For she was as it were a maner dey.[[263]]

The present representatives of this name are met with in the several forms of ‘Deye,’ ‘Daye,’ ‘Day,’ ‘Dayman,’ and the more unpleasantly corrupted ‘Deman.’

It is quite evident, judging from the places of abode in which we find our early ‘Fishers’ and ‘Fishermans,’ that it is to followers, though professional, of the quaint and gentle-minded Izaac Walton we owe our many possessors of these names, rather than to the dwellers upon the coast, although both, doubtless, are represented. Such entries as ‘Margaret le Fischere,’ or ‘Henry le Fissere,’ or ‘Robert le Fiscere’ are very common. This latter seems a sort of medium between the others and such a more hard form as ‘Laurence le Fisker.’ The finny species themselves gave us such sobriquets as ‘John le Fysche’ or ‘William Fyske,’ and both ‘Fish’ and ‘Fisk’ still exist amongst us. The Norman angler is seen in ‘Godard le Pescher’ or ‘Walter le Pecheur,’ while ‘Agnes le Pecheresse’ bespeaks the fact that even women did not disdain the gentle art.

But the moment we hint of the village streamlet we are thrown upon a subject vast indeed—the mill and the miller. He was emphatically, you see, the miller. Even now, in these busy grasping days, when we have cotton mills and saw mills, silk mills and powder mills, mills for this and mills for that, still it never occurs to us, when we talk of the miller, that any one could possibly mistake our meaning. And well may it be so, for it is with him we entwine pleasant remembrances of the country, the wheel, the stream, the lusty dimpled trout; with him we associate all of comfortable, peaceful content. A white jacket and a white cap, with a black coat for Sundays—how black it would look to be sure—a bluff, good-humoured face, a friendly nod, and a blithe good-morrow, up early and to bed betimes, and his memoir is written, and a very pleasant memoir, too, with a moral to boot for discontented folk, would they but see it. The old word for mill was ‘milne,’ hence we still have the earlier form, ‘Milnes’ and ‘Milner’ being nearly as familiar to us in that respect as ‘Mills’ and ‘Miller.’ Besides these we have ‘Milman’ and ‘Milward,’ who once, no doubt, acted as custodian, the modern ‘man on the premises,’ in fact.[[264]] The ancestry of all these is proved by such registered forms as ‘John le Mellere,’ ‘William le Melner,’ ‘Robert le Milleward,’[[265]] ‘John del Mill,’ or ‘Thomas atte Milne,’ all of which are found scattered over our earlier rolls.[[266]] Our ‘Threshers’ and ‘Taskers’ (Benedict le Tasker,’ H.R.) busied themselves in urging the flail. I have only lit upon the latter term once as in ordinary colloquial use. Burton in the preface to his ‘Anatomy’ says—‘many poor country-vicars, for want of other means, are driven to their shifts,’ and ‘as Paul did, at last turn taskers, maltsters, costermongers, graziers, etc.’[[267]] Our ‘Winners,’ shortened from ‘Winnower,’ winnowed the grain with the fan; our ‘Boulters’ or ‘Bulters,’[[268]] ‘Siviers’ and ‘Riddlers,’ (‘Geoffrey le Boltere,’ A., ‘William Rydler,’ Z., ‘Ralph le Siviere,’ A.), still more carefully separated the flour from the bran. How beautifully Shakespeare presses this into his imagery many will remember, where Florizel speaks of—

The fanned snow that’s bolted

By the northern blasts twice o’er.

Our Bible translators, too, must have yet been familiar with the simpler process of this earlier time when they rendered one of the prophet’s happier foretellings into the beautiful Saxon we still possess:—‘The oxen likewise, and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.’ The manufacture or use of the fan wherewith to purge the flour made our ‘Walter le Vanners,’ ‘Simon le Fanneres,’ ‘Richard atte Vannes,’ or ‘William atte Fannes,’ familiar names at this time. In Cocke Lorelle’s Bote, we find among other craftsmen—

Barbers, bokebynders, and lymners;

Repers, faners, and horners.

We must not forget, too, our ‘Shovellers’ and more common ‘Showlers,’ ‘showl’ being ever the vulgar form. It was for no purpose of rhyme, only the word is so used where we are asked—