to
Swansea, or some other of the sea towns that he knew had commerce with
France; beside that he "remembered several honest gentlemen" that were of
his acquaintance. However, the scheme was abandoned, and the king fled to
the southward by Madeley, Boscobel, &c., to Cirencester, Bristol, and into
Dorsetshire, and thence to Brighton, where he embarked for France on the
15th Oct., 1651.

Lancaiach is still in possession of the Prichard family, descendants of
Col. Prichard.

There is a tradition that Charles I. slept there on his way from Cardiff
Castle to Brecon, in 1645, and the tester of the bed in which his Majesty
slept is stated to have been in the possession of a Cardiff antiquary now
deceased. The facts of the case appear in the _Iter Carolinum_, printed by
Peck (_Desiderata Curiosa_). The king stayed at Cardiff from the 29th July
to the 5th August, 1645, on which day he dined at Llancaiach, and supped at
Brecon.

J. M. T.

"_Ex Pede Herculem_" (Vol. iii., p. 302.).--The following allusion to the
foot of Hercules occurs in _Herodotus_, book iv. section 82.:

"[Greek: Ichnos Herakleos phainousi en petrei eneon, to oike men bemati
andros, esti de to megathos dipechu, para ton Turen potamon.]"

ALFRED GATTY.

The origin of this phrase is connected with the following story:--A certain
Greek (whose name has for the present escaped me, but who must have been
ready to contribute to the "NOTES AND QUERIES" of his time) was one day
observed carefully "stepping" over the [Greek: aulos] or footrace-course at
Olympia; and he gave as a reason for so doing, that when that race-course
was originally marked out, it was exactly six hundred times as long as
Hercules' foot (that being the distance Hercules could run without taking
breath): so that by ascertaining how many times the length of his own foot
is contained, he would know how much Hercules' foot exceeded his foot in
length, and might therefrom calculate how much Hercules' stature exceeded
that of ordinary men of those degenerate days.

J. EASTWOOD.

Ecclesfield.

This proverb does not appear to be of classical origin. Several proverbs of
a similar meaning are collected in Diogenian, v. 15. The most common is,
[Greek: ek ton onuchon ton leonta], _ex ungue leonem_. The allusion to
Hercules is probably borrowed from some fable.

L.

_Bucaneers_ (Vol. i., p. 400.).--Your correspondent C. will find an
interesting account of the Bucaneers in a poem by M.