Chapter 275 of 323 · 210 words · ~1 min read

Chapter IX

), which also appears in Paxon, either Pack's son, or for the local Paxton.

The name Hawker does not belong to this group. Nowadays a hawker is a pedlar, and it has been assumed, without sufficient evidence, that the word is of the same origin as huckster. The Mid. Eng. le haueker or haukere (1273) is quite plainly connected with hawk, and the name may have been applied either to a Falconer, Faulkner, or to a dealer in hawks. As we know that itinerant vendors of hawks travelled from castle to castle, it is quite possible that our modern hawker is an extended use of the same name.

Nor is the name Coster to be referred to costermonger, originally a dealer in costards, i.e. apples. It is sometimes for Mid. Eng. costard (cf. such names as Cherry and Plumb), but may also represent Port. da Costa and Ger. Köster, both of which are found in early lists of Protestant refugees.

Jagger was a north-country name for a man who worked draught-horses for hire. Mr. Hardy's novel Under the Greenwood Tree opens with "the Tranter's party." A carrier is still a "tranter" in Wessex. In Medieval Latin he was called travetarius, a word apparently connected with Lat. transvehere, to transport.

##