"HURRAH!"
(Vol. viii., p. 20. &c.)
In two previous Numbers (Vol. vi., p. 54.; Vol. vii., p. 594.) Queries have been inserted as to the derivation of the exclamations Hurrah! and Hip, hip, hurrah! These have elicited much learned remark (Vol. vii., p. 633.; Vol. viii., pp. 20. 277.), but still I think the real originals have not yet been reached by your correspondents.
As to hip, hip! I fear it must remain questionable, whether it be not a mere fanciful conjecture to resolve it into the initials of the war-cry of the Crusaders, "Hierosolyma est perdita!" The authorities, however, seem to establish that it should be written "hep" instead of hip. I would only remark, en passant, that there is an error in the passage cited by Mr. Brent (Vol. viii., p. 88.) in opposition to this mediæval solution, which entirely destroys the authority of the quotation. He refers to a note on the ballad of "Old Sir Simon the King," in which, on the couplet—
"Hang up all the poor hep drinkers,
Cries Old Sir Sim, the king of skinkers."
the author says that "hep was a term of derision applied to those who drank a weak infusion of the hep (or hip) berry or sloe: and that the exclamation 'hip, hip, hurrah!' is merely a corruption of 'hip, hip, away!'" But, unfortunately for this theory, the hip is not the sloe, as the annotator seems to suppose; nor is it capable of being used in the preparation of any infusion that could be substituted for wine, or drunk "with all the honours." It is merely the hard and tasteless buckey of the wild dog-rose, to the flower of which Chaucer likens the gentle knight Sir Thopas:
"As swete as is the bramble flour,
That beareth, the red hepe."
This demurrer, therefore, does not affect the validity of the claim which has been set up in favour of an oriental origin for this convivial refrain.
As to hurrah! if I be correct in my idea of its parentage, there are few words still in use which can boast such a remote and widely extended prevalence. It is one of those interjections in which sound so echoes sense, that men seem to have adopted it almost instinctively. In India and Ceylon, the Mahouts and attendants of the baggage-elephants cheer them on by perpetual repetitions of ur-ré, ur-ré! The Arabs and camel-drivers in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage their animals to speed by shouting ar-ré, ar-ré! The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where the mules and horses are still driven with cries of arré (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of arrieros). In France, the sportsman excites the hound by shouts of hare, hare! and the waggoner turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word hurhaut! In Germany, according to Johnson (in verbo Hurry), "Hurs was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed." And to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their cattle with shouts of hurrish, hurrish! In the latter country, in fact, to hurry, or to harry, is the popular term descriptive of the predatory habits of the border reivers in plundering and "driving the cattle" of the lowlanders.
The sound is so expressive of excitement and energy, that it seems to have been adopted in all nations as a stimulant in times of commotion; and eventually as a war-cry by the Russians, the English, and almost every people of Europe. Sir Francis Palgrave, in the passage quoted from his History of Normandy ("N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 20.), has described the custom of the Normans in raising the country by "the cry of haro," or haron, upon which all the lieges were bound to join in pursuit of the offender. This clameur de haron is the origin of the English "hue and cry;" and the word hue itself seems to retain some trace of the prevailing pedigree.
This stimulating interjection appears, in fact, to have enriched the French language as well as our own with some of the most expressive etymologies. It is the parent of the obsolete French verb harer, "to hound on, or excite clamour against any one." And it is to be traced in the epithet for a worn-out horse, a haridelle, or haridan.
In like manner, our English expressions, to hurry, to harry, and harass a flying enemy, are all instinct with the same impulse, and all traceable to the same root.
J. Emerson Tennent.
The following extract frown Mr. Thos. Dicey's Hist. of Guernsey (edit. Lond. 1751), pp. 8, 9, 10., may be worth adding to the foregoing notes on this subject:
"One thing more relating to Rollo Mr. Falle, in his account of Jersey, introduces in the following manner, not only for the singularity of it, but the particular concern which that island has still in it, viz.—
"Whether it began through Rollo's own appointment, or took its rise among the people from an awful reverence of him for his justice, it matters not; but so it is, that a custom obtained in his time, that in case of incroachment and invasion of property, or of any other oppression and violence requiring immediate remedy, the party aggrieved need do no more than call upon the name of the Duke, though at never so great a distance, thrice repeating aloud Ha-Ro, &c., and instantly the aggressor was at his peril to forbear attempting anything further.—Aa! or Ha! is the exclamation of a person suffering; Ro is the Duke's name abbreviated; so that Ha-Ro is as much as to say, O! Rollo, my Prince, succour me. Accordingly (says Mr. Falle) with us, in Jersey, the cry is, Ha-Ro, à l'aide, mon Prince! And this is that famous Clameur de Haro, subsisting in practice even when Rollo was no more, so much praised and commented upon by all who have wrote on the Norman laws. A notable example of its virtue and power was seen about one hundred and seventy years after Rollo's death, at William the Conqueror's funeral, when, in confidence thereof, a private man and a subject dared to oppose the burying of his body, in the following manner:
"It seems that, in order to build the great Abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, where he intended to lie after his decease, the Conqueror had caused several houses to be pulled down for enlarging the area, and amongst them one whose owner had received no satisfaction for his loss. The son of that person (others say the person himself) observing the grave to be dug on that very spot of ground which had been the site of his father's house, went boldly into the assembly, and forbid them, not in the name of God, as some have it, but in the name of Rollo, to bury the body there.
"Paulus Æmylius, who relates the story, says that he addressed himself to the company in these words:—'He who oppressed kingdoms by his arms has been my oppressor also, and has kept me under a continual fear of death. Since I have outlived him who injured me, I mean not to acquit him now he is dead. The ground whereon you are going to lay this man is mine; and I affirm that none may in justice bury their dead in ground which belongs to another. If, after he is gone, force and violence are still used to detain my right from me, I appeal to Rollo, the founder and father of our nation, who, though dead, lives in his laws. I take refuge in those laws, owning no authority above them.'
"This uncommonly brave speech, spoken in presence of the deceased king's own son, Prince Henry, afterwards our King Henry I., wrought its effect: the Ha-Ro was respected, the man had compensation made him for his wrongs, and, all opposition ceasing, the dead king was laid in his grave."
J. Sansom.