_"It rained cats and dogs and little pitchforks."_--_Helter-skelter._--What can be the origin of this saying? I can imagine that rain may descend with such sharpness and violence as to cause as much destruction as a shower of "pitchforks" would; but if any of your readers can tell me why heavy rain should be likened to "cats and dogs," I shall be truly obliged. Many years ago I saw a most cleverly drawn woodcut, of a party of travellers encountering this imaginary shower; some of the animals were descending helter-skelter from the clouds; others wreaking their vengeance on the amazed wayfarers, while the "pitchforks" were running into the bodies of the terrified party, while they were in vain attempting to run out of the way of those which were threatening to fall upon their heads, and thus striking them to the ground. So strange an idea must have had some peculiar origin.--Can you or your readers say what it is? M. E. C. P. S.--I find I have used a word above, of which every one knows the _signification_, "helter-skelter;" but I, for one, confess myself ignorant of its _derivation_. And I shall be glad to be informed on the subject. [As to the etymology of _helter-skelter_, Sir John Stoddart remarks, "The real origin of the word is obscure. If we suppose the principal meaning to be in the first part, it may probably come from the Islandic _hilldr_ pugna; if in the latter part, it may be from the German _schalten_, to thrust forward, which in the dialect of the north of England means 'to scatter and throw abroad as molehills are when levelled;' or from _skeyl_, which in the same dialect is 'to push on one side, to overturn.'"] _Father Traves._--Can any of your Lancashire readers refer me to a source whence I might obtain information on matters pertaining to the life of one Father Travers [Traves], the friend and correspondent of the celebrated martyr John Bradford? As yet I have but met with the incidental mention of his name in the pages of Fox, and in Hollingworth's _Mancuensis_, pp. 75, 76. A JESUIT. [The name is spelt by Fox sometimes Traves and sometimes Travers; but who he was there is no particular mention; except that it appears from Bradford's letters that he was some friend of the family, and from the superscription to one of them, that he was the minister of Blackley, near Manchester, in which place, or near to which, Bradford's mother must then have resided. Strype says, he was a learned and pious gentleman, his patron and counsellor.--_Mem. Eccles._, vol. iii. part I. p. 364.] _Precise Dates of Births and Deaths of the Pretenders._--Will any one be so kind as to tell me the date of the birth and death of James VIII. and his son Charles III. (commonly called Prince Charles Edward Stuart)? These dates are given so variously, that I am anxious to ascertain them correctly. L. M. M. R.