In the woodlands and its open glades and devious windings, where several of these herbalists I have mentioned would be often found, we shall see, too, other frequenters. It would be here, subject to the condition of agistment and pannage, our ‘Swinnarts,’ or swineherds, tended their hogs. It would be here by the hazel bank and deeper forest pathways our ‘Nutters’ and ‘Nutmans’ would be found, as the autumn began to set in, and browner and more golden tints to fleck the trees and hedgerows. It would be here, as the chills of early winter drew on, and the fallen leaves lay strewn around, our ‘Bushers’ or ‘Boshers’ (relics of the old ‘John le Busscher’ or ‘Reginald le Buscher’), and our more Saxon ‘Thomas le Woderes,’ ‘Robert Wudemongers,’ and ‘Alan le Wodemans’ (now ‘Woodyers’ and ‘Woodmans’), would be occupied in gathering the refuse branches for firing purposes—here our ‘Hewers’ (once found as ‘Ralph le Heuer’) and more specific ‘Robert le Wodehewers,’[[256]] our ‘Hackers’ and ‘Hackmans,’ would be engaged in chopping timber, perchance for building purposes, perchance for our ‘Ashburners,’[[257]] to procure their potash from. Oftentimes, no doubt, would these various frequenters of the woodland boscage be roused from their rude labours to watch as the hornblower (now ‘Hornblow’) awoke the shrill echoes, the lordly chase sweep through the glade till it was hidden by the embrasures of the forest, or the darkening twilight, or the bending hill.
One single glance backward over the names we have so far recorded in this chapter, and one thing will be obvious—their all but entirely Saxon character. Our agriculture terms, whether with regard to the work itself or the labourer, belong to the earlier tongue. There is nothing surprising in this. While in the nomenclature of trade we find the superior force and energy of the Norman temperament struggling with and oftentimes overcoming the more sober humour of the conquered race, in the country and all the pursuits of the country the latter was far ahead of its rival. It was better versed in agricultural pursuits, and ever retained them in its own hands. At the same time, as we well know, this very detention was but the mark of its defeat and the badge of its slavery. It was a victory where, nevertheless, all is lost. Wamba the jester, in ‘Ivanhoe,’ if I may be excused such a trite illustration, reminds us that our cattle, while in the field, and under the guardianship of the enslaved Saxon, were called by the Saxon terms of ‘ox,’ ‘sheep,’ and ‘calf,’ but served upon the tables of their lords became Norman ‘beef,’ ‘mutton,’ and ‘veal’—that is, while the former fed them, the latter it was that fed on them. Thus in the same way, if those homely pursuits which attached to the tilling of the soil, the breeding of cattle, the gathering in and the storing of the harvest—if these maintained the terms which belonged to them ere the Conquest, they are so many marks of serfdom. Provided the supply on his board was only profuse enough, the proud baron troubled himself little as to the supplier, or how or under what names it was procured. See how true this is from our nomenclature. There is a little word which has dropped from our lips which once played an important part in our vocabulary—I mean that of ‘herd’—not as applied to the flock, but the keeper. We still use it familiarly in compounds, such as swineherd or shepherd, but that it once had a separate existence of its own is proved by the many ‘Heards,’ or ‘Herds,’ or ‘Hurds,’ that still abound surnominally in our midst; relics as they are of the ‘John le Hirdes,’ or ‘Alice la Herdes,’ or ‘Robert le Hyrdes,’ of our olden records. Chaucer so uses it. We now speak of our Lord as the ‘Good Shepherd.’ He, however, gives us the simpler form where St. Urban is made to say—
‘Almighty Lord, O Jesu Christ,’ quoth he,
‘Sower of chaste counsel, herd of us all.’
Thus again, in the ‘Townley Mysteries’ the angel who visited the shepherds as they kept their flocks by night is represented as arousing them by saying—
Herkyn, hyrdes, awake!
See now the many compounds of which this purely Saxon word is the root. Are we in the low-lying pastures. In our ‘Stotherds’ and ‘Stothards,’ our ‘Stoddarts’ and ‘Stoddards,’ still clings the remembrance of the old stot or bullock-herd; in our ‘Yeatherds’ (as in our ‘Yeatmans’), the heifer herd; and in our ‘Cowards,’ far from being so pusillanimous as they look, the homely ‘cowherd.’ In ‘William and the Werfolf’ we are told—
It bifel in that forest
There fast byside,
There woned (dwelt) a wel old churl