In Lancashire there is a place called Ainsworth or Cockey: in Yorkshire there is a river Cock, and near Biggleswade is a place named Cockayne Hatley: the surname Cockayne is attributed to a village in Durham named Coken. In Northumberland is a river Cocket or Coquet, and in this district in the parish of St. John Lee is Cocklaw. Cockshott is an eminence in Cumberland and Cocks Tor—whereon are stone circles and stone rows—is a commanding height in Devon. In Worcestershire is Cokehill, and it is not improbable that Great and Little Coggeshall in Essex, as also the Oxfordshire place-name Coggo, Cogges, or Coggs, are all referable to Gog.
In Northamptonshire is a place known as Cogenhoe or Cooknoe, and in seemingly all directions Cook, Cock, and Gog will be found to be synonymous. The place-name Cocknage is officially interpreted as having meant “hatch, half-door, or wicket gate of the cock,” but this is not very convincing, for no cock is likely to have had sufficient prestige to name a place. The Cornish place-name Cogynos, is interpreted as “cuckoo in the moor,” but cuckoos are sylvan rather than moorland birds: the word cuckoo, nevertheless, may imply that this bird was connected with Gog, for the Welsh for cuckoo is cog, and in Scotland the cuckoo is known as a gauk or gowk. These terms, as also the Cornish guckaw, may be decayed forms of the Latin cuculus, Greek kokkuz, or there are equal chances that they are more primitive. In Cornwall, on 28th April, there used to be held a so-called Cuckoo Feast.[205]
There is an English river Cocker: a cocker was a prize fighter, and it is possible that the expression, “not according to cocker,” may contain an allusion older than popularly supposed. There are rivers named Ock, both in Berks and Devon, and at Derby there is an Ockbrook: there is an Ogwell in Devon, a river Ogmore in Glamorganshire, and a river Ogwen in Carnarvon. In Wiltshire is an Ogbourne or river Og, and on the Wiltshire Avon there is a prehistoric British camp called Ogbury. This edifice may be described as gigantic for it covers an area of 62 acres, is upwards of a mile in circuit, and has a rampart 30 to 33 feet high.[206] The number 33 occurred in connection with the original British giants, said to be 33 in number, and we shall meet with 30 or 33 frequently hereafter. Ogre (of unknown origin), meaning a giant, may be connoted with the Iberian ogro, and with haugr the Icelandic word for hill, with which etymologers connect the adjective huge: the old Gaulish for a hill was hoge or hogue,[207] and the probability would seem to be that Og and huge were originally the same term. There is a huge earthwork at Uig in Scotland, the walls of which, like those at Ogbury in Wiltshire, measure 30 feet in height.
The surname Hogg does not necessarily imply a swinish personality: more probably the original Hoggs were like the Haigs, followers of the Hagman, who was commemorated in Scotland during the Hogmanay festivities. In Turkey aga means lord or chief officer, and in Greece hagia means holy, whence the festival of Hogmanay has been assumed to be a corruption of the Greek words hagia mene, in holy month. If this were so it would be interesting to know how these Greek terms reached Scotland, but, as a matter of fact, Hogmanay does not last a month: at the outside it was a fête of three weeks, and more particularly three nights.
Three weeks before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,
And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place,
And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,
And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps,
And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,
A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well: