa he finds twenty-eight examples, in Asia sixteen, in South America five, in North America three, in Europe three; and elsewhere, in Canary Islands one, in New Zealand one. He adds—

"We trace the same radical in the Welsh more, the sea, and in the Latin mare, humor, humidus.[27 - He may have added the Armoric or Breton mor, mar; and the Irish muir, mara.]

"All these people cannot be supposed to have derived their sound from each other. It must have descended to them from some primitive source, common to all."

From the expression used by J. W. H., "the connexion of the Welsh dwr with the Greek ὕδωρ is remarkable," he appears not to have known that Vezron found so many resemblances in the Doric or Laconic dialect, and the Celtic, that he thereupon raised the theory that the Lacedæmonians and the Celts were of the same—the Titanic—stock.

    T. J.

Early Culture of the Imagination (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—The germ of the thought alluded to by Mr. Gatty is as ancient as the time of Plato, and may be found in the Republic, book ii. c. 17. If this will aid Mr. Gatty in his research, it is gladly placed at his disposal by

    Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie.

January 20. 1851.

Venville (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—R. E. G. inquires respecting the origin of this word, as applied to certain tenants round Dartmoor Forest. The name is peculiar to that district, and is applied chiefly to certain vills or villages (for the most part also parishes), and to certain tenements within them, which pay fines to the Lord of Lidford and Dartmoor, viz. the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall. The fines are supposed to be due in respect either of rights of common on the forest, or of trespasses committed by cattle on it; for the point is a vexata quæstio between the lord and tenants of Dartmoor and the tenants of the Venville lands, which lie along the boundaries of it. In the accounts rendered to the lord of these fines, there was a distinct title, headed "Fines Villarum" when these accounts were in Latin; and I think it cannot be doubted that the lands and tenures under this title came to be currently called Finevill lands from this circumstance. Hence Fenvill, Fengfield, or Venvill; the last being now the usual spelling and pronunciation. R. E. G. may see a specimen of these accounts, and further observations on them, in Mr. Rowe's very instructive Perambulation of Dartmoor, published a year or two ago at Plymouth.

    E. S.

Cum Grano Salis (Vol. iii., p. 88.) simply means, with a grain of allowance; spoken of propositions which require qualification. The Cambridge man's explanation, therefore, does not suit the meaning. I have always supposed that salis was added to denote a small grain. I find in Forcellini that the Romans called a small flaw in crystals sal.

    C. B.

Hoops (Vol. iii., p. 88.).—The examples given in Johnson's article Farthingale will sufficiently answer the question. Farthingales are mentioned in Latimer with much indignant eloquence:

"I trow Mary had never a verdingale."

If the question had been, not whether they were in use as early as 1651, but whether they were in use in 1651, perhaps there would have been more difficulty, for they do not appear in Hollar's dresses, 1640.

    C. B.

Cranmer's Descendants (Vol. iii., p. 8.).—It may be of some interest to C. D. F. to be informed, that the newspapers of the time recorded the death of Mr. Bishop Cranmer of Wivelescombe, co. Somerset, on the 8th April, 1831, at the age of eighty-eight. He is said to have been a direct descendant of the martyred archbishop, to whose portraits he bore a strong personal resemblance.

    J. D. S.

Shakspeare's Use of the Word "Captious" (Vol. ii., p. 354.).—Why may not the word have the same meaning as it has now? A captious person is not primarily a deceitful person, but either one who catches at any argument to uphold his own cause, or, more generally, one who catches or cavils at arguments or expressions used by another, and fastens a frivolous objection on them; one who takes exception to a point on paltry and insufficient grounds:

"Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love."

i.e. yet into this sieve, which catches at, and yet never holds them, I still pour the waters of my love.

There seems to me a double meaning of the word captious, indicating an under-current of thought in the author; first, the literal sense, then the inferential: "this sieve catches at and seems as if it would intercept the waters of my love, but takes me in, and disappoints me, because it will not uphold them." The objection to explaining captious by simply fallacious, is that the word means this by inference or consequence, rather than primarily. Because one who is eager to controvert, i.e. who is captious, generally, but not always, acts for a sophistical purpose and means to deceive. Cicero, I believe, uses fallax and captiosus as distinct, not as synonymous, terms.

    E. A. D.

Boiling to Death (Vol. ii., p. 519.).—

"Impoysonments, so ordinary in Italy, are so abominable among English, as 21 Hen. 8. it was made high treason, though since repealed; after which the punishment for it was to be put alive in a caldron of water, and there boiled to death: at present it is felony without benefit of clergy."—Chamberlayne's State of England,—an old copy, without a title-page.

Judging from the list of bishops and maids of honour, I believe the date to be 1669.

    Wedsecnarf.

Dozen of Bread (Vol. ii., p. 49.).—The Duchess of Newcastle says of her Nature's Picture:

"In this volume there are several feigned stories, &c. Also there are some morals and some dialogues; but they are as the advantage loaf of bread to the baker's dozen." 1656.

    Wedsecnarf.

Friday Weather (Vol. iii., p. 7.).—A very old friend of mine, a Shropshire lady, tells me that her mother (who was born before 1760) used to say that Friday was always the fairest, or the foulest, day of the week.

    Wedsecnarf.

Saint Paul's Clock (Vol. iii., p. 40.).—In reply to Mr. Campkin's Query, I send you the following extract from Easton's Human Longevity (London, 1799):

"James Hatfield died in 1770, aged 105. Was formerly a soldier: when on duty as a centinel at Windsor, one night, at the expiration of his guard, he heard St. Paul's clock, London, strike thirteen strokes instead of twelve, and not being relieved as he expected he fell asleep; in which situation he was found by the succeeding guard, who soon after came to relieve him; for such neglect he was tried by a court-martial, but pleading that he was on duty his legal time, and asserting, as a proof, the singular circumstance of hearing St. Paul's clock strike thirteen strokes, which, upon inquiry, proved true—he was in consequence acquitted."