THE MEANING OF THE OLD SAW, FIVE SCORE OF MEN, MONEY, AND PINS, SIX SCORE OF ALL OTHER THINGS. WE learn from Hickes's Thesaurus that the Norwegians. and Islandic people used a method of numbering peculiar to themselves, by the addition of the words Tolfrædr, Tolfræd, or Tolfræt (whence our word twelve), which made ten signify twelve; a hundred, a hundred and twenty; a thousand, a thousand two hundred; &c. The reason of this was, that the nations above named had two decads or tens: a lesser, which they used in common with other nations, consisting of ten units; and a greater, containing twelve (tolf) units. Hence, by the addition of the word Tolfrædr, or Tolfræd, the hundred contained not ten times ten, but ten times twelve, that is a hundred and twenty. The Doctor observes that this Tolfrædic mode of computation by the greater decads, or tens, which contain twelve units, is still retained amongst us in reckoning certain things by the number twelve, which the Swedes call dusin, the French douzain, and we dozen. And I am informed, he adds, by merchants, &c., that in the number, weight, and measure of many things, the hundred among us still consists of that greater tolfrædic hundred which is composed of ten times twelve. Hence then, without doubt, is derived to us the "Notetur etiam Norvegis et Islandis peculiarem numerandi rationem in usu esse per additionem vocum Tolfrædr, Tolfræd, vel Tolfræt, quæ decem significare faciunt duodecim; centum, centum et viginti; mille, mille et cc., &c. Causa istius computationis hæc est, quod apud istas gentes duplex est decas, nempe minor cæteris nationibus communis, decem continens unitates: et major continens xii., i. e. tolf, unitates. Inde addita voce Tolfrædr, vel Tolfræd, centuria non decies decem, sed decies duodecim, i. e. cxx. continet, et chilias non decies centum, sed decies cxx. i. e. mille et cc. continet." Hæc "autem computandi ratio per majores decades, quæ duodecim unitates continent, apud nos etiamnum usurpatur in computandis certis rebus per duodenum numerum, quem dozen, Suecicè dusin, Gallicè douzain, vocamus; quinimo in numeris, ponderibus, et mensuris multarum rerum, ut ex mercatoribus, et vehiculariis accepi, centuria apud nos etiamnum semper præsumitur significare majorem, sive Tolfrædicam illam centuriam, quæ ex decies xii. conflatur, scilicet cxx. Sic Arngrim Jonas in Crymogæa, sive rerum Island. lib. 1, cap. viii., hundrad present mode of reckoning many things by six score to the hundred. By the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, no person shall have above two thousand sheep on his lands; and the twelfth section (after reciting that the hundred in every county be not alike, some reckoning by the great hundred, or six score, and others by five score) declares that the number two thousand shall be accounted ten hundred for every thousand, after the number of the great hundred, and not after the less hundred, so that every thousand shall contain twelve hundred after the less number of the hundred. Dr. Percy observes, upon the Northumberland Household Book: "It will be necessary to premise here, that the ancient modes of computation are retained in this book, according to which it is only in money that the hundred consists of five score; in all other articles the enumerations are made by the old Teutonic hundred of six score, or a hundred and twenty.1 The enumeration of six score to the hundred occurs twice in the Domesday Survey, i. 336, in the account of Lincoln: being termed in both entries the English number. "Hic numerus Anglice computatur 1 centum pro ctum xx." It was anciently the practice to reckon up sums with counters. To this Shakespeare alludes in Othello, act i. sc. 1: 'This counter-caster.' And again in Cymbeline, act v.: 'It sums up thousands in a trice: you have no true debtor and creditor but it: of what's past, is, and to come, the discharge. Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and counters.' Again, in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: 'I wyl cast my counters, or with counters make all my reckenynges.' centum sonat, sed quadam consuetudine plus continet nempe 120. Inde etiamnum apud nos vetus istud de centenario numero: Five score of men, money, and pins: six score of all other things." Gram. Isl. p. 43. In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, i. 187, the minister of Parton, under the head of "Population," tells us: "A few years ago a man died above ninety, who about eight months before his death, got a complete set of new teeth, which he employed till near his last breath to excellent purpose. He was four times married, had children by all his wives, and, at the baptism of his last child, which happened not a year before his death, with an air of complacency expressed his thankfulness to his Maker for having at last sent him the cled score,' i. e. twenty-one." FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. "Of airy elves, by moonlight shadows seen, POPE'S Rape of the Lock, 1. 31. BOURNE supposes the fairy superstition to have been conveyed down to us by tradition from the Lamiæ, who were esteemed so mischievous as to take away young children and slay them; these, says he, together with the fauns, the gods of the woods, seem to have formed the notion of fairies. "Fairies and elves," says Tollet, "are frequently, in the poets, mentioned together, without any distinction of character that I can recollect. Keysler says that alp and alf, which is elf with the Swedes and English, equally signified a mountain or a demon of the mountains. This seems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dictionary mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the sea and fountains, without any distinction between elves and fairies." Others deduce them from the lares and larvæ of the Romans.' Dr. Percy tells us that, on the assurance of a learned friend in Wales, the existence of fairies is alluded to by the most ancient British bards, among whom their commonest name was that of the spirits of the mountains. It is conjectured by some that these little aerial people have been imported into Europe by the crusaders from the East, as in some respects they resemble the oriental Genii. Indeed the Arabs and Persians, whose religion and history abound with relations In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 1, supernumerary for April, we are told, "The opinion of fairies has been asserted by Pliny and several historians, and Aristotle himself gave some countenance to it, whose words are these: Eσri de ò TOTOC, &c., i. e. Hic locus est quem incolunt pygmei, non est fabula, sed pusillum genus ut aiunt: wherein Aristotle plays the sophist. For though by non est fabula' he seems at first to confirm it, yet, coming in at last with his ut aiunt,' he shakes the belief he had before put upon it. Our society, therefore, are of opinion that Homer was the first author of this conceit, who often used similes, as well to delight the ear as to illustrate his matter; and in his third Iliad compares the Trojans to cranes, when they descend against fairies. So that that which was only a pleasant fiction in the fountain became a solemn story in the stream, and current still among us." In the same work, vol. i. No. 25, fairy-rings are ascribed to lightning. concerning them, have assigned them a peculiar country to inhabit, and called it Fairy Land.' "It will afford entertainment," says Percy, "to a contemplative mind, to trace these whimsical opinions up to their origin. Whoever considers how early, how extensively, and how uniformly they have prevailed in these nations, will not readily assent to the hypothesis of those who fetch them from the East so late as the time of the Croisades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called Duergar, or dwarfs, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding human art. Vide Hervarer Olai Verelii, 1675; Hickesii Thesaurus, &c." 2 It was an article in the popular creed concerning fairies, that they were a kind of intermediate beings, partaking of the nature both of men and spirits: that they had material bodies, and yet the power of making them invisible, and of passing them through any sort of enclosures. They were thought to be remarkably small in stature, with fair complexions, from which last circumstance they have derived their English name.3 The habits of both sexes of fairies are represented to have been generally green.4 I made strict inquiries after fairies in the uncultivated wilds of Northumberland, but even there I could only meet with a [It seems extraordinary that an opinion so unreasonable should have been suffered to remain without correction. The so-called fairies of the middle ages, indeed, bore some resemblance to the oriental creations, but no comparison whatever is afforded between them and the beings of our vernacular mythology.] ["Ritson refers to Homer, by way of giving the fairies a respectable antiquity, but the original will bear no interpretation of the kind; and although Chapman and Pope have represented them at Sipylus, these must give place to the goddess-nymphs dancing their mazy rings on the beds of the Achelous. We can dispense with some other learning of the same kind, and be well contented with a less remote antiquity." Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, 1845.] 46 3 The account given of them by Moresin (Papatus, p. 139) favours this etymology. Papatus," says he, "credit albatas mulieres et id genus larvas," &c. "My grandmother," says the author of Round about our Coal Fire, p. 42, "has often told me of fairies dancing upon our green, and that they were little creatures clothed in green." man who said that he had seen one that had seen fairies. Truth is hard to come at in most cases. None, I believe, ever came nearer to it than I have done. The author of 'Round about our Coal Fire' has these further particulars of the popular notions concerning them: The moment any one saw them and took notice of them, they were struck blind of an eye. They lived under ground, and generally came out of a molehill." Concerning fairies, King James, in his Dæmonology, p. 132, has the following passages: "That there was a king and queene of Phairie, that they had a jolly court and traine-they had a teynd and duetie, as it were of all goods-they naturally rode and went, eate and dranke, and did all other actions like natural men and women. Witches have been transported with the pharie to a hill, which opening, they went in and there saw a fairie queen, who being now lighter gave them a stone that had sundrie vertues." [Gervase, of Tilbury, mentions two kinds of goblins in England, called Portuni and Grant. The portuni were of the true fairy size, statura pusilli, dimidium pollicis non habentes: but then, indeed, they were senili vultu, facie corrugata. Some of their pranks are described as being somewhat similar to those of Shakespeare's Puck. Gervase especially tells us: "If anything should be to be carried on in the house, or any kind of laborious work to be done, they join themselves to the work, and expedite it with more than human facility. It is natural to these that they may be obsequious, and may not be hurtful. But one little mode, as it were, they have of hurting; for when, among the ambiguous shades of night, the English occasionally ride alone, the portune sometimes gets up behind him unseen; and when he has accompanied him, going on a very long time, at length, the bridle being seized, he leads him up to the hand in the mud, in which, while infixed, he wallows, the portune, departing, sets up a laugh; and so, in this way, derides human simplicity." This at once reminds us of some of the pranks of Robin Goodfellow.] There is reprinted in Morgan's Phoenix Britannicus, p. 545, a curious tract on the subject of fairies, entitled "An Account of Anne Jefferies, now living in the county of Cornwall, who was fed for six months by a small sort of airy people called fuiries and of the strange and wonderful cures she performed |