DERIVATION OF NAMES AND PLACES. (Modern Society.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2556, 11 March 1903, Page 66

DERIVATION OF NAMES AND PLACES. (Modern Society.)

The derivations of name;, of places and people have a curious fascination for most of us. It gives an agreeable tickle to our self-pride to think that Stogdon-in-the-Wold. where it is our peaceful lot to live, may bear in its nomenclature traces of gallant deeds done long ago ; and that although oui father's name was Webster our mother's name was Smith, these seemingly commonplace names most likely carry with them indications of really noteworthy ancestry, were "all knowledgeableness known." Lately there came before us plain proof of the truth of this— proof given by no less a person than the late Dean Stanley in his investigations as to what became of the muiderers of Thomas a Becket. The leader of the knights who slew the greatArchbishop on the floor of his own Cathedral at Canterbury was Sir Reginald Fitzurse. Amid the whirl of excitement and horror which the deed aroused. Fitzurse fled to Ireland. However, King Henry II might have profited by the death of Becket, he dared not openly pardon or succour ihe slayers, and gi£ Esiisald. lil&4 £flfc ifee

rest of his life in voluntary exile In the " north of Ireland. There he became the ancestor of the M*Mahon family; M'Mahon being the Celtic translation of , Bear's Son. On his flight his estate in the Jslb-, of Thanet passed to his brother,. Robert Fititurse, who considered it more prudent to be known by the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of his Norman name, which appears to be Barham or Berham — a name that lingers in Kent to this day. His estate in Somersetshire he made over to a kinsman, whose descendants were known as Fitzour, Fishour, and finally Fisher. This should surely make every M'Mahon, Berham, and Fisher in the three kingdoms "sit up" ; .for, miir- •" derer as Fitzurse decidedly was;/he '-shared!:' • that stigma with almost every JarightVof ' { those wild times who drew sword in- the quarrels of his feudal chief, were that chief consecrated priest or crowned King.

j In connection with the murderers of Thomas a Beckel we may mention a curious fact. In sharp contradiction to the belief that the ban of the Church wither^;, any race upon whom it falls, the history of \Villiam de Tracy, one of these men, stands to show that, some men have : flourished greatly- notwithstanding.' - The five men .who_ slew "St. ' Thomas" were. - "visited with great 1 and- deadly terrors. "They piled their " blood-stained - ( armour on 'an oaken table jn a ..manor house ;,thi „ { table started 1 back, -and flung its burden — to the ground. . Soldiers and servants veplacdd the arms. With a louder crasli they were thrown -yet further off. And I then Tracy whispered, with white lips, that • the board of a Christian man refused' ,to bear the weight of sacrilegious steel. So they rode further, meeting on every hand signs of the "working of that desperate curse that lay upon them evermore ; the very dogs refused to taste of the crumbs that fell from the bread they ate. Moreville and Brito sailed for Rome, and ' were sent on to do penance in the Holy Land. Fitzurse fled to the wilds of Ireland, as we have seen. * Tracy tried in vain, to escape from the country stained by his crime. Again and again" he took ship, but the winds of heaven refused to' waft him on the seas; furious storms always drove him home again. 1© this day his descen- , dants in the West Country quote the dis- ' tich about: ■ *■ The Tracys, . ' "Who have always the wind in their facea.But yet in the West Country the Tracys flourished and multiplied. The daughter of Becket's murderer married Sir Qervase de Courtenay ; her sod Oliver took his mother's name, and from him in direct lin the present Lord Wemyss and Lord Sudeley are both descended. The pedigree of these ' two peers, 'in fact— contrary to all received . opinions on the subject of sacrilege-7-ex-hibits a very singular instance, of .lands descending for upwards of 700 years in the male line of the same family. One reads i much strange corroboralion of the opposite • side of the story; one is told so often, of • heirs failing and properties vanishing under ' the. priestly ban that this undoubted fact on the harmless side of the question is in'i ' teresting.

—No such herring fishery as that concluded at Yarmouth has ever been heard of*locally. In the previous season 28,666 lasts were taken. This season's record ia 44,000 " lasts— sßo,Boo,ooo fish. The best; boat, the Laverock, earned nearly £2300; and the . 'fleet averaged £1000 a Tessel. Nearly half a million sterling v.ac thus paid over for the herrings.

— M. Maiche, a French inventor, has made some experiments with wireless telephony in the forest of St. Germain. Th© transmitter was placed on the top of a house, but connected to the ground in, the manner of a lightning rod. A thousand yards distant two iron poles 90ft apart were connected together by wire and had, a telephone receiver in circuit. Sounds from the transmitter were plainly heard in it. Jle-' ceivers off the line of ransmission do not catch the message. . ,