Lieth the body of Jonathan Blue.
N.B.—His name was ‘Black,’ but that wouldn’t do.
There may be more or less doubt as to the precise reference some of the above-mentioned names bear to the physical peculiarities of their owners, whether to the complexion of the face, or the hair, or, as I have lately hinted, to the dress. But in many other cases there can be no such controversy. For instance, no one can be in perplexity as to how our ‘Downyheads,’ ‘Rufheads,’[[479]] ‘Hardheads,’ ‘Whiteheads,’ ‘Redheads,’ ‘Flaxenheads,’[[480]] ‘Shavenheads,’ ‘Goldenheads,’ ‘Weaselheads,’[[481]] ‘Coxheads’ or ‘Cocksheads,’ and ‘Greenheads’ arose, many of which, now extinct, were evidently intended to be obnoxious. Nor is there any greater difficulty in deciphering the meaning of such names as ‘Whitelock’ or ‘Whitlock,’ ‘Silverlock’ or ‘Blacklock.’ ‘Shakelock’ seems to refer to some eccentricity on the part of the owner, unless it be but a corruption of ‘Shacklock,’ a likely sobriquet for a gaoler, from the fetterlocks, once so termed, which he was wont to employ—
And bids his man bring out the fivefold twist,
His shackles, shacklocks, hampers, gyves, and chains.
‘Whitehair,’[[482]] ‘Fairhair,’[[483]] and ‘Yalowhair,’ are equally transparent. The latter was once a decidedly favourite hue, as I believe it is still, only we now say ‘golden.’[[484]] With the gross flattery so commonly resorted to by courtier historians, every princess was described as having yellow tresses. How they allowed themselves to be so cajoled is an equally historic mystery. Queen Elizabeth had more obsequious adulation uttered to her face, and possessed a greater stomach for it, than any other royal personage who ever sat upon or laid claim to a crown, but nothing pleased her more than a compliment upon her golden locks, carroty as they really were. In a description of another Elizabeth, the Queen of Henry VII., as she appeared before her coronation, 1487, quoted by Mr. Way, it is said that she wore ‘her faire yellow hair hanging down pleyne behynd her back, with a calle of pipes over it,’ and further back still, when Chaucer would describe the beauty of Dame Gladness, he must needs finish off the portrayal by touching up her locks with the popular hue—
Her hair was yellow, and clear shining,
I wot no lady so liking.
‘Yalowhair’ is obsolete, but in our ‘Fairfax’ is preserved a sobriquet commemorative no doubt of the same favoured colour. In ‘Sir Gawayne’ we are told, after the alliterative style of the day, how ‘fair fanning fax’ encircled the shoulders of the doughty warrior. In the ‘Townley Mysteries,’ too, a demon is represented in one place as saying—
A horne, and a Dutch axe,