Breechcloth

“ Braxton turned in his sleep.
‘I resumed my seat, and... and... sat up staring and blinking, at a tall man with red hair. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said. “Yessir,” he replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me. But--why wasn’t I in bed? Had I--no, surely it had been no nightmare. Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed.
‘The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. ”

“ For hunting, nothing will do but boots and breeches, unless you condescend to gaiters—for trousers wet, draggled and torn, are uncomfortable and expensive wear. Leathers are pleasant, except in wet weather, and economical wear if you have a man who can clean them; but if they have to go weekly to the breeches-maker they become expensive, and are not to be had when wanted; besides, wet leather breeches are troublesome things to travel with. White cord breeches have one great convenience ”

“ The clothing of this nation consists of wide dark-blue breeches, a short narrow shirt of the same colour, with wide sleeves, which they bring together and tie on the back of their neck, so that their arms are at liberty. They wind a black cloth round their head in such a manner that at a distance it appears like a helmet, for their eyes only are seen. Being Mahometans, they cut off their hair, but leave some on the top of the head, round which those who wear no cap, contrive to fold their black cloth, so that it appears like a tuft on their helmet. ”

“ Then came the rattle of chains and the voices of men. A boat was lowered, and Nonowit, safe under the cover of the low branches, saw it headed for his shore. Men with white skin and hair growing on their faces landed on the very rock on which he had been sitting. Their clothes were unlike any he had ever seen before, and their speech could not be understood. Cautiously he backed into the forest until he gained the branches of the oak in which he had slept. Yet that was unsafe, for the white men looked up into every tree, breaking the branches and tasting the sap. ”

“ The women in winter wear breeches made of deerskin fastened around the hips by means of a drawstring and extending down the legs to where the tops of the boots will cover them a few inches. Some of the women wear trousers which reach only to the upper part of the thighs and are continuous with the boot which covers the foot, though in that case a pair of half-boots are added to protect the feet. The hips are covered with breeches which descend low enough on the thigh to be covered by the leggings. ”

“ We have burst out into periwigs, monstrous, bushy; we have donned petticoat breeches ruffled like a pigeon; we have cut our coats till they are mere apologies, serving to show off our fine shirts; and we have done the like with our coat-sleeves, leaving a little cuff glittering with buttons, and above that we have cut a great slit, all to show the marvel of our linen.
Those of us who still wear the long wide breeches adorn them with heavy frills of deep lace, and sew bunches of ribbons along the seams. ”

“ Before he went back to his monastery they begged him to restore the naughty boys to life and motion. Now Berach had wanted only to teach them a lesson, not to punish them too severely; for he was too kind-hearted to injure any living creature. So going out into the courtyard he blew upon the snow figures, and once more they became live boys. You can imagine how glad they were when they found they were able to move their legs and arms again.
Now Berach went back to his monastery in one of the King's chariots, with a robe of [165] fur and a gold chain about his neck. ”

“ I. THE MERCIAN GENEALOGY.
Of the Old English Genealogies, the only one which, in its stages below Woden, immediately concerns the student of Beowulf is the Mercian. This contains three names which also occur in Beowulf, though two of them in a corrupt form—Offa, Wermund (Garmund, Beowulf) , and Eomær (Geomor, Beowulf) .
This Mercian pedigree is found in its best form in MS Cotton Vesp. B. VI, fol. 109 b, [316] and in the sister MS at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (C.C.C.C. 183) [317] . Both these MSS are of {196}the 9th century. ”

“ It was however, early applied to the skirt worn by women hanging from the waist, Whether as the principal lower garment or as an underskirt. In the middle of the 17th century the wide breeches with heavy lace or embroidered ends worn by men were known as "petticoat breeches," a term also applied to the loose canvas or oilskin overalls worn by fishermen. ”

“ The breeches are usually made of heavier deer-skin than the frock, so that only one pair is more often worn than a single frock, and then with the hair inside. Full-dress breeches are tastefully trimmed with edging like the jacket. The boots and the women's pantaloons, as I have said, are generally made of the skin of the deer's legs, and it is the fashion to have the white patch from the inside of the deer's leg always on the outside of the ankle. A specially fashionable style of boot has the leg made of alternate stripes of white and brown skin, with a very pretty effect. ”

“ There is a tract in the Cotton MSS. (Vesp. A, xiv.) , ‘De Brachan Brecheniauc et cognatione ejus,’ which states that Brecheniauc or Brecknock, in South Wales, received its name from him, and that he was son of Aulach, son of Cormac, king of Ireland. It gives him ten sons and twenty-six daughters, but while some of these sons and daughters are connected with localities in South Wales, others are stated to have founded churches or died in the north. ”

“ For breeches, suit yourself as to material. It will have to be very tough, and of fast colour. The best cut is the “semi-riding,” loose at the knees, which should be well faced with soft leather, both for crawling, and to save the cloth in grass and low brush. ”

“ But when Braxton’s first book appeared fauns had still an air of novelty about them. We had not yet tired of them and their hoofs and their slanting eyes and their way of coming suddenly out of woods to wean quiet English villages from respectability. We did tire later. But Braxton’s faun, even now, seems to me an admirable specimen of his class--wild and weird, earthy, goat-like, almost convincing. And I find myself convinced altogether by Braxton’s rustics. I admit that I do not know much about rustics, except from novels. ”

“ Men wore cotton breech clouts while women wore large mantas of cotton cloth. This cloth was suspended from one shoulder downward covering one side of the breast, wrapped once around the waist and then taken up the back of the shoulder and tied in a knot. ”

“ The dress of the men is the brechan or plaid, 12 or 13 yards of narrow stuff wrapped round the middle and reaching to the knees, often girt round the waist, and in cold weather covering the whole body, even on the open hills, all night, and fastened on the shoulders with a broche: short stockings tied below the knee; truish, a genteeler kind of breeches, and stockings of one piece ”

“ Sometimes they wear leather breeches, made of Indian dressed elk, or deer skins, but more frequently thin trowsers.
On their legs they have Indian boots, or leggings, made of coarse woollen cloth, that either are wrapped round loosely and tied with garters, or laced upon the outside, and always come better than half-way up the thigh. ”

“ In very many species, the beard, whiskers, and crests of hair round the face are of a different colour from the rest of the head, and when different, are always of a lighter tint, [45] being often pure white, sometimes bright yellow, or reddish. The whole face of the South American Brachyurus calvus is of a "glowing scarlet hue;" but this colour does not appear until the animal is nearly mature. [46] The naked skin of the face differs wonderfully in colour in the various species. It is often brown or flesh-colour, with parts perfectly white, and often as black as that of the most sooty negro. ”

“ The epidermal covering of the piece of skin now described, however, entirely lacks the under-fur which is so thick in the Sloths; while the structure of each individual hair, with its smooth cuticle and lack of a medulla, is strikingly different from that observed both in the Sloths and Anteaters, and identical with that of the hair in the surviving Armadillos. The large hair in the Sloths and Tamandua exhibits a conspicuously scaly cuticle; while that of Myrmecophaga is remarkable for its very large medulla. ”

“ There he had stood, just beside one of the women who travelled down in the same compartment as I; a very pretty woman in a pale blue dress; a tall woman--but I had noticed how small she looked beside Braxton. This woman was now walking to and fro, yonder, with M. de Soveral. I had seen Braxton beside her as clearly as I now saw M. de Soveral.
‘Lady Rodfitten was talking about India to a recent Viceroy. She seemed to have as firm a grip of India as of “Ariel.” I sat forgotten. I wanted to arise and wander off--in a vague search for Braxton. ”

“ American men who do not care to exercise in the breech-clout alone will find that a very good substitute costume may be had by donning underclothing and socks and pulling on a breech-clout to keep the underclothing in place. ”

“ No other form of brooch is so huge and massive, with such a length of pin. The Celtic brooch-maker was so much more 93of an artist than the mere silversmith that he flattened the ring of the brooch and broadened its terminal expansions in order to provide space for the elaborate surface decoration in which he delighted. The maker of these bulbous brooches, on the other hand, is so much more of the silversmith than of the artist that the bulk of his work is merely finished with the hammer—the ring and the pin are beaten into form, and the expansions made globular instead of flat. ”

“ Extract.
But Hunferth, the son of Ecglaf, who sat at the feet of King Hrothgar, was displeased. He was grieved that any hero should come to the land boasting that he could do what no one among the Danes could do. He said scornfully to Beowulf—
‘Tell me, art thou the Beowulf whom Breca overcame in a swimming match? I heard the tale. You both ventured out like foolish men among the waves in the days of winter. For seven nights you swam together, but Breca was the stronger. Thou wilt have a worse defeat shouldst thou venture to meet Grendel in the darkness of the night.’ —Page 144. ”

“ But force remains in the argument that the name Bjarki (little bear) is very appropriate to a hero like the Beowulf of {57}our epic, who crushes or hugs his foe to death instead of using his sword; even if we do not accept explanations which would interpret the name "Beowulf" itself as a synonym for "Bear."
It is scarcely to be wondered at, then, that most critics have seen in Bjarki a Scandinavian parallel to Beowulf. But serious difficulties remain. There is in the Scandinavian story a mass of detail quite unparallelled in Beowulf, which overshadows the resemblances. ”

“ The Molluscoidea, to which phylum belong the Bryozoa and Brachiopoda, would be but imperfectly understood from a morphological standpoint but for the vast number of fossil forms. The Brachiopoda have been estimated to have less than 150 living species, while probably more than 6,000 fossil species have been described. Of the 31 families only 7 have living representatives. We are dependent, therefore, largely on the fossil forms for our knowledge of the morphology of this class. ”

“ Let’s race!” said Lady Rodfitten; and we did so--“just our two selves.” I was on the side nearer to the balustrade, and it was on that side that Braxton suddenly appeared from nowhere, solid-looking as a rock, his arms akimbo, less than three yards ahead of me, so that I swerved involuntarily, sharply, striking broadside the front wheel of Lady Rodfitten and collapsing with her, and with a crash of machinery, to the ground. ”

“ His breeches are of cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state, hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the mid-person of the wearer. These necessaries are confined at the knee by a transverse row of pearl buttons crossing the genu patella. ”

“ The brooch, which is constantly found in these interments in Norway, is a most peculiar ornament. It is always of brass, massive, oval, and bowl-shaped in form, and is distinguished from all other brooches that are known, not only of this, but of every other area and every other time, by the fact that it is an article of personal adornment which (though as capable of being used singly as any other form of fibula might be) , is almost never found singly, but constantly occurs in pairs—the one being usually an almost exact duplicate of the other. ”

“ In his fright, Nonowit wriggled for safety through the very hole from which the owl had flown the night before. There from the dark hollows he watched the white men as they studied each tree. They came at last to the old oak and shook its branches. When one man even climbed far enough to look deep into the trunk, Nonowit crouched to the very ground, holding his breath. The shadows protected him and the men passed on. "Worse than wolves," thought the boy as he ventured again to his peep-hole. ”