Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850 by Various
page 53 of 66 (80%)
page 53 of 66 (80%)
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furnished America with inhabitants, seem to have hit the true
opinion; you cannot believe how great the resemblance of the Indian manners is to those of the ancient Scythians; it is found in their religious ceremonies, their customs, and in their food. Hornius is full of characteristics that may satisfy your curiosity in this respect, and I desire you to read him."--Vol. i. p. 400. But the subject of the "Origines Americanæ" is not what I now beg to propose for consideration; it is the tradition-falsifying assertion of Mr. Grenville Pigott, in his _Manual of Scandinavian Mythology_ (as quoted by D'Israeli in the _Amenities of English Literature_, vol. i. p. 51, 52.), that the custom with which the Scandinavians were long reproached, of drinking out of the skulls of their enemies, has no other foundation than a blunder of Olaus Wormius, who, translating a passage in the death-song of Regner Lodbrog,-- "Soon shall we drink out of the curved trees of the head," turned the trees of the head into a skull, and the skull into a hollow cup; whilst the Scald merely alluded to the branching horns, growing as trees from the heads of aninals, that is, the curved horns which formed their drinking cups. T.J. _Cromwell's Estates.--Magor_ (Vol. ii., p. 126.).--I have at length procured the following information respecting _Magor_. It is a parish in the lower division of the hundred of Caldicot, Monmouthshire. Its |
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