Queries.

ANCIENT DANISH ITINERARY: PROL IN ANGLIAM.

An ancient scholiast on Adam of Bremen, "paululum Adamo ratione ætatis inferior," according to his editor, Joachim Maderus, supplies us with a curious list of the stations in the voyages from Ripa, in Denmark, to Acre, in the Holy Land. Adam of Bremen's Ecclesiastical History dates toward the end of the eleventh century, about 1070. His text is as follows:—

"Alterum (episcopatum) in Ripa; quæ civitas alio tangitur alveo, qui ab oceano influit, et per quem vela torquentur in Fresiam, vel in nostram Saxoniam, vel certe in Angliam."

The scholiast has this note:—

"De Ripa in Flandriam ad Cuicfal velificari potest duobus diebus, et totidem noctibus; de Cuicfal ad Prol in Angliam duobus diebus et una nocte. Illud est ultimum caput Angliæ versus Austrum, et est processus illuc de Ripa angulosus inter Austrum et Occidentem. De Prol in Britanniam ad Sanctum Matthiam, uno die,—inde ad Far, juxta Sanctum Jacobum tribus noctibus. Inde Leskebone duobus diebus inter Austrum et Occidentem. De Leskebone ad Narvese tribus diebus et tribus noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et Austrum. De Narvese ad Arruguen quatuor diebus et quatuor noctibus, angulariter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Arruguen ad Barzalun uno die, similiter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Barzalun ad Marsiliam uno die et una nocte, fere versus Orientem, declinando tamen parum ad plagam Australem. De Marsilia ad Mezein in Siciliam quatuor diebus et quatuor noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et Austrum. De Mezein ad Accharon xiiii diebus et totidem noctibus, inter Orientem et Austrum, magis appropiando ad Austrum."

We may fairly consider that the stations marked in this itinerary are of great antiquity. "Prol in Angliam" is, no doubt, Prawle Point, in Devonshire; a headland which must have been well known to the Veneti long before the days of Adam of Bremen. Its mention here is one among the many proofs of the early importance of this coast, the ancient "Littus Totonesium," the scene of one of Marie's fabliaux, and of some curious passages in Layamon's Brut, which are not to be found in the poem of Wace. I wish to ask,—

1. Is the word "Prol" Saxon or British, and what is its probable etymology?

2. Where was "Cuicfal in Flandriam," from whence the voyage was made to Prol?

Richard John King.

CHIMING, TOLLING, AND PEAL-RINGING OF BELLS.

Some of your clerical readers, as well as myself, would probably be glad to have determined, what are the proper times and measures in which the bells of a church ought to be rung. There seems to be no uniformity of practice in this matter, nor any authoritative directions, by which the customs that obtain may be either improved or regulated. The terms chiming, tolling, and peal-ringing, though now generally understood, do not intelligibly apply to the few regulations about bells which occur in the canons.

I believe that chiming is the proper method of summoning the congregation to the services of the church: and tolling certainly appears to be the most appropriate use of the bell at funerals. But chiming the bells is an art that is not recognised in the older rules respecting their use. For instance, the Fifteenth Canon orders that on Wednesdays and Fridays weekly, warning shall be given to the people that litany will be said, by tolling of a bell. And, on the other hand, though we toll at a funeral, the Sixty-seventh Canon enjoins that—

"After the party's death, there shall be rung no more but one short peal, and one other before the burial, and one other after the burial.

The peal here alluded to does not of course mean what Mr. Ellacombe has so clearly described to be a modern peal, in Vol. i., p. 154., of "Notes and Queries;" but it would at least amount, I suppose, to consonantia campanarum, a ringing together of bells, as distinguished from the toll or single stroke on a bell. Horne Tooke says:

"The toll of a bell is its being lifted up (tollere, to raise), which causes that sound we call its toll."

The poet does not clear the ambiguity and confusion of terms, when he sings—

Peals are not heard in London on Sunday mornings, I believe; but in the country, at least hereabouts, they are commonly rung as the summons to church, ending with a few strokes on one bell; and then a smaller bell than any in the peal (the sanctus bell of old, perhaps, and now sometimes vulgarly called "Tom Tinkler") announces that divine service is about to begin.

The object of these remarks is to elicit clearly what is the right way of ringing the bells of a church on the several occasions of their being used.

Alfred Gatty.

Ecclesfield.

MAZER WOOD: GUTTA PERCHA.

In the Musæum Tradescantianum, or a Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, near London, by John Tradescant, 1656, I find, amongst "other variety of rarities," "the plyable Mazer wood, which, being warmed in water, will work to any form;" and a little farther on, in the list of "utensils and household stuffe," I also find "Mazer dishes." In my opinion, it is more than a coincidence that Doctor Montgomery, who, in 1843, received the gold medal of the Society of Arts for bringing gutta percha and its useful properties under the notice of that body, describes it in almost the same words that Tradescant uses when speaking of the pliable Mazer wood: the Doctor says, "it could be moulded into any form by merely dipping it into boiling water." It is worthy of remark that Tradescant, who was the first botanist of his day, seems to have been uncertain of the true nature of the "Mazer wood," for he does not class it with his "gums, rootes, woods;" but, as before observed, in a heterogeneous collection which he styles "other variety of rarities." Presuming, as I do, that this Mazer wood was what we now term gutta percha, the question may be propounded, how could Tradescant have procured it from its remote locale? The answer is easy. In another part of the Musæum Tradescantianum may be found a list of the "benefactors" to the collection; and amongst their names occurs that of William Curteen, Esq. Now this William Curteen and his father Sir William, of Flemish Descent, were the most extensive British merchants of the time, and had not only ships trading to, but also possessed forts and factories on, some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, the native habitat of the sapotaceous tree that yields the gutta percha. Curteen was a collector of curiosities himself, and no doubt his captains and agents were instructed to procure such: in short, a specimen of gutta percha was just as likely to attract the attention of an intelligent Englishman at Amboyna in the fifteenth century, as it did at Singapore in the nineteenth.

If there are still any remains of Tradescant's collection in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the question, whether the Mazer wood was gutta percha or not, might be soon set at rest; but it is highly probable that the men who ordered the relics of the Dodo to be thrown out, showed but little ceremony to the Mazer wood or dishes.

A curious instance of a word, not very dissimilar to Mazer, may be found in Eric Red's Saga, part of the Flatö Annals, supposed to be written in the tenth century, and one of the authorities for the pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Icelanders. Karlsefne, one of the heroes of the Saga, while his ship was detained by a contrary wind in a Norwegian port, was accosted by a German, who wished to purchase his, Karlsefne's, broom.

"'I will not sell it,' said Karlsefne. 'I will give you half a mark in gold for it,' said the German man. Karlsefne thought this a good offer, and thereupon concluded the bargain. The German man went away with the broom. Karlsefne did not know what wood it was; but it was Mæsur, which had come from Wineland!"

Perhaps some reader may give an instance of Mazer wood being mentioned by other writers; or inform me if the word Mazer, in itself, had any peculiar signification.

W. Pinkerton.