Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/598

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JUNE 22, 1907.

not the wyne : and so the wyne wyll be preserved from foystiness and evyll savor."

Ben Jonson, in his Christmas Masque, says : " He has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it."

CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield, Reading.

CAPT. WALTON'S DISPATCH (10 S. vi. 225). At the above reference I pointed out that the " well-known " brevity of this celebrated dispatch was entirely mythical, giving as my authority Clowes's ' History of the British Navy,' vol. iii. p. 36. The legend, however, dies hard. In his recently published ' History of Scotland ' (vol. iv. p. 262) Mr. Andrew Lang states with reference to Byng's victory off Cape Passaro that on this occasion " Capt. Walton wrote a despatch famous for its extreme unlikeness to the bulletins of Napoleon," and then quotes what Clowes points out is only the opening sentence of Walton's letter.

T. F. D.

HOCK: HOG: HOGA (10 S. vii. 401). This article is precisely of such a character as to fill a philologist with despair. There is no more deplorable method of arriving at truth than to toss together a quantity of words which have no relation to each other, merely because they seem to have some superficial similarity. The unreason- ableness of such a method cannot be made clear, simply because it would occupv very many pages to disentangle such a tangled mass.

A little investigation, or a mere reference to the 'N.E.D.,' would have extricated some at least of these unrelated words from the heap. Take, for example, holly-hock, which we are told means " the tall flowering plant," merely for the sake of connecting it with the German hoch ! But it means " holy mallow," and the hock in it is allied to the Welsh hocys, mallows, from the early A.-S. hocc, a mallow.

Next, take the verb to hock. This is allied to the A.-S. hoh, a heel ; see hough in the ' N.E.D.'

Next take the sb. hog. Since the article in 'N.E.D.' was printed the A.-S. form has been found ; it was originally hocg, a strong masculine.

I decline to go through this tiresome jumble. Let it suffice to say that hoch, a mallow, hough, a hock of an animal, and hog, a pig, are all totally distinct words ; and none of them has any connexion what- ever with " the root-notion of high." Why

we should be expected to explain all these things over again, I do not know.

The point is, of course, that "the root- notion of high " ought not to be expressed by such a form as an imaginary English hock, when we know all the while that the A.-S. form was heah, from a Teutonic form mere modern German ; and Old English (let me say just once more) is not derived from modern German. The hoga to which we are referred is nothing but a Latinized form of the Norse haugr, a hill, which is not the word " high " itself, but only a derivative from it.
 * hauh-oz (again see ' N.E.D.'). Hoch is

Briefly, the article cannot be considered seriously. WALTER W. SKEAT.

For many years Hock Stapler (pronounced Stap-ler) has been the title of the horse that draws the mowing-machine at Win- chester College. The Wykehamist for 21 June, 1877 (vol. iii. p. 82), contains a poem on the death of the then recent bearer of this designation, which is there spelt Hoch Stapler. The same words are also used to denote the said horse's stable in Lavender Meads. Mr. Wrench's ' Winchester Word- Book ' ignores this " notion." How old is it ? and what is its derivation ? In Her- rick's ' Hesperides ' is a poem called ' The Hock-cart or Harvest-home.' Did Hock Stapler originally draw this cart ?

JOHN B. WAINEWBIGHT.

Hocktyde festivities, which still continue to be observed at Hungerford, seem to have been universally kept in England in the time of the Tudors.

In Sir W. Scott's story of the pastimes held in honour of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth it is said that the Hocktyde festivities had been suppressed by the clergy, and that the Queen was petitioned to have them revived.

It is clear that these festivities, celebrated as they were in many different strange ways in different parts of the country, must have originated in an older festival common to all.

The money collected at the " fest of Hokkes " was given " to the Churche worke " at S arum in 149 9 for the " fabricamecclesiae," or, as elsewhere stated, for " pious purposes," though some seems to have been also spent on drinks and food for the people assembled. The last Hocktyde entry in the church- wardens' accounts at Sarum is in 1581.

DuBing this year's Hocktyde at Hunger- ford one of the customs kept up was " shoeing the colts," who were only released on paying 5s. Is this but another form of exacting a