[3] Flame.

    [4] I have often wondered what namsac (so pronounced) could
    be, but since I have seen the story as told by “H.J.M.” it is
    evidently “namesake.”

    [5] Probably crook in the original, to rhyme with Jock.

    [6] “I way’d me” is yet used in parts of Yorkshire for “I went.”

    [7] “To late” is “to seek;” from lateo, as if by a confusion
    of hiding and seeking.]

    [8] “Kirk” is not a very good rhyme to “seek;” perhaps it should
    be “search” and “church".]

* * * * *

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Cavell.—­In the time of Charles I., a large tract of land lying south-eastward of Doncaster, called Hatfield Chace, was undertaken to be drained and made fit for tillage and pasture by one Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, a celebrated Flemish engineer of that day, and his partners, or “participants,” in the scheme, all or most of them Dutchmen.  The lands drained were said to be “cavelled and allotted” to so and so, and the pieces of land were called “cavells.”  They were “scottled,” or made subject to a tax or assessment for drainage purposes.  Two eminent topographical writers of the present day are inclined to be of opinion that this word cavell is connected with the Saxon gafol, gavel-tributum—­money paid—­which we have in gavel-kind and gavelage.  One of them, however, suggests that the word may be only a term used in Holland as applicable to land, and then introduced by the Dutch at the time of the drainage in question.  I shall be obliged if any of your readers can inform me if the word “cavell” is so used in Holland, or elsewhere, either as denoting any particular quantity of land, or land laid under any tax, or tributum, or otherwise.

J.

[Our correspondent will find, on referring to Kilian’s Dictionarium Teutonico-Latino-Gallicum, that the word Kavel is used for sors, “sors in divisione bonorum:”  and among other definitions of the verb Kavelen, “sorte dividere terram,” which corresponds exactly with his cavelled and allotted.]

* * * * *

Gootet (No. 25. p. 397.).—­Is not this word a corruption of good-tide, i.e. holiday or festival?  In Halliwell’s Archaeological Dictionary I find,—­

    “Good-day, a holiday; Staff.

    “Gooddit, shrovetide; North.  Shrove Tuesday is called Goodies
    Tuesday.

    “Good-time, a festival; Jonson.”

C.W.G.

* * * * *

Salt ad Montem (No. 24. p. 384.) as meaning Money.—­Salt is an old metaphor for money, cash, pay; derived, says Arbuthnot, from salt’s being part of the pay of the Roman soldiers; hence salarium, salary, and the levying contributions at Salt Hill.  Your Querist will find several explanations of the Eton Montem in the Gentleman’s Magazine; and a special account of the ceremony, its origin and circumstances, in Lyson’s Mag.  Brit. i. 557.