Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851

GLOUCESTERSHIRE PROVINCIALISMS

To burl, burling; to shunt, &c.—In the report of the evidence regarding the death of Mrs. Hathway, at Chipping Sodbury, supposed to have been poisoned by her husband, the following dialectical expression occurs, which may deserve notice. One of the witnesses stated that he was invited by Mr. Hathway to go with him into a beer-house in Frampton Cotterell, "and have a tip," but he declined.

"Mr. H. went in and called for a quart of beer, and then came out again, and I went in. He told me 'to burl out the beer, as he was in a hurry;' and I 'burled' out a glass and gave it to him."—Times, Feb. 28.

I am not aware that the use of this verb, as a provincialism, has been noticed; it is not so given by Boucher, Holloway, or Halliwell. In the Cumberland dialect, a birler, or burler, is the master of the revels, who presides over the feast at a Cumberland bidden-wedding, and takes especial care that the drink be plentifully provided. (Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects, London, 1839.)

Boucher and Jamieson have collected much regarding the obsolete use of the verb to birle, to carouse, to pour out liquor. See also Mr. Dyce's notes on Elynour Rummyng, v. 269. (Skelton's Works, vol. ii. p. 167.). It is a good old Anglo-Saxon word—byrlian, propinare, haurire. In the Wycliffite versions it occurs repeatedly, signifying to give to drink. See the Glossary to the valuable edition lately completed by Sir F. Madden and Mr. Forshall.

In the Promptorium Parvulorum, vol i. p. 51., we find—

"Bryllare of drynke, or schenkare: Bryllyn, or schenk drynke, propino: Bryllynge of drynke," &c.

Whilst on the subject of dialectical expressions, I would mention an obsolete term which has by some singular chance recently been revived, and is actually in daily use throughout England in the railway vocabulary—I mean the verb "to shunt." Nothing is more common than to see announced, that at a certain station the parliamentary "shunts" to let the Express pass; or to hear the order—"shunt that truck," push it aside, off the main line. In the curious ballad put forth in 1550, called "John Nobody" (Strype's Life of Cranmer, App. p. 138.), in derision of the Reformed church, the writer describes how, hearing the sound of a "synagogue," namely, a congregation of the new faith, he hid himself in alarm:

"The I drew me down into a dale, wheras the dumb deer
Did shiver for a shower, but I shunted from a freyke,
For I would no wight in this world wist who I were."

In the Townley Mysteries, Ascensio Domini, p. 303., the Virgin Mary calls upon St. John to protect her against the Jews,—

"Mi fleshe it qwakes, as lefe on lynde,
To shontt the shrowres sharper than thorne,"—

explained in the Glossary, "sconce or ward off." Sewel, in his English and Dutch Dictionary, 1766, gives—"to shunt (a country word for to shove), schuiven." I do not find "shunt," however, in the Provincial Glossaries: in some parts of the south, "to shun" is used in this sense. Thus, in an assault case at Reigate, I heard the complainant say of a man who had hustled him, "He kept shunning me along: sometimes he shunt me on the road," that is, pushed me off the footpath on to the highway.

I hope that the Philological Society has not abandoned their project of compiling a complete Provincial Glossary: the difficulties of such an undertaking might be materially aided through the medium of "Notes and Queries."

    Albert Way.

THE CHAPEL OF LORETTO

Among the aerial migrations of the chapel of Loretto, it is possible that our own country may hereafter be favoured by a visit of that celebrated structure. In the mean time, as I am not aware that the contributions of our countrymen to its history have been hitherto commemorated, the following extract from a note, made by me on the spot some years ago, may not be unsuitable for publication in "Notes and Queries." As I had neither the time nor the patience which the pious, but rather prolix, Scotchman bestowed upon his composition, I found it necessary to content myself with a mere abstract of the larger portion.

The story of the holy House of Loretto is engraved on brass in several languages upon the walls of the church at Loretto. Among others, there are two tablets with the story in English, headed "The wondrus flittinge of the kirk of our blest Lady of Laureto." It commences by stating that this kirk is the chamber of the house of the Blessed Virgin, in Nazareth, where our Saviour was born; that after the Ascension the Apostles hallowed and made it a kirk, and "S. Luke framed a pictur to har vary liknes thair zit to be seine;" that it was "haunted with muckle devotione by the folke of the land whar it stud, till the people went after the errour of Mahomet," when angels took it to Slavonia, near a place called Flumen: here it was not honoured as it ought to be, and they took it to a wood near Recanati, belonging to a lady named Laureto, whence it took its name. On account of the thieveries here committed, it was again taken up and placed near, on a spot belonging to two brothers, who quarrelled about the possession of the oblations offered there; and again it was removed to the roadside, near where it now stands. It is further stated that it stands without foundations, and that sixteen persons being sent from Recanati to measure the foundations still remaining at Nazareth, they were found exactly to agree:

"And from that tim fourth it has beine surly ken'd that this kirk was the Cammber of the B. V. whereto Christian begun thare and has ever efter had muckle devotione, for that in it daily she hes dun and dus many and many mirakels. Ane Frier Paule, of Sylva, an eremit of muckle godliness who wond in a cell neir, by this kirk, whar daily he went to mattins, seid that for ten zeirs, one the eighth of September, tweye hours before day, he saw a light descende from heaven upon it, whelk he seyd was the B. V. wha their shawed harselfe one the feest of her birthe."

Then follows the evidence of Paule Renalduci, whose grandsire's grandsire saw the angels bring the house over the sea: also the evidence of Francis Prior, whose grandsire, a hunter, often saw it in the wood, and whose grandsire's grandsire had a house close by. The inscription thus terminates:—

"I, Robt. Corbington, priest of the Companie of Iesus in the zeir MDCXXXV., have treulie translated the premisses out of the Latin story hanged up in the seid kirk."

    S. Smirke.

FOLK LORE

"Nettle in Dock out" (Vol. iii., p. 133.).—If your correspondent will refer to The Literary Gazette, March 24, 1849, No. 1679., he will find that I gave precisely the same explanation of that obscure passage of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, lib. iv., in a paper which I contributed to the British Archæological Association.

    Fras. Crossley.

[We will add two further illustrations of this passage of Chaucer, and the popular rhyme on which it is founded. The first is from Mr. Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Use in Wiltshire, where we read—

"When a child is stung, he plucks a dock-leaf, and laying it on the part affected, sings—

'Out 'ettle
In dock
Dock shall ha a new smock;
'Ettle zhant
Ha' narrun.'"

Then follows a reference by Mr. Akerman to the passage in Troilus and Creseide.—Our second illustration is from Chaucer himself, who, in his Testament of Love (p. 482 ed. Urry), has the following passage:

"Ye wete well Ladie eke (quoth I), that I have not plaid raket, Nettle in, Docke out, and with the weathercocke waved."

Mr. Akerman's work was, we believe, published in 1846; and, at all events, attention was called to these passages in the Athenæum of the l2th September in that year, No. 985.]

Soul separates from the Body.—In Vol. ii., p. 506., is an allusion to an ancient superstition, that the human soul sometimes leaves the body of a sleeping person and takes another form; allow me to mention that I remember, some forty years ago, hearing a servant from Lincolnshire relate a story of two travellers who laid down by the road-side to rest, and one fell asleep. The other, seeing a bee settle on a neighbouring wall and go into a little hole, put the end of his staff in the hole, and so imprisoned the bee. Wishing to pursue his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his companion, but was unable to do so, till, resuming his stick, the bee flew to the sleeping man and went into his ear. His companion then awoke him, remarking how soundly he had been sleeping, and asked what had he been dreaming of? "Oh!" said he, "I dreamt that you shut me up in a dark cave and I could not awake till you let me out." The person who told me the story firmly believed that the man's soul was in the bee.

    F. S.

Lady's Trees.—In some parts of Cornwall, small branches of sea-weed, dried and fastened in turned wooden stands, are set up as ornaments on the chimney-piece, &c. The poor people suppose that they preserve the house from fire, and they are known by the name of "Lady's trees," in honour, I presume, of the Virgin Mary.

    H. G. T.

Launceston.

Norfolk Folk Lore Rhymes.—I have met with the rhymes following, which may not be uninteresting to some of your readers as Folk Lore, Norfolk:—

"Rising was, Lynn is, and Downham shall be,
The greatest seaport of the three."

Another version of the same runs thus:

"Risin was a seaport town,
And Lynn it was a wash,
But now Lynn is a seaport Lynn,
And Rising fares the worst."

Also another satirical tradition in rhyme:

"That nasty stinking sink-hole of sin,
Which the map of the county denominates Lynn."

Also:

"Caistor was a city ere Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caistor stone."