Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/262

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL SEPT. n, im

sheltered and warm. Asquith, Ayscough (pronounced Askew), Ainscough, Ascot, and Escott are, I suppose, all pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, though they ought to have it on the last, because it qualifies the first. They represent eas, Gaelic, water or stream, and cuith, genitive of cuith, cowfold ; and they had been given to hamlets or farms beside a stream flowing past a place where cows were folded to rest and be milked morning, noon, and night. From the places the names were transferred to residents at them. Gaelic was once spoken in England, and several other names have been derived from cuith.

JOHN MILNE, LL.D. Aberdeen.

HOCKTIDE AT HEXTON (10 S. xi. 488;

xii. 71, 139). The eighteenth-century idea about the etymology of Hocktide may be worth recording in ' N. & Q.'

In a review of a book by the Rev. Mr. Denne, which appeared in The Monthly Review for the year 1786, there is quoted an explanation of the etymology of Hocktide. On p. 73 is this passage :

"The Rev. Mr. Denne enquires, in this entertain- ing memoir, concerning the original of Hocktyde, or Hokeday, formerly celebrated in this county. The opinion that it was intended in commemoration of the massacre of the Danes, in the time of King Ethelred, is wholly discarded: but greater probability is allowed to the supposition that it was occasioned by the death of Hardicanute, followed by a deliverance of the English from the servitude in which they had been kept by the Danes; to which Mr. Denne adds a remark that it might have some particular reference to the occasion on which

by

the name ; Hochzeit being, he says, to this day the German word for a wedding."

C. NlCHOLLS. Stevenage.

I might perhaps have suggested in the first place that " hock " is the Anglo-Saxon 7&oc=hook ; but that it is an abbreviated pronunciation, since I think it will be found that " hoketide " or " hokeday " is the older

spelling: " Thenne the tyraunt with

hokes and crochettis of yron dyde do tere theyr flessh " (' Gold. Leg.,' 134/4). See also Fosbroke, 'Ency. Antiq.,' 1843, vol. ii. p. 646, where the " hokes " are identified with " hocking " on St. Blaze's Day (3 Feb.).

Brand says our ancient authorities for the mention of Hoctide are 1. Matthew of Westm., p. 307, "Die Lunae ante le Hokeday." 2. ' Monast. Anglic.,' old ed., i. 104, " A die quae dicitur Hokedai usque ad festum S.

Michaelis." 3. An instrument in Rennet's 4 Paroch. Antiq.' dated 1363, which speaks of a period between Hoke Day and St. Martin's Day. 4. A chartulary at Caen, cited by Du Cange, p. 1150, in which a period between "flocedie usque ad Aug- ustum " is mentioned. 5. An Inspeximus in Madox's 'Formulare,' p. 225, dated 42 Ed. III., in which mention is made of " die, Martis proximo post quindenam Paschae qui vocatur Hokeday " (' Popul. Antiq.,' Bohn, 1853, vol. i. p. 186).

Cowel in his * Law Dictionary ' has the following :

"In ' Monast. Ang. part 2, folio 550, it is said, Inter alia senescallus Cur. de la Hele habebit de celerario quinq ; albos panes, &c. Et ad le Hokeday totidem."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

BRUGES : ITS PRONUNCIATION (10 S. x. 408, 473; xi. 74, 134, 254, 318). In refer- ence to the dissyllabic pronunciation of this word may I also quote the following lines ? In Bruges town is many a street. Wordsworth. Bruges I saw attired with golden light.

Wordsworth. Fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee.

Southey.

J. FOSTER PALM. R. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

In an inventory of the goods of the church of South Tawton, 1570, occurs an item in which the spelling no doubt of this place- name yields some evidence as to its pro- nunciation at that period, viz. : " One cloth of sattyn of bridgs for the comm'yn table."

E. L.-W.

' OLD TARLTON'S SONG ' : " THE KING or FRANCE WITH FORTY THOUSAND MEN " (10 S. viii. 188, 235, 277, 494). In my query I called attention to the fact that Halliwell in his edition of ' Tarlton's Jests ' says that the nursery song about the King of France and his forty thousand men, "which probably alludes to some historical event, originated with Tarlton."

I should like to supplement the answers given to my query by the following extract from a letter dated 12 May, 1620, from James Howell at Paris to Sir James Croft, describing the death on Friday, 14 May, 1610, of King Henri IV. ('Epistolse Hoelianse ') :

'France, as all Christendom besides (for there was then a truce 'twixt Spain and the Hollander), was in a profound peace, and had continued so twenty years together when Henry the fourth fell upon some great martiall designe, the bottom whereof is not known to this day ; and being rich