In order that all good little boys who take an interest in the "NOTES AND QUERIES" may know how much more lucky it is for them to be little boys now, than it was in the ancient times, I would wish them to be informed of the cruel manner in which even good little boys were liable to be treated by the law of the Ripuarians. When a sale of land took place it was required that there should be twelve witnesses, and with these as many boys, in whose presence the price of the land should be paid, and its formal surrender take place; and then the boys were beaten, and their ears pulled, so that the pain thus inflicted upon them should make an impression upon their memory, and that they might, if necessary, be afterwards witnesses as to the sale and delivery of the land. (_Lex Ripuarium LX., de Traditionibus et Testibus._) In a note of Balucius upon this passage he states:
"A practice somewhat similar to this prevails in our our times, for in some of the provinces, whenever a notorious criminal is condemned to death, parents bring their sons with them to the place of execution, and, at the moment that he is put to death, they whip their children with rods, so that being thus excited by their own sufferings, and by seeing the punishment inflicted on another for his sins, they may ever bear in mind how necessary it is for them, in their progress through life, to be prudent and virtuous."--_Rev. Gall. et Franc. Script._, vol. iv. p. 277. n.e.
Having recently met with some curious instances of the extent to which the same or similar traditions extend themselves, not only in our own country, but in Wales and France, I have "made a note" of them for your service.
_Burying in the church wall_ is supposed to be burying in neutral ground.
In the north wall of the church of Tremeirchion, near the banks of the Elwy, North Wales (described by Pennant, vol. ii. p. 139.), is the tomb of a former vicar, Daffydd Ddu, or the black of Hiradduc, who was vicar of the parish, and celebrated as a necromancer, flourishing about 1340. Of him the tradition is, that he proved himself more clever than the Wicked One himself. A bargain was made between them that the vicar should practise the black art with impunity during his life, but that the Wicked One should possess his body after death, whether he were buried within or without the church; and that the worthy vicar cheated his ally of his bargain by being buried neither within nor without the church, but in the wall itself.