Notes and Queries | Page 2

contentious people, not easily brought under the gentle yoke of Christianity, they figure in some of the old Russian sagas, much as the Jutes do in those of Scandinavia; and it is remarkable that the names of both should have signified giants or monsters. Notker, in his Teutonic paraphrase of Martianus Capella, speaking of other Anthropophagi, relates that the Wilti were not ashamed to say that they had more right to eat their parents than the worms.[1] Mone wrote a Dissertation upon the Weleti, which is printed in the _Anzeigen f��r Kunde des Mittelalters_, 1834, but with very inconclusive and erroneous results; some remarks on these Sclavonic people, and a map, will be found in Count Ossolinski's Vincent Kadlubek, Warsaw, 1822; and in Count Potocki's _Fragments Histor. sur la Scythie, la Sarmatie, et les Slaves_, Brunsw., 1796, &c. 4 vols. 4to.; who has also printed Wulfstan's Voyage, with a French translation. The recent works of Zeuss, of Schaffarik, and above all the Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, of Jacob Grimm, throw much light on the subject.
On the names Horithi and _M?gtha Land_ Rask has a long note, in which he states the different opinions that have been advanced; his own conclusions differ from Mr. Hampson's suggestion. He assigns reasons for thinking that the initial H in Horithi should be P, and that we should read Porithi for Porizzi, the old name for Prussians. Some imagined that _M?gtha Land_ was identical with Cwen Land, with reference to the fabulous Northern Amazons; but Alfred has placed Cwenland in another locality; and Rask conjectures that _M?gth_ signifies here _provincia, natio gens_, and that it stood for Gardariki, of which it appears to be a direct translation.
It appears to me that the Horiti of Alfred are undoubtedly the Croati, or Chrowati, of Pomerania, who still pronounce their name Horuati, the H supplying, as in numerous other instances, the place of the aspirate Ch. Nor does it seem unreasonable to presume that the Harudes of C?sar (_De Bell. Gall._ b. i. 31. 37. 51.) were also _Croats_; for they must have been a numerous and widely spread race, and are all called _Ch_arudes, [Greek: Aroudes]. The following passage from the Annales Fuldensis, A. 852., will strengthen this supposition:--"Inde transiens per Angros, Harudos, Suabos, et Hosingos ... Thuringiam ingreditur."
Mr. Kemble[2], with his wonted acumen, has not failed to perceive that our Coritavi derived their name in the same manner; but his derivation of the word from Hor, lutum, Horilit, lutosus, is singularly at issue with Herr Leo's, who derives it from the Bohemian Hora, a mountain, Horet a mountaineer, and he places the Horiti in the Ober Lanbitz and part of the Silesian mountains.
Schaffarik again, says that _M?gtha Land_ is, according to its proper signification, unknown; but that as Adam of Bremen places Amazons on the Baltic coast, probably from mistaking of the _Mazovians_? it is possible that _M?gthaland_ has thus arisen. In 1822 Dahlmann (Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte, t. i. 422.) gave a German version of King Alfred's narration, where the passage is also correctly translated; but as regards the illustration of the names of the people of Sclavonic race, much yet remains to be done.
It is to be hoped that some competent northern scholar among us may still remove, what I must consider to be a national reproach--the want of a correct and well illustrated edition of the Hormesta, or at any rate of this singularly interesting and valuable portion of it.
S.W. SINGER.
Feb. 21. 1850.
[Footnote 1: "Aber Welitabi, die in Germania sizzent, tie wir Wilze heizen, die ni sc��ment sih niche ze chedenne, daz sih iro parentes mit m��rem r��hte ��zen s��lin danne die wurme." Albinus, in his Meissnische Chronicle, says they had their name from their wolfish nature.]
[Footnote 2: The Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 9. note.]
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THE FIRST COFFEE-HOUSES IN ENGLAND.
As a Supplement to your "NOTES ON COFFEE," I send you the following extracts.
Aubrey, in his account of Sir Henry Blount, (MS. in the Bodleian Library), says of this worthy knight,
"When coffee first came in he was a great upholder of it, and hath ever since been a constant frequenter of coffee-houses, especially Mr. Farres at the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate, and lately John's Coffee-house, in Fuller's Rents. The first coffee-house in London was in St. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill, opposite to the church, which was set up by one ---- Bowman (coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it) in or about the yeare 1652. 'Twas about 4 yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by Mr. Farr. Jonathan Paynter, over against to St. Michael's Church, was the first apprentice to the trade, viz. to Bowman.--Mem. The Bagneo, in Newgate Street, was built and first opened in Decemb.