Notes and Queries, Number 42, August 17, 1850

Notes and Queries, Number 42,
August 17, 1850

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Title: Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 A Medium
Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries,
Genealogists, Etc.
Author: Various
Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13411]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN,
ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
* * * * *

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
* * * * *
No. 42.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1850 [Price Threepence.
Stamped Edition 4d.
* * * * * {177}
CONTENTS.
NOTES:-- Alfred's Orosius, by Dr. Bell. 177 Remarkable Proposition
concerning Ireland, by H. Kersley. 179 News: a few "old" Materials for
its Elucidation, by S.W. Singer. 180 Folk Lore:--Charming for Warts.
181 Minor Notes:--Capture of Henry VI.--The New Temple. 181
QUERIES:-- Essays of certain Paradoxes: Poem on Nothing, by S.W.
Singer. 182 Minor Queries:--Papers of Perjury--Church Rates--St.
Thomas of Lancaster's Accomplices--Prelates of France--Lord
Chancellor's Oath--Mediæval Nomenclature--Sir Christopher
Sibthorp--Alarm. 182
REPLIES:-- Shakspeare's Use of "Delighted," by Samuel Hickson. 183
English Comedians in Germany. 184 Achilles and the Tortoise. 185
Replies to Minor Queries:--"Barum" and "Sarum"--Countess of
Desmond--Michael Servetus, alias Reves--Caxton's
Printing-office--Somagia--Various Modes of Interment among the
Ancients--Guy's Porridge-pot--"Welcome the coming, speed the parting
Guest"--"A Chrysostom to smoothe his Band in"--William of
Wykeham--Dutch Language--"A Frog he would," &c.--City Sanitary
Laws--Sanitary Laws of other Days--Michael Scott, the
Wizard--Clerical Costume--The Curfew--Welsh Language--Armenian
Language--North Sides of Churchyards unconsecrated--"Sir Hilary
charged at Agincourt"--Unicorn--Abbey of St. Wandrille, Normandy,
&c. 186
MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 191
Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 191 Notices to Correspondents. 191
Advertisements. 191
* * * * *
NOTES
ALFRED'S OROSIUS.
The two exceedingly valuable elucidations which the geography of
King Alfred relating to Germany (intercalated in the royal author's
translation of Orosius), has received from your learned contributors

MR. R.T. HAMPSON (Vol. i., p. 257.) and MR. S.W. SINGER (Vol. i.,
p. 313.) induce me to offer some new views on the same subject. From
my having passed a long series of years in the countries described, and
read and examined all that continental authors, as well as Englishmen,
have written or conjectured on the subject, I trust that my opinions,
though differing from all hitherto received, may not be unworthy the
attention of these gentlemen, and of your other numerous subscribers. I
shall, however, at present, not to exceed the necessary limitation of
your articles, restrict myself to a consideration of the very disputed
Cwenas and the _Cwen-sae_, which both the gentlemen have not
alluded to.
The universal agreement amongst the commentators (with the two
solitary exceptions I shall hereafter mention), by which this sea is taken
for the White Sea, is diverting, and has been the primary source of
many of their errors, and of that most monster one, by which Othere's
narrative has been made the relation of a voyage round the North Cape
to Archangel. It is difficult to say who may have first broached the
brilliant idea. Spelmann's annotators, his alumni Oxonienses of
University College, seem to have left the matter without much
consideration, in which they were pretty servilely followed by Bussæus,
though not so much so as to justify Professor Ingram's remark, "that his
notes were chiefly extracted thence." (Pref. viii.) Professor Murray of
Göttingen (1765), and Langebeck, in his Scriptores Rerum Danicarum
(1773), make no mention of these arctic discoveries; and the latter is
satisfied that the Cwenas are the Amazons of Adam of Bremen:--
"De Quenorum priscis Sedibus et Quenlandiæ situ, vide Torfæus, _Hist.
Norweg._ i. 140. Adamus Bremens, pp. 58, 59. 61., per Amazones et
terram Foeminarum voluit Queuones et Quenladiam intelligi."
and it remains, therefore, to the next commentator, John Reinhold
Forster (the companion navigator with Sir Joseph Banks), to have been
the first to whom we owe the important error. He was praised by
Daines Barrington, for whose edition he gave the notes afterwards
reproduced in his _Northern Voyages of Discovery_; but still with
certain reservations. The honourable translator found some negative
evidences which seemed to militate against the idea that the voyage
could have extended into the arctic circle; for, in such a case, Othere
would hardly have refrained from mentioning the perpetual day of

those regions; the northern lights, which he