“Here’s the poor harmless hare from the woods that is tracked,
And her footsteps deep dounted in snow.”
Dray, A. A prison; “the cage” of the Midland districts. Curiously enough the old poet William Browne, as also Wither, speaks of a squirrel’s nest as a “dray”—still used, by-the-by, in some counties—which in the New Forest is always called a “cage.” In this last sense Mr. Lower adds it to the glossary of Sussex provincialisms (Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. xiii., p. 215). I may further note that at Christmas in the Forest, as in other wooded parts of England, squirrel-feasts are held. Two parties of boys and young men go into the woods armed with “scales” and “snogs” (see chap. xvi. [p. 182]), to see who will kill the most squirrels. Sometimes as many as a hundred or more are brought home, when they are baked in a pie. Their fur, too, is sought after for its glossiness.
Drum, Ivy-, An. The stem of an ivy tree or bush, which grows round the hole of another tree.
Drunch, To. To draw up, press, squeeze. We find the substantive “drunge,” with which it is evidently connected, given in Wright as a Wiltshire pronunciation for pressure, or crowd. Mr. Barnes also, in his Glossary of the Dorsetshire Dialect, p. 235, gives the forms “dringe” or “drunge,” to squeeze or push.
Elam, An. An handful of thatch. Common both in the New Forest and Wiltshire. In the former three elams make a bundle, and twenty bundles one score, and four scores a ton. In the latter the measurement is somewhat different, five elams forming a bundle.
Fessey. (From the Old-English fús, ready, prompt, quick). Proud, upstart. In the glossaries of Wright and Halliwell we find “fess” given as the commoner form.
Fetch, To. Used with reference to churning butter. “To fetch the butter,” means, to raise the cream into a certain consistency.
Fire-bladder. A pimple, or eruption on the face. See “[bunch].”
Flisky. Small, minute. Used especially of misty rain.