All the above words and phrases the writer has frequently heard used in the neighbourhood in the senses indicated, but to make the list more complete the following are added on the authority of Mr. A. Porson, in the pamphlet referred to:
COLLIED—black; Midsummer Nights Dream, Act I., Scene 1.
LIMMEL—limb from limb; cf. "inchmeal"—bit by bit; Cymbeline, Act
II., Scene 4.
TO MAMMOCK—to tear to pieces; Coriolanus, Act I., Scene 3.
TO MOIL—to dirty; Taming of the Shrew, Act IV., Scene 1.
SALLET—salad; 2 King Henry VI., Act IV., Scene 10.
UTIS—great noise; 2 King Henry IV., Act II., Scene 4.
Place-names everywhere are a most interesting study; as a rule, people do not recognize that every place-name has a meaning or reference to some outstanding peculiarity or characteristic of the place, and that much history can be gathered from interpretation. In cycling, it is one of the many interests to unravel these derivations; merely as an instance, I may mention that in Dorset and Wilts the name of Winterbourne, with a prefix or suffix, often occurs; of course, "bourne" means a stream, but until one knows that a "winterbourne" is a stream that appears in winter only, and does not exist in summer, the name carries no special signification.
One hears some curious personal names in the Worcestershire villages; scriptural names are quite common, and seem very suitable for the older labourers engaged upon their honourable employment on the land. We had a maid named Vashti, and she was quite shy about mentioning it at her first interview with my wife. In all country neighbourhoods there is a special place with the unenviable reputation of stupidity; such was "Yabberton" (Ebrington, on the Cotswolds), and Vashti was somewhat reluctant to admit that it was her "natif," as a birthplace is called in the district. Among the traditions of Yabberton it is related that the farmers, being anxious to prolong the summer, erected hurdles to wall in the cuckoo, and that they manured the church tower, expecting it to sprout into an imposing steeple! There is a place in Surrey, Send, with a similar reputation, where the inhabitants had to visit a pond before they could tell that rain was falling!
But perhaps the best story of the kind is told in the New Forest, where the Isle of Wight is regarded as the acme of stupidity. When the Isle of Wight people first began to walk erect, instead of on all fours, they are said to have waggled their arms and hands helplessly before them, saying, "And what be we to do with these-um?"