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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. JULY 19, MIS.
"Richteschmaus," the name of which is, element for element, the same as "raising feast." it taking place when the roof is "gerichtet," i.e., raised, set up. The variegated wreath is seen in the smallest hamlet as well as in the metropolis. Supper and flowers are to express the joy felt at the completion of some arduous and dangerous work, such as building always is.
G. Krueger.
The American custom is noted in the 'N.E.D.,' v. Raising, 1 c, "Raisings were also considered as an affair of similar interest, followed by an entertainment of good things"; and sense 4, "Provide a Raysing Dinner for the Raysing the Schoolmasters House." Tom Jones.
"Pull one's leg" (11 S. vii. 508).—I remember to have been told many years ago that to "pull a man's leg " is a humorous paraphrase for "drawing him out."
R. E. B.
Irish Superstition: Boys in Petticoats and Fairies (11 S. ii. 65, 137, 293; vii. 493).—The alleged superstition of dressing boys as girls to cheat evil spirits or fairies, or to avert the evil eye, may possibly exist in some parts of the world, but it has no existence in Ireland. Mothers dress young boys on the Aran Islands in costume apparently feminine for the sensible and sufficient reason that skirts are easier to make than trousers. I know the Aran Islands and their people fairly well, and can positively assure {{sc|Mr. G. H. White} that this prosaic explanation of the custom is the true one. I never saw a man more genuinely astonished than a native of the island to whom I told the "traveller's tale" about the gullible devil and his appetite for boys. As nearly as I can recollect his remarks on the subject, they would translate thus—
"Well, there isn't a man, woman, or child on the island that believes the like of that. But there was a man here with a notebook a while ago, and the people sent him away with it filled."
He then proceeded to give me some entertaining details of the contents of the notebook in question.
R. A. S. Macalister.
In the Isle of Marken boys and girls are dressed exactly alike up to the age of four. For the next three years boys are then clothed as girls to their waists, and as boys from waist downwards. There is one feature in the dress by which the sex of a child can be distinguished, viz., that the boy's headgear culminates in "a little round button on top." The peculiar dress is even stated by some to have remained unaltered since the thirteenth century, when Marken was separated from the mainland. F. W. T. Lange.
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According to a recent American author, George W. Edwards in 'Marken and its People' (London, no date), on Marken Island the girls and boys up to a certain age, say nine or ten. are dressed alike, and only to be distinguished by a button on the cap of the boy, and a rose on the cap of the girl (p. 10). L. L. K.
Private Schools (11 S. vii. 488).—There is a highly imaginative description of what I think must have been a rare type of private school in the 'Fortunes of the Colville Family,' by Francis Smedley. There is also Dr. Blimber's establishment for young gentlemen in 'Dombey and Son,' and what I believe to have been not an uncommon type of middle-class school of the Early Victorian time in Creakle's school in 'David Copperfield.' A. Gwyther.
Scott's 'Woodstock': The Rota Club (11 S. vii. 425, 493).—May I point out that the founder of this club was James Harrington (1611-77), not Sir John Harinorton, who died in 1612?
The club is referred to with contempt by Johnson in his 'Life of Milton':—
"The obstinate enthusiasm of the common-wealth-men was very remarkable. When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, with a few associates as fanatical as himself, used to meet, with all the gravity of political importance, to settle an equal government by rotation."
H. E. Powell.
Dancing on "Midsummer Night" (11 S. vii. 269, 398, 477).—A few days ago I was told at Göteborg that fires were no longer lighted in that part of the world on Midsummer Eve, but that people danced round the maypoles. On 23 June I saw, from the train between Göteborg and Helsingar (Elsinore), a maypole decked as if ready for such an observance, and there was a bonfire aflame near the latter place, where I arrived at nightfall. This may interest M. P., though it is not an answer to the query. St. Swithin.
