Chapter XV

), and perhaps also for the Glaisher, or glass-maker, and Asher is best explained in the same way, for we do not, I think, add -er to tree-names. Apparent exceptions can be easily accounted for, e.g. Elmer is Anglo-Sax. AElfmaer, and Beecher is Anglo-Fr. bechur, digger (Fr. bêche, spade). Neither Pitman nor Collier had their modern meaning of coal-miner. Pitman is local, of the same class as Bridgeman, Pullman, etc., and Collier meant a charcoal-burner, as in the famous ballad of Rauf Colyear. Not much coal was dug in the Middle Ages. Even in 1610 Camden speaks with disapproval, in his Britannia, of the inhabitants of Sherwood Forest who, with plenty of wood around them, persist in digging up "stinking pit-cole."

Croker is for Crocker, a maker of crocks or pitchers. The Miller's guests only retired to bed--

"Whan that dronken al was in the crowke" (A, 4158)

The spelling has affected the pronunciation, as in Sloper and Smoker (