Chase. A point at the game of tennis beyond that struck by the adversary. Halliwell in v. Bail was refused." Such examples of ig- and Nursery Tales," 1849, and from Haznorance in the latter half of the nine-litt's Proverbs, 1882. teenth century seem to shew that the time has come for initiating a general system of lay-education among the people. The subject of charms is one on which several volumes might be written. The nine series of "Notes and Queries already completed contain a vast assemblage of material and illustration; and every week adds to the store. Fortunately, the excellent indexes supplied to that useful periodical render it worse than superfluous to transplant hither more than occasional passages. In the "Saxon Leech Chasing the Cheese.-At Birdlip, near Cheltenham, there is an ancient anniversary observance so termed. Its origin is not known, but it may be suggested that it has some consanguinity with an episode or traditional incident narrated in the Gothamite Tales, attributed to Andrew Borde, where the fourth story deals with a man of Gotham, who went to Nottingham to sell cheese, and, descending CHESS-PLAYING. (From an ancient MS.) doms, and Wart Cunning, and Starcraft," edited by Mr. Cockayne, is a mass of matter on this subject. There are some curious charms in the 'Mountebank's Masue," edited for the Shakespear Society, 1848, and in "Lancashire Folk-Lore," 1867. See several curious charms against thieves in Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, b. ii. c. 17, and particularly St. Aldelbert's curse against them. That celebrated curse in Tristram Shandy, which is an original one, still remaining in Rochester Cathedral, is nothing to this, which is perhaps the most complete of its kind. Some additions to this section might easily have been introduced from Halliwell's "Popular Rhymes the hill to Nottingham-bridge, one of his cheeses fell out of the cart, and rolled down the hill. Whereupon, seeing that they could run alone, he let loose all the others, charging them to meet him in the market place. But when he found they were not there, all having strayed or been taken, he took horse, and rode toward York, whither he conceived that they might have gone. Hazlitt's Old English Jest Books, 1864, iii., 6-7. Chatelaine.-An article of use and ornament originating with the medieval chatelaine or lady of the chateau. "An old marchant had hanging at his girdle, a pouch, a spectacle-case, a punniard, a pen Cherubim a white out. Bosworth. South's Birdlife p22 and inckhorne, and a hand-kertcher, with Cheek. Melton observes that "when Cheesecake.-By the following passage in Ferne's " Cherry Fair. Cherry-fairs were "And so, sone, thys worldys wele Cherry Pit. Cherry Pit is a play wherein they pitch cherry-stones into a little hole. It is noticed in Herrick's Hesperides," 1648. But the earliest allusion to the sport is probably that found in the interlude of "The Worlde and the Chylde," 1522: "I can play at the chery pytte, It is also mentioned by Skelton in "Speke Parot," written about the same time. Chess. This was a British or Welsh game, and is mentioned in the Triads. The board, on which it was played, was called the tawlbwrd, and one of these was held to be an essential feature in every Chess-boards gentleman's establishment. were made of wood, bone, or even ivory, the last being valued at three cows or sixty pence. Chess was also a favourite game in medieval Italy and elsewhere abroad. Chester.-King, speaking of the inhabitants of Chester, says, "touching their housekeeping, it is bountiful and comparable with any other shire in the realm: and that is to be seen at their weddings and burials, but chiefly at their wakes, which they yearly hold (although it be of late years well laid down)." Vale Royal of England, 20. In the same work there is an account that, at the City of Chester in the year 1533, "the offerings of ball and foot-balls were put down, and the silver bell offered to the Maior on Shrove Tuesday." Vale Royal, p. 94. King notes: "Anno 1575. This year Sir John Savage, maior, caused the Popish plays of Chester to be played the Sunday, Munday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Mid-somerDay, in contempt of an inhibition, and the Primat's Letters from York and from the Earl of Huntingdon." Vale-Royal, 1656, p. 88. "Anno 1563, upon the Sunday after Midsummer Day the History of Eneas and Queen Dido was play'd in the Roods Eye; and were set out by one William Croston, gent. and one Mr. Man, on which triumph there was made two forts and shipping on the water, besides many horsemen well armed and appointed." Collier's Annals of the Stage, 1831, i., 168, et seqq. We farther learn that Henry Hardware, Esq., mayor of Chester in 1599, "for his time, altered many antient customs, as the shooting for the sheriff's breakfast; the going of the giants at Midsommer, &c., and would not suffer any playes, bear-baits, or bull-bait." Vale Royal, 1656, p. 208. Pennant tells us of the place without the walls called the Rood Eye, where the lusty youth in former days exercised themselves in manly sports of the age; in archery, running, leaping, and wrestling; in mock fights and gallant and romantic triumphs. A standard was the prize of emulation, which was won in 1578 by Sheriff Montford on Shrove-Tuesday. Childbirth.-In "A short Description of Antichrist," &c., 1554, is this passage: "I note all their Popishe traditions of confirmacion of yonge children wth oynting of oyle and creame, and with a ragge knitte aboute the necke of the yonge babe," &c. This was the hallowed sheet. Bulwer remarks that "There is a tradition our midwives have concerning children borne open-handed, that such will prove of a bountiful disposition and frankhanded." The following occurs in the second part of Dekker's "Honest Whore," 1630: "I am the most wretched fellow: sure some left-handed priest christened me I am so unlucky." Coles says: "It hath been observed, that if a woman with childe eate quinces much, and coriander seed (the nature of both which is to represse and stay vapours that ascend to the braine) it will make the child ingenious: and, if the mother eate much onyons, or beanes, or such vapourous food, it endangereth the childe to become lunaticke, or of imperfect memory. Boemus relates, that in Darien in America the women eate an herb when they are great with childe, which makes them bring forth withoute paine." Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants, 69. Misson says: "The custom here is not to make great feasts at the birth of their children. They drink a glass of wine and eat a bit of a certain cake, which is seldom made but upon these occasions." Travels, translated by Ozell, p. 35, It was a belief in Angus that, if a child was put from the breast in the moon's wane, it would decay so long as the orb continued to decrease. These superstitions were generally diffused, and seem to have been entertained by the Scots in common with the Swedes, where the same ideas prevailed; nor can it be said that such notions are yet, or will for many a long day, be thoroughly rooted out. The following Scotish modern superstitions respecting new-born children are enumerated by Rosse in the Fortunate Shepherdess, 1778: "Gryte was the care, and tut'ry that Baith night and day about the bony The Jizzen-bed wi' rantry leaves was And sik like things as the auld Grannies kend, Jeans paps wi' sa't and water washen clean, Reed that her milk get wrang, fan it was green. Under "Natal or Natalitious Gifts," Blount observes that "" among the Grecians, the fifth day after the child's birth, the neighbours sent in gifts, or small tokens; from which custom, that among Christians of the godfathers sending gifts to the baptized infant, is thought to have flowed: and that also of the neighbours sending gifts to the mother of it, as is still used in North Wales.' It is very observable here, that there was a feast at Athens, kept by private families, called Amphidromia, on the fifth day after the birth of the child, when it was the custom for the gossips to run round the fire with the infant in their arms, and then, having delivered it to the nurse, they were entertained with feasting and dancing. Several French (or foreign) customs of child-birth are noticed in the vol. i. p. 320-34. "Traitè des Superstitions" of M. Thiers, Childermass, or Holy Innocents' Day.-(December 26th.) This None day is of most unlucky omen. ever marries on a Childermas Day. It appears from the "Paston Letters," that the Coronation of Edward IV. was put off till the Monday, because the preceding Sunday was Childermas Forby, in his "Vocabulary," Day. 1830, says that the day on which this festival falls was reckoned unlucky for the commencement of any work or task. In the "Spectator," No. 7, we learn that the same notion of the weekly recurrence of this unlucky day was entertained at that time. The word itself is genuine Saxon, childe masse dag. Childirmas - dai, in Wicklif's time. "Gent. Childery-masse in Rob._Glouc. Mag." Jan. 1799. In the statutes of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary Ottery, founded in 1337, is a direction, that none of the singing boys shall be suffered to proceed beyond the boundaries of the parish on Innocents' Day. It is certainly curious that in 1278 Archbishop Peckham issued an injunction to restrain the performance of service by little girls (parvula) on this festival at Godstow nunnery. Processions of children on this day were forbidden by the proclamation of July 22nd, 1540. A curious Latin play or mystery on the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the flight into Egypt of Joseph and Mary, with the Infant Jesus, is termed Interfectio Puerorum, and strangely exhibits the primitive mediæval literalism in dealing with these subjects, in common with those English productions, with which readers are more familiar. Bourne tells us, chap. xviii. that "according to the monks it was very unlucky to begin any work on Childermas Day and whatsoever day that falls on, whether on the Monday, Tuesday, or any other, nothing must be begun on that day through the year." Gregory observes that "It hath been a custom, and yet is_elsewhere, to whip the children upon Innocents Day morning, that the memory of Herod's murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the crueltie again in kinde." Gregorii Posthuma, 1649. See Cotgarve's Dict." and the "Dictionn. de Furetiere." 66 Strype, under 1582, mentions a riot in Finsbury, about Christmas holidays, "by some loose young men of the Inns of Chancery, one of whom, named Light, was especially indicted for singing in the church, upon Childermas Day, Fallantida dilli, &c.-an idle loose song then used.' In Sir John Oldcastle," 1600, act ii. sc. 2, Murley objects to the rendezvous of the Wickliffites on a Friday: "Friday, quoth'a, a dismal day; Childermas Day this year was Friday." Melton, in his Astrologaster," 1620, p. 45, informs us it was formerly an article in the creed of popular superstition, that it was not lucky to put on a new suit, pare one's nails, or begin any thing on a Childermas Day. : Dufresne, in a note to Clement Marot's cxxxvth Epigram, observes, that on Innocents' Day there used to be a custom of slapping on the hinder parts any young folks who were surprised in bed on that morning, and occasionally it proceeded further. But this practice had even then fallen into disuse. The following is the passage in Dufresne :-"Innocentes. Allusion a un usage pratiqué lors en France, où les jeunes personnes qu'on pouvoit surprendre au lit le jour des Innocens, recevoient sur le derrière quelques claques, & quelque fois un peu plus, quand les sujet en valoient la peine. Cela ne se pratique plus aujourd'hui: nous sommes bien plus sages & plus reservés que nos pères." Douce cites a passage from Le Voyageur à Paris, to show that an odd species of burlesque was performed on this festival by some of the religious orders. Naogeorgus, in his Fourth Book, devotes some space to this festival. See BoyBishop. Children.-In John Bale's "Comedye concernynge thre Lawes of Nature, Moses, and Christ," 1538, Idolatry says: "Yea, but now ych am a she And a good mydwyfe perdé, Yonge chyldren can I charme, That spretes do them no harme." In Scotland (Edinburgh) a piece of silver, an egg, and some bread presented to a child on entering a house for the first time, are supposed to bring luck. Hutchinson tells us that children in Northumberland, when first sent abroad in the arms of the nurse to visit a neighbour, are presented with an egg, salt, and fine bread. Northumberland, ii., 4 and 13. He observes that "the egg was a sacred emblem, and seems a gift well adapted to infancy." Comp. Cakes and Salt. Herrick names a crust of holy bread laid under the head of a sleeping child as a charm against hags, and a knife placed near the child's heart with the point upward as a charm against peril in general. Among superstitions relating to children, the following is cited by Bourne from Bingham, on St. Austin: "If when two friends are talking together, a stone, or a dog, or a child, happens to come between them, they tread the stone to pieces, as the divider of their friendship, and this is tolerable in comparison of beating an innocent child that comes between them. But it is more pleasant that sometimes the child's quarrel is revenged by the dogs: for many times they are so superstitious as to dare to beat the dog that comes between them, who turning again upon him that smites him, sends him from seeking a vain remedy, to seek a real physician indeed." Antiq. Vulg. ch. xii. Lupton says: a piece of a child's navell string, sickness, the pains in the head, and the born in a ring, is good against the falling collick." Notable Things, ed. 1660, p. 92. There is a singular custom prevailing in the country of the Lesgins, one of the seventeen Tartarian nations. "Whencarried round from village to village, ever the Usmei, or chief, has a son, he is and alternately suckled by every woman who has he is weaned. This custom by establisha child at her breast, till ing a kind of brotherhood between the prince and his subjects, singularly endears them to each other."" zine, June, 1801, p. 408. See, for a singular European Maganotion about children's bread and butter, Petri Molinæi "Vates," p. 154. Compare Bede's Well, Caul, Child-Birth, and Lying-In. Children's Games.-The essayist in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1738, says, that before the troubles, "cross-purposes was the game played at by children of all parties. Upon the death of Charles I. the ridicule of the times turned against monarchy; which during the Commonwealth was burlesqued by every child in Great Britain, who set himself up in mock majesty, and played at Questions and Commands; as for instance, King I am, says one boy; another answers, I am your man; then his Majesty demands, what service he will do him; to which the obsequious courtier replies, the best and worst, and all I can. During all Oliver's time, the chief diversion was, the Parson hath Lost his Fudling Cap: which needs no explanation. At the Restoration succeeded Love-Games, as I love my love with an A: a flower and a lady; and I am a lusty wooer-changed in the latter end of this reign, as well as all King James IId.'s, to 'I am come to torment you.' At the Revolution, when all people recovered their liberty, the children played promiscuously at what game they liked best-the most favourite one, however, was Puss in the Corner. Every body knows that in this play, four boys or girls post themselves at the four corners of a room, and a fifth in the middle, who keeps himself upon the watch to slip into one of the corner places, whilst the present possessors are endeavouring to supplant one another. This was intended to ridicule the scrambling for places too much in fashion amongst the children of England, both spiritual and temporal." 66 Chin, The. He was, says Forby, in his "Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830," a sort of imp which inhabits the chimneys of nurseries, and is sometimes called down to take away naughty children." Chincough. There is a belief in Cheshire that, if a toad is held for a moment within the mouth of the patient, it is apt to catch the disease, and so curé the person suffering from it. A correspondent of "Notes and Queries" speaks of a case, in which such a phenomenon actually occurred; but the experiment is one which would not be very willingly tried. Roasted mice were formerly held in Norfolk a sure remedy for this complaint; nor is it certain that the belief is extinct even now. A poor woman's son once found himself greatly relieved after eating three roast mice! A superstition still remains in Devonshire and Cornwall, that any person who rides on a pye-balled horse can cure the chin-cough. Chiromancy.-Agrippa, speaking of chiromancy, says that, it" fancies seven mountains in the palm of a man's hand, according to the number of the seven So planets; and by the lines which are there to be seen, judges of the complection, condition and fortune of the person; imagining the harmonious disposition of the lines to be, as it were, certain cælestial characters stamped upon us by God and Nature, and which, as Job saith, God imprinted or put in the hands of men, that so every one might know his works; though it be plain, that the divine author doth not there treat of vain chiromancy, but of the liberty of the will." He gives a great catalogue of names of such authors as have written on this science falsely so called, but observes that "none of them have been able to make any farther progress than conjecture and observation of experience. Now that there is no certainty in these conjectures and observations, is manifest from thence, upon the will; and about which the masters thereof of equal learning and authority do very much differ.' Vanity of Sciences, p. 101. Ferrand tells us that "this art of chiromancy hath been so strangely infected with superstitions, deceit, cheating, and (if I durst say so) with magic also, that the canonists, and of late years Pope Sixtus Quintus, have been constrained utterly to condemn it. that now no man professes publickly this cheating art, but theeves, rogues, and beggarly rascals; which are now every where knowne by the name of Bohemians, Egyptians, and Caramaras." Erotomania, 1640, p. 173. The lines in the palm of the hand, according to Indagine, are distinguished by formal names, such as the table line or line of fortune, the line of life or of the heart, the middle natural line, the line of the liver or stomach, &c., &c., &c., the triangle, the quadrangle. The thumb too, and fingers have their "Hills" given them, from the tops of which these manual diviners pretend that they had a prospect of futurity. The reader will smile at the name and not very delicate etymon of it, given in this work to the little finger. It is called the ear finger, because it is commonly used to make clean the ears. Palmistry and Physiognomy, trans. by F. Withers, 1656. Newton inquires whether the " governors of the commonwealth " "have suffered palmesters, fortune-tellers, stage-players, sawce-boxes, enterluders, puppit-players, loyterers, vagabonds, landleapers, and such like cozening makeshifts to practice their cogging tricks and rogish trades, within the circuite of their authoritie, and to deceive the simple people with their vile forgerie and palterie.' Tryall of a Man's Own Selfe, 1602, p. 45. Mason ridicules the vanity and frivolity of palmistry, "where Men's fortunes are tolde by looking on the palmes of the hands." Anatomie of Sorcerie, 1612, p. 90. Gaule exposes the folly of palmistry which tells us, "that I |