_Wheale_ (Vol. vi., p. 579.; Vol. vii., p. 96.).--Since this word is once
more brought forward in "N. & Q." (Vol. viii., p. 208.), I will answer the
Query respecting it. I was prepared to do so shortly after it first
appeared, but I had reason to expect a reply from one more conversant with
such archaisms. If the Querist, or either respondent, had examined the
context, he could not have failed to discover a clue to the meaning, as the
words "gall of dragons" instead of "wine," and "wheale" instead of "milk,"
are evidently translations of sound expressions in the preface of Pope
Sixtus (or Xystus) V., to his edition of the Vulgate. The words there are
"fel draconum pro vino, pro lacte sanies obtruderetur." Wheale more
commonly signified, in later times, a pustule or boil; but it is from the
Ang.-Sax. _hwele_, putrefaction. The bad taste of such language is too
manifest to require farther comment.
If I were disposed to conclude with a Query, I might ask where Q. found
that _wheale_ ever meant _whey_?