Here’s neither head nor footstone, plate of brass,
Cross-bones nor skull,—type of our earthly state
Nor emblem of our hopes: the dead man’s home
Is but a fellow to that pasture-field.”
Page 405. Tennyson and the yew. Two other lines from the same poem (In Memoriam, XXXIX. vv. 1, 2) deserve notice:
And dippest toward the dreamless head.”
These lines suggest the Breton superstition that the yew sends out a root into the mouths of the dead.
Page 412. Drawings of the horse. Sketches of hog-maned horses, bearing signs of halters, have recently been discovered in the Magdalenian caves of North Spain.
Page 440. Superstitions respecting the horse. In Bavaria, it was formerly the custom for horses to be taken to church once every year, to peep at the altar or the effigy of the local saint. This observance was supposed to ensure good health to the animals during the next twelvemonth. (Notes and Queries, 11th Ser., III. p. 266, authority cited.) The practice is still followed in Italy.
In our own country, horses were taken at Easter into the “middle” of Hertfordshire churches to be blessed. (Notes and Queries, 11th Ser., III. p. 318.)
Page 460. Curved ridges due to plough-teams of oxen. The curvature indicative of ancient tillage generally takes the form of a flat reversed S; in other words the unwieldy team turned to the left when approaching the headland. Mr T. Blashill (Jour. Brit. Archaeol. Assoc., N.S., II. pp. 218-23) deduces that the old-fashioned heavy ploughs turned the furrow-slice to the left. This is not, however, a necessary conclusion. A reversed S-curve might be associated with a right-handed mould-board. Moreover, Dr W. Fream (Elements of Agriculture, 1892, p. 45) asserts that “none of the old ploughs turned a furrow”; they stirred the earth but did not turn it over. In such a conservative occupation as agriculture, one would scarcely expect to find such a revolution as Mr Blashill postulates. He observes that modern ploughs are so made that the furrow-slice is thrown to the right, and the team also turns in that direction at the headland. A similar feature is noticeable in old cultivation ridges in many parts of the Continent, where the curve is more frequently that of a flat S, not reversed. It should be remembered that the old turnwrest plough, formerly employed in some parts of England, enabled the ploughman to throw the furrow either way.
The “line of beauty” traced by old ploughs is alluded to by William Mason, in his English Garden, Bk II., ll. 51-6 (Vol. I. of Works, 1811, p. 237). He is referring to “ploughing steers”:
Alike averse to crooked and to straight
Where sweet Simplicity resides; which Grace
And Beauty call their own; whose lambent flow
Charms us at once with symmetry and ease;
’Tis Nature’s curve ...”
To prevent overstatement respecting the connection between ox-teams and the curved furrow, it should be added that formerly there was “a prejudice, if not a superstition, in favour of crooked ridges” (W. L. Rham, Dict. of the Farm, 1858, p. 291).
INDEX
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z