Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-03
Interesting Facts
About "Sir Nigel"

About "Sir Nigel"
No reader of the Sunday Star should miss
the great serial story, Sir Nigel" by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, which begins today
in the Sunday Magazine Section.
Sir Nigel is a remarkable story. 1t
will tell you more about interesting stage
of English civilization, and tell it to you in
more interesting and thrilling manner,
than any volume ever written. This Is
only one of hundred reasons why you
should read it. With the aim of making
it all the more interesting as a study here
with are presented some explanatory re-
mark-footnotes. so to speak-whch may
spare readers some rummaging about for
reference books
First as to the pronunciation of the
name Nigel: The authorities all favor
Nigel, and not Nai-jel, or Nigel with
the hard sound of "g" One of the leading
dictionaries gives the pronunciation as
"Nai-je1,'' but when questioned as to his
authority the editor promptly recanted,
acknowledged the error. and promised that
the fault would be corrected in the next
edition.
THE Fortunes of Nigel is one of Sir
Walter SCOTS titles, and in this novel
chapter %, the pronunciation is fixed by
the following colloquy:
81 thought, sir answered Nigel, with as
much haughtincss as was consistent with the
cool distance which he desired to preserve.
II had told you my name at present was
His eminence of Whitefriars on this burst
out into loud, chuckling. mpudent laugh.
repeating the word, TIL his voice WAS almost
inartculate
''Niggle Green-Niggle Green--Siggle Green
why, my lord, You would be queered in the
q
cry before you touched. Why.
Master Nigel, since that is the word, l only
called you my lord because etc. etc.
And thus it is that the Century Diction-'
airy of Names and others which devote
space to proper names, characters in fc
ton etc, all give Nigel, with the accent
on the first syllable.
Church and state, as frequently appears
in ''Sr Nigel were constantly in conflict
during those formative periods of English
history. A succtnct and impartial state
ment of the anti-ecclesiastcal enactments
which eliminated in the so-called statutes
of mortman is to be found in Blackstone.
The black death of the fourteenth century
was undoubtedly a form of the bubonic
plague which still RACES in our day in ORR
entail countries and threatens annually to
invade Europe and the occident Histori-
cally, it first invaded Europe in the sixth
century, coming from the Levant, where
1t had ragged as an epidemic repea teddy, and
1t continued there in scattered localities for
more than a thousand years. The mortality
in Europe during 134S has been estimated
at 2o,G0O,OC0, or considerably more than
half of the population of many of the coun-
tries Scourged by it.
st. Benedict is commemorated in the Ro-
man and Anglican calendars on March l.
and in the Greek on March IA. He was an
Italian monk who founded the order of
Benedfctines about the year $40, and drew
governing statutes which were speedily
adopted throughout Gauf These regula-
tons threw aside useless maceration and
divided the time of the monks into periods
of prayer, mental and manual labor; they
were obliged to cultivate the land and to
read and copy manuscripts. Some little
literary life was thus preserved in the re-
tirement of the monaSteries and its de-
tendencies formed what are now called
model farms; they presented examples of
activity and industry for the laborer the
mechanic and the land owner. The ST.
Benedictine whose feast is mentioned in the
opening lines of the story is Pope Bene-
dict XII, who is commemorated on July Z
In Nigel Lorng's day this feast was no
doubt a notable one as Pope Benedict died
In the early years of that century.
st Swithin's day is July Is. He was a
bishop of Winchester, born about 500 and
is credited with many miraculous cures
after his death, for which he was trans
lated, not regularly canonzed, with great
ceremonial in 81. For no known reason he
has become associated in the popular mind
with drunkenness. In old-country folklore
common adage runs that if it rains on
St Swithins day it will rain for forty days
after.
Lammastide is the time or season of
Lammas-a corruption of loaf mass-orig-
inahy In England. the festival of the wheat
harvest, observed on August !. correspond
ing in the modern calendar to August -
1t is supposed to have taken its name from
the practice of offering first fruits at the
service OF the mass on that day, in the
form of loaves of bread. The festival was
continuation of similar one from pagan
times, and some have supposed, erroneous
ly, that the name has some connection with
the word lamb
The Feast of the Assumption celebrat ed
on the 10Th of August the taking I'D into
heaven of the Virgin Mary
Michaelmas day is the Goth of September
and is properly the day of ST. Michael and
All Angels. 1t Is great festival in the
Church of Rome and is observed as feast
by the Church of England and in business
generally being one of the four quarter
days on which rents are paid and certain
elections held. A widely prevalent custom
is to celebrate it with a goose at dinner,
much as the turkey marks our Thanksgiv-
ing dinner
Martinmas in the Roman and Anglican
churches is November II. It was the time
when cattle were killed for winter use and
the wine was drawn from the lees and
tasted. This celebration was common over
HioSt OF SHrlSteHQOfn, ana, being jOyial
occasion, St. Martin became the patron
saint of tayern-keeperS and the like
Franklin and villein, terms frequently
used in Sir Nigel describe the stations in
life during feudal times The franklin was
freebooter eligible to certain dignities;
the villein held his lands by base-that is
menlal-service, although in time villeinage
came to mean something little higher up
in the social scale. The hind was lowest of
all, and the term was Unfortunately APP
piled to household servants farm laborers
and the like whose condition was much
more servile than in our day
Peccary is probably a typographical err
ror for piscary, which was the right to take
hsh on another's property; turbary was the
right to cut turf-that is, peat-for fuel on
anothers land. Both rights were frequently
held IN common by all the tenants of an
estate.
me Clsterclans are an order of monks
and nuns which take name from the orisi-
nal convent, Citeaux or Cisterclum. near
DIXON, In France, where the society was
founded in 1893 by Robert, abbot of Mol