“Sieve upon herder,[225]
One upon the other;
Holes upon both sides,
Not all the way, though,
What may it be? See if you know.”
The entrance for the bees into the hive is here, as in Cambridgeshire and some other counties, named the “tee-hole,” evidently an onomatopoieia, from the buzzing or “teeing” noise, as it is locally called, which the bees make. The piece of wood placed under the “bee-pots,” to give the bees more room, is known as “the rear,” still also, I believe, in use in America. The old superstition, I may notice, is here more or less believed, that the bees must be told if any death happens in a family, or they will desert their hives. It is held, too, rather, perhaps, as a tradition than a law, that if a swarm of bees flies away the owner cannot claim them, unless, at the time, he has made a noise with a kettle or tongs to give his neighbours notice. It is on such occasions that the phrase “Low brown” may be heard, meaning that the bees, or the “brownies,” as they are called, are to settle low.
So also of the cattle, which are turned out in the Forest, we find some curious expressions. A “shadow cow” is here what would in other places be called “sheeted,” or “saddle-backed,” that is, a cow whose body is a different colour to its hind and fore parts.[226] A “huff” of cattle means a drove or herd, whilst the cattle, which are entered in the marksman’s books, are said to be “wood-roughed.” A cow without horns is still called a “not cow” (hnot), exactly corresponding to the American “humble” or “bumble cow,” that is, shorn, illustrating, as Mr. Akerman notices,[227] Chaucer’s line,—
“A not hed had he, with a brown visage.”
In the Forest, too, as in all other districts, a noticeable point is the number of words formed by the process of onomatopoieia. Thus, to take a few examples, we have the expressive verb to “scroop,” meaning to creak, or grate, as a door does on rusty hinges; and again the word “hooi,” applied to the wind whistling round a corner, or through the key-hole, making the sound correspond to the sense. It exactly represents the harsh creaking, as the Latin susurrus and the ψιθύρισμα of Theocritus reflect the whisperings of the wind in the pines and poplars, resembling, as Tennyson says, “a noise of falling showers.” Again, such words as “clocking,” “gloxing,” applied to falling, gurgling water; “grizing,” and “snaggling,” said of a dog snarling; “whittering,” or “whickering”—exactly equivalent to the German wiehern—of a young colt’s neighing; “belloking,” of a cow’s lowing—are all here commonly used, and are similarly formed. Names of animals take their origin in the same way. The wry-neck, called the “barley-bird” in Wiltshire, and the “cuckoo’s mate” and “messenger” elsewhere, is in the Forest known as the “weet-bird,” from its peculiar cry of “weet;” which it will repeat at short intervals for an hour together. So, too, the common green woodpecker is here, as is in some other parts of England, called, from its loud shrill laugh, the “yaffingale.” The goat-sucker, too, is the “jar-bird,” so known from its jarring noise, which has made the Welsh peasant name it the “wheel-bird” (aderyn y droell), and the Warwickshire the “spinning-jenny.” In fact, a large number of birds in every language are thus called, and to this day in the cry of the peacock we may plainly hear its Greek name, ταῶς.
Of course, we must be on our guard against adopting the onomatopoëtic theory as altogether explaining the origin of language. Within, however, certain limits, especially with a peculiar class of provincialisms, it gives us, as here, true aid.[228]