For when they see the blazing bale
Elliots and Armstrongs never fail.
(Lay of the Last Minstrel.)
Another and more foreign form of this sobriquet, ‘Ferbas’ (‘Robert Ferbras,’ M.), has come down to us in our somewhat curious-looking ‘Firebraces.’ Still earlier than any of these we find the sobriquet ‘Swartbrand.’ Thus we see the arm wielded a powerful influence over names as well as people, no mere accident in a day when ‘might was right.’ ‘Main,’ when not local, corresponds to the Saxon ‘Hand,’ and is found in composition in such designations as ‘Blanchmains,’ that is, white-hand, ‘Grauntmains,’ big-hand, ‘Tortesmain,’ twisted-hand, ‘Malemeyn,’ evil-hand, or perhaps maimed-hand, equivalent therefore to ‘Male-braunch’ (found at the same early date) in ‘Mainstrong,’ a mere variation of ‘Armstrong,’ and in ‘Quarterman,’ scarcely recognisable in such an English-like form as the Norman ‘Quatre-main,’ the four-handed. In the reign of the second Richard it had become registered as ‘Quatremayn’ and ‘Quatreman,’ and the inversion of the two letters in this latter case was of course inevitable.[[459]] ‘Brazdifer,’ I have said, is extinct—not so, however, ‘Pedifer’ (‘Bernard Pedefer,’ G., ‘Fulbert Pedefer,’ X.), that is, iron-footed, which, occurring from the earliest times, still looks stout and hearty in its present guise of ‘Petifer,’ ‘Pettifer,’[[460]] and ‘Potiphar,’ though the last would seem to claim for it a pedigree nearly as ancient as that of the Welshman who, half-way up his genealogical tree, had made the interesting note: ‘About this time Adam was born.’ Even this name, however, did not escape translation, for we find an ‘Ironfoot’ (‘Peter Yrenefot,’ A.) recorded at the same date as the above.[[461]] Our ‘Legges,’ our ‘Shanks’ and ‘Footes,’[[462]] are all familiar to us, though the first is in most cases undoubtedly local, as being but an olden form of ‘Leigh.’[[463]] We all remember the inimitable couplet placed over the memorial to Samuel Foote, the comedian—
Here lies one Foote, whose death may thousands save,
For death has now one foot within the grave.
‘Jambe’ was the Norman synonym of ‘Shank,’ and by way of more definite distinction we light upon the somewhat flattering ‘Bellejambe,’ the equally unflattering ‘Foljambe,’ the doubtful ‘Greyshank,’[[464]] the historic ‘Longshank,’ the hapless ‘Cruikshank’ or ‘Bowshank,’[[465]] the decidedly uncomplimentary ‘Sheepshank,’ and, last and worst, ‘Pelkeshank,’ seemingly intended to be ‘Pelican-shanked,’ which, when we recall the peculiar disproportion of that bird’s extremities to the rest of its body, affords ample reason for the absence of that sobriquet in our more modern rolls. Some fifty years ago a certain Mr. Sheepshanks, of Jesus College, Cambridge, while undergoing an examination in Juvenal, pronounced ‘satire’ ‘satyr.’ A wag, thereupon, wrote the following epigram, which soon found its way through the University:—
The satyrs of old were satyrs of note,
With the head of a man, they’d the shanks of a goat:
But the satyr of Jesus all satyrs surpasses,