Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/93

 10 8. XII. JULY 24, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

73

months afterwards, the late-summer merry- making was celebrated.

When, after a prolonged struggle with the heathen holidays, the purely religious feast of the birth of Christ drew to itself many of the customs of the Roman Calends of January, together with a share of the traditional practices which properly belonged to the Teutonic celebration of the setting-in of winter, Christmas at last became a real folk-festival.

About the same time, as we may guess, St. John the Baptist's Day would absorb certain customs from both the summer feasts, while Easter, which with us and the Germans still bears a heathen name, would attract others, leaving several more to attach themselves to St. Mark's Eve.

It seems likely that in some German kindreds only the great festival about the beginning of November, and a corresponding one about the beginning of May, were of capital importance in pre-Christian days. Agricultural and household customs some- times point that way. For instance, in Nottinghamshire, with that part of Lincoln- shire which lies west of the Trent, the traditional " flitting time " of the plough- lads and the girls employed in farm-houses is Martlemas ; while in Lincolnshire east of the river the change should be at " May Day-time," Old Style, " May -week " being a holiday which is eagerly anticipated.

There is little doubt that climate, with its effect on the growth of grass and other vegetation would cause the Teutonic tribes of one district to follow customs differing from those developed by another. Tille shows clearly enough that the necessities of pastoral life settled the time at which the German feasts were kept.

An afterthought suggests to me that the Hocktide observance may really have had a connexion with the slaughter of the Danes on St. Brice's Day, which falls on the day after St. Martin's. The great feast of the beginning of winter would necessarily be ruined by the ferocious passions let loose, but at the succeeding springtide festiva" men would rejoice that the grim work was accomplished. From that time the deec may have been commemorated on the day when it was first celebrated with gladness not at the season which saw the bloody onslaught carried out. If so, the memory of the Danes' death-day would become connected with rites which were already o respectable antiquity when it took place.

M. P.

Whether at Hexton or Hungerford, it is emarkable that such an ancient custom as ' Hocking " should survive to this day. Dne says " Hocking " because of the proba- bility that the word " hock " is the Anglo- Saxon 7&oc=a hook.

That the custom celebrates the deliver- ance of the Saxons from " the heathen
 * hieves " the Danes all accounts indicate,

and it probably dates from the days of the ast Danish alien Hardicanute. Such an jvent as the lapsing of the power of the Dane was like that of a prisoner unfettered, and it is not surprising to find the day celebrating it in evidence so late as the twentieth century. Blount in his ' Glosso- graphia ' says of Hocktide :

"A Day so remarkable in ancient Times, that I lave seen a Lease without Date, reserving so much Rent payable 'ad duos anni terminos, seil. ad le

Hokeda, et ad Festum Sancti Mich.' And in the

Accounts of Magdalen College in Oxford, there is yearly an Allowance ' pro Mulieribus Hockantibus/ in some Manners of theirs in Hampshire, where the Men hock the Women on Monday, and contra on

Tuesday The Meaning of it is that on that Day

the Women in Merriment stop the Ways with Ropes, and pull Passengers to them, desiring something to be laid out in pious Uses."

But as to the word " hock," it does not seem that there is any other explanation at present than that the ropes used in securing bhe women during the festival were the hocks or hooks which gave its name to the commemoration. Fosbroke ( ' Ency. Antiq.' ) says that " on Monday and Tuesday men and women reciprocally hocked each other, i.e., stopped the way with ropes, and pulled the passengers towards them, desiring a donation." " To hock " still means, in the Cumberland dialect, to seize, to hook, to snap up. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

BEKGERODE (10 S. x. 407 ; xi. 218, 338, 434, 513). I cannot find that any one has yet told us the pronunciation. If the ge is like the ge in barge, it can hardly be of native origin.

Thornber's ' Blackpool,' we are told, derives it from burgus, a fortified place ; but this burgus is no source of anything, being merely a Latinized form of the A.-S. burh (burg), " a borough," which is the word to which Thornber would really refer us. But seeing that the A.-S. word is now borough, or in place-names sometimes Burgh, it is clear that this, at any rate, is not the real origin in this case.

Then, again, by the " German " berg must be understood the A.-S. beorh (beorg)^ Mercian berg ; nothing can be more mis-