Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 | Page 5

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."
{205}
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,