In two previous Numbers (Vol. vi., p. 54.; Vol. vii., p. 594.) Queries have been inserted as to the derivation of the exclamations Hurrah! and Hip, hip, hurrah! These have elicited much learned remark (Vol. vii., p. 633.; Vol. viii., pp. 20. 277.), but still I think the real originals have not yet been reached by your correspondents.
As to hip, hip! I fear it must remain questionable, whether it be not a mere fanciful conjecture to resolve it into the initials of the war-cry of the Crusaders, "Hierosolyma est perdita!" The authorities, however, seem to establish that it should be written "hep" instead of hip. I would only remark, en passant, that there is an error in the passage cited by Mr. Brent (Vol. viii., p. 88.) in opposition to this mediæval solution, which entirely destroys the authority of the quotation. He refers to a note on the ballad of "Old Sir Simon the King," in which, on the couplet—
"Hang up all the poor hep drinkers,
Cries Old Sir Sim, the king of skinkers."
the author says that "hep was a term of derision applied to those who drank a weak infusion of the hep (or hip) berry or sloe: and that the exclamation 'hip, hip, hurrah!' is merely a corruption of 'hip, hip, away!'" But, unfortunately for this theory, the hip is not the sloe, as the annotator seems to suppose; nor is it capable of being used in the preparation of any infusion that could be substituted for wine, or drunk "with all the honours." It is merely the hard and tasteless buckey of the wild dog-rose, to the flower of which Chaucer likens the gentle knight Sir Thopas:
"As swete as is the bramble flour,
That beareth, the red hepe."
This demurrer, therefore, does not affect the validity of the claim which has been set up in favour of an oriental origin for this convivial refrain.
As to hurrah! if I be correct in my idea of its parentage, there are few words still in use which can boast such a remote and widely extended prevalence. It is one of those interjections in which sound so echoes sense, that men seem to have adopted it almost instinctively. In India and Ceylon, the Mahouts and attendants of the baggage-elephants cheer them on by perpetual repetitions of ur-ré, ur-ré! The Arabs and camel-drivers in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage their animals to speed by shouting ar-ré, ar-ré! The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where the mules and horses are still driven with cries of arré (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of arrieros). In France, the sportsman excites the hound by shouts of hare, hare! and the waggoner turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word hurhaut! In Germany, according to Johnson (in verbo Hurry), "Hurs was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed." And to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their cattle with shouts of hurrish, hurrish! In the latter country, in fact, to hurry, or to harry, is the popular term descriptive of the predatory habits of the border reivers in plundering and "driving the cattle" of the lowlanders.
The sound is so expressive of excitement and energy, that it seems to have been adopted in all nations as a stimulant in times of commotion; and eventually as a war-cry by the Russians, the English, and almost every people of Europe. Sir Francis Palgrave, in the passage quoted from his History of Normandy ("N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 20.), has described the custom of the Normans in raising the country by "the cry of haro," or haron, upon which all the lieges were bound to join in pursuit of the offender. This clameur de haron is the origin of the English "hue and cry;" and the word hue itself seems to retain some trace of the prevailing pedigree.