Lark’s Lees, or Lease, A. A piece of poor land fit only for larks, or, as the peasantry of the Midland Counties would say, only “fit to bear peewits.” Mr. Halliwell gives the form “lark leers,” as a Somersetshire phrase; but the above expression may be daily heard in the New Forest.
Louster. Noise, disturbance. “What a louster you are making,” signifies, what a confusion you are causing.
Lug-stick. See [Rug-stick].
Mallace, The. The common mallow (Malvus sylvestris). Formed like bullace, and other similar words.
Margon. Corn chamomile (Anthemis arvensis). Called “mathan,” throughout the Anglian districts.
Mark-oak, See [Oak].
Mokin, or more generally in the plural, Mokins. Coarse gaiters for defending the legs from the furze. See chap. xv. [p. 162].
Muddle, To. To fondle, caress, to rear by the hand. Hence we obtain the expression “a mud lamb,” that is, a lamb whose mother is dead, which has been brought up by hand, equivalent to the “tiddlin lamb” of the Wiltshire shepherds. See [Wosset].
Oak, Mark-, A. The same as a “bound-oak,” or boundary oak or ash, as the case may be, so called from the ancient cross, or mark, cut on the rind. As Kemble notices (The Saxons in England, vol. i., appendix A. p. 480), we find in Cod. Dipl. No. 393, “on ðán merkeden ók,” to the marked oak, showing how old is the name. I have never met in the New Forest with an instance of a “crouch oak” (from crois), such as occurs at Addlestone in Surrey, and which is said to have been the “bound-oak” of Windsor Forest (See The Saxons in England, as before, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 53, foot-note). The “bound-oak,” marked in the Ordnance Map near Dibden, has fallen, but we find the name preserved in the fine old wood of Mark Ash, near Lyndhurst. In the perambulation of the Forest in the 29th year of Edward I. we read of the Merkingstak of Scanperisgh. The various eagle-oaks in the Forest are comparatively modern, and must not be confounded with the eagle-oak mentioned by Kemble (as above, vol. i. p. 480).
Omary Cheese. An inferior sort of cheese, made of skim-milk, called in most parts of England “skim Dick.” See, further on, the word [Rammel], and also Vinney, chap. xvi. p. 190.