"The following piece of mysticism has been sent to us as original, with a request for a solution. The authorship is among the secrets of literature: it is said to have been by Fox, Sheridan, Gregory, Psalmenazar, Lord Byron, and the Wandering Jew. We leave the question to our erudite readers."
"I sit on a rock
While I'm raising the wind,
But the storm once abated,
I'm gentle and kind;
I see kings at my feet,
Who wait but my nod,
To kneel in the dust
Which my footsteps have trod.
Though seen by the world,
I'm known but to few;
The Gentiles detest me,
I'm pork to the Jew.
I never have past
But one night in the dark,
And that was with Noah,
Alone, in the ark.
My weight is three pounds,
My length is a mile,
And when I'm discover'd,
You'll say, with a smile,
My first and my last
Are the wish of our isle."
I should be obliged if any body could give me a key to this.
QUAESTOR.
Replies.
HOWKEY OR HORKEY.
Howkey or Horkey (Vol. i. p. 263.) is evidently, as your East Anglian correspondent and J.M.B. have pointed out, a corrupt pronunciation of the original Hockey; Hock being a heap of sheaves of corn, and hence the hock-cart, or cart loaded with sheaves.
Herrick, who often affords pleasing illustrations of old rural customs and superstitions, has a short poem, addressed to Lord Westmoreland, entitled "The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home," in which he says:—
"The harvest swains and wenches bound,
For joy to see the hock-cart crown'd."
Die Hocke was, in the language of Lower Saxony, a heap of sheaves. Hocken was the act of piling up these sheaves; and in that valuable repertory of old and provincial German words, the Wörterbuch of J.L. Frisch, it is shown to belong to the family of words which signify a heap or hilly protuberance.