Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear.
In Cumberland the hare is Katie. In Herefordshire it was Sarah, so the gardener said, that came in the early morning hours, and while men still slept, browsed on the young green of the pinks in the big bed on our Rectory lawn. In Norfolk the marshmen call her Old Aunt. The rabbit in Cumberland bears the nickname of Johnny Wapstraw. A Berkshire mouse is sometimes called Moses, a name given in Kent to a young frog. In parts of Scotland the pig is familiarly addressed as Sandy Campbell. The toad is Thomas (Chs.); the cockchafer is Tom Beadle (Cum. Lan.); the guinea-fowl is Tom-pot (Dev.), so named from its peculiar cry. For the same reason it is called Swap-hats (w.Som.), and Come-back, this last being the most widely known dialect name for the bird.
Names given to Animals
The donkey goes by a number of names: Balaam (e.An.); Jeremiah (Suf.); Peter Moguz (Cor.), &c.; a female donkey in Lincolnshire is a Jen-ass. A tom-cat in Suffolk is a Jim-cat; and a she-cat is a Betty-cat. One is tempted to suggest that this last name is due to association of ideas—the domestic cat, the fireside, and the kettle singing on the hob—for in East Anglia the kettle is nicknamed Betty, and the common proverb takes the form of: That’s the saucepan calling the kettle Betty Black.
When the author of that delightful book The Rose and the Ring tells us how Valoroso XXIV, King of Paflagonia, gave a small family dinner-party in honour of Prince Bulbo, he writes: ‘You may be sure they had a very good dinner—let every boy or girl think of what he or she likes best, and fancy it on the table,’ with the added footnote: ‘Here a very pretty game may be played by all the children saying what they like best for dinner.’ So here I will leave my readers to amuse themselves by thinking of all the choice morsels of dialect lore, which they specially love, and which have not been recorded in the foregoing chapters; knowing as I do full well, that many a feast can yet be spread before the store of good things is exhausted.
Transcriber’s Note:
The following addendum was printed at the end of the book, and has been incorporated into the text: “To VIII on [p. 149] add: The stressed form of the nominative is generally ðē or ðeə, but in some midl. and s. dialects it is ðai or ðei, and in Sh. and Or.I. n.Ken. Sus. dē, rarely dei. The unstressed form is generally ðe or ðə, rarely ði.” The reference to the addendum “See p.342.” has been removed from page 149.
In the original sometimes the abbreviation “c.” is italicized, and sometimes not. They have been left as they were printed.
Some words have been abbreviated in more than one way (e.g. s.w. and sw. for south-west). These have not been changed.