Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Leland, Charles Godfrey, 1824-1903
There is a De la Laund in the roll of Battle Abbey, {13} but John says
our progenitor was _De Bussli_, who came over with the Conqueror, ravaged
all Yorkshire, killing 100,000 men, and who also burned up, perhaps
alive, the 1,000 Jews in the Tower of York. For these eminent services
to the state he was rewarded with the manor of Leyland, from which he
took his name. The very first _complete_ genealogical register of any
American family ever published was that of the Leland family, by Judge
Leland, of Roxbury, Mass. (but for which he was really chiefly indebted
to another of the name), in which it is shown that Henry Leland had had
in 1847 fifteen thousand descendants in America. In regard to which I am
honoured with a membership in the Massachusetts Genealogical Society. The
crest of Bussli and the rest of us is a raven or crow transfixed by an
arrow, with a motto which I dearly love. It is _Cui debeo_, _fidus_.
Very apropos of this crow or raven is the following: Heinrich Heine, in
his "Germany" (vol. ii. p. 211, Heinemann's edition), compares the same
to priests "whose pious croaking is so well known to our ears." This is
in reference to such birds which fly about the mountain of Kyffhauser, in
which the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa is sleeping, and where he will
sleep till they disappear. And then, praising himself, Heine adds: "But
old age has weakened them, and there are good marksmen who know right
well how to bring them down. I know one of these archers, who now lives
in Paris, and who knows how, even from that distance, to hit the crows
which fly about the Kyffhauser. When the Emperor returns to earth, he
will surely find on his way more than one raven slain by this archer's
arrows. And the old hero will say, smiling, 'That man carried a good
bow.'" In my note to this I remarked that "the raven or crow transfixed
by an arrow is the crest of the coat-of-arms of the name of Leland, or of
my own. I sincerely trust that Bussli, the first who bore it, did not
acquire the right to do so by shooting a clergyman." As a single crow is
an omen of ill-luck, so the same transfixed signifies misfortune
overcome, or the forcible ending of evil influences by a strong will. It
is a common belief or saying among all the Lelands, however widely
related, that there has never been a convicted criminal of the name. _Dii
faxint_!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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