While ‘herd,’ as a root-word, implied the tendance of cattle in the meadows and woods and on the hillsides, ‘man,’ I suspect, was equally significative of their guardianship in the stable and the yard. Thus if the ‘cowherd’ was in the field, the ‘cowman’ would be in the stall. We may here, therefore, set our familiar ‘Cowmans,’ ‘Bullmans,’ ‘Heiffermans,’ and ‘Steermans,’ or ‘Stiermans.’[[262]] One or two provincialisms, I imagine, have added also to this stock. Mr. Lower thinks our ‘Twentymans’ to be derived from ‘Vintenarius,’ a captain of twenty. This may be so, but I suspect the more correct origin will be found in ‘twenterman’ or ‘twinterman,’ he who tended the ‘twenters’ or ‘twinters,’ the old and once familiar ‘two-winter,’ or, as we now generally say, ‘two-year-old.’ If the ‘steer,’ the ‘heifer,’ the ‘cow,’ and the ‘bull’ gave a sobriquet to the farm labourer, why not this? As a farmyard term it occurs in every provincial record of the fifteenth and even sixteenth century. Thus, to quote but one instance, I find in a will dated 1556 mention made of ‘6 oxen, item, 18 sterres (steers), item, 11 heifers, item, 21 twenters, item, 23 stirks.’ (Richmondshire Wills, p. 93.) An inventory of the same date includes ‘3 kye, item, one whye.’ This latter term was equally commonly used at this period for a ‘heifer.’ Our ‘Whymans’ and ‘Wymans’ will, we may fairly surmise, be their present memorial. ‘Cowman,’ mentioned above, was met by the Norman ‘Vacher,’ such entries as ‘John le Vacher’ or ‘Walter le Vacher’ being common, and as ‘Vacher,’ or more corruptly ‘Vatcher,’ it still abides in our midst. ‘Thomas le Stabeler,’ or ‘William le Stabler,’ too, are yet with us; but descendants for ‘Thomas le Milkar’ or ‘William le Melker’ are, I fear, wanting. A Norman representative for these latter is found in the Parliamentary Writs in the case of ‘John le Lacter.’ There is the smack of a kindred labour in the registered ‘Thomas le Charner,’ for I doubt not his must have been but an antique dress of ‘Churner.’ Another form is found in an old Richmondshire will dated 1592, where mention is made of ‘Robert Chirner’ and his sister ‘Jane Chirner.’ As an additional proof that his occupation was such as I have surmised, I may add that in the same record in the valuation of household property the churn is spelt chirne. (Richmondshire Wills, p. 235, note.) The most interesting sobriquet of this class, and the one which has left the most memorials, is found in such mediæval names as ‘Cecilia le Day,’ or ‘Christiana la Daye,’ or ‘Stephen le Dagh.’ A ‘day’ was a dairyman, of which word it is but another form. Chaucer, in one of the most charming of his descriptions, tells us of a poor widow, how that she—
Since that day that she was last a wife
In patience led a ful simple life,
For litel was her cattle, and her rent:
By husbandry of such as God her sent
She found herself and eke her doughtren two.
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Her board was served most with white and black,
Milk and brown bread, in which she found no lack,
Singed bacon, and sometimes an egg or twey,