Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850 — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
"I shall devour their (my enemies') hearts, dry their flesh,
drink their blood; I shall tear off their scalps, and make cups
of their skulls." (Bossu's _Travels_.) "Those," says this
traveller through Louisiana, "who think the Tartars have chiefly
furnished America with inhabitants, seem to have hit the true
opinion; you cannot believe how great the resemblance of the
Indian manners is to those of the ancient Scythians; it is found
in their religious ceremonies, their customs, and in their food.
Hornius is full of characteristics that may satisfy your
curiosity in this respect, and I desire you to read him."--Vol.
i. p. 400.
But the subject of the "Origines Americanæ" is not what I now beg to
propose for consideration; it is the tradition-falsifying assertion of
Mr. Grenville Pigott, in his _Manual of Scandinavian Mythology_ (as
quoted by D'Israeli in the _Amenities of English Literature_, vol. i. p.
51, 52.), that the custom with which the Scandinavians were long
reproached, of drinking out of the skulls of their enemies, has no other
foundation than a blunder of Olaus Wormius, who, translating a passage
in the death-song of Regner Lodbrog,--
"Soon shall we drink out of the curved trees of the head,"
turned the trees of the head into a skull, and the skull into a hollow
cup; whilst the Scald merely alluded to the branching horns, growing as
trees from the heads of aninals, that is, the curved horns which formed
their drinking cups.
T.J.
_Cromwell's Estates.--Magor_ (Vol. ii., p. 126.).--I have at length
procured the following information respecting _Magor_. It is a parish in
the lower division of the hundred of Caldicot, Monmouthshire. Its
church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is in the patronage of the Duke
of Beaufort.
SELEUCUS.
_"Incidis in Scyllam," &c._ (Vol. ii., p. 85.).--MR. C. FORBES says he
"should be sorry this fine old proverb should be passed over with no
better notice than seems to have been assigned to it in Boswell's
_Johnson_," and then he quotes some account of it from the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. I beg leave to apprise MR. FORBES that there is no notice
whatsoever of it in Boswell's _Johnson_, though it is introduced (_inter
alia_) in a note of _Mr. Malone's_ in the later editions of Boswell; but
that note contains in substance all that MR. FORBES'S communication
repeats. See the later {142} editions of Boswell, under the date of 30th
March, 1783.
C.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account