CHAPTER XXIII

. BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES

"As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas' Zulu names was The Woodpecker."

(HAGGARD, Allan Quatermain, ch. vii.)

The great majority of nicknames coming under the headings typified by Bird and Fowell, Best, and Fish or Fisk (Scand.) are easily identified. But here, as everywhere in the subject, pitfalls abound. The name Best itself is an example of a now misleading spelling retained for obvious reasons--

"First, on the wal was peynted a forest, In which ther dwelleth neither man nor best."

(A, 1976.)

We do not find exotic animals, nor even the beasts of heraldry, at all frequently. Leppard, leopard, is in some cases for the Ger. Liebhart; and Griffin, when not Welsh, should no doubt be included among inn-signs. Oliphant, i.e. elephant--

"For maystow surmounten thise olifauntes in gretnesse or weighte of body" (Boece, 782)--

may be a genuine nickname, but Roland's ivory horn was also called by this name, and the surname may go back to some legendary connection of the same kind. Bear is not uncommon, captive bears being familiar to a period in which the title bear-ward is frequently met with.

It is possible that Drake may sometimes represent Anglo-Sax. draca, dragon, rather than the bird, but the latter is unmistakable in Sheldrick, for sheldrake. As a rule, animal nicknames were taken rather from the domestic species with which the peasantry were familiar and whose habits would readily suggest comparisons, generally disparaging, with those of their neighbours.

BIRDS

Bird names are especially common, and it does not need much imagination to see how readily and naturally a man might be nicknamed Hawke for his fierceness, Crowe from a gloomy aspect, or Nightingale for the gift of sweet song. Many of these surnames go back to words which are now either obsolete or found only in dialect. The peacock was once the Poe, an early loan from Lat. pavo, or, more fully, Pocock

"A sheaf of pocok arwes, bright and kene, Under his belt he bar ful thriftily."

(A, 104.)

The name Pay is another form of the same word. Coe, whence Hedgecoe, is an old name for the jackdaw--

"Cadow, or coo, or chogh (chough), monedula" (Prompt. Parv.)--

but may also stand for cow, as we find, in defiance of gender and sex, such entries as Robert le cow, William le vache. Those birds which have now assumed a font-name, such as Jack daw, Mag pie, of course occur without it as surnames, e.g. Daw and Pye--

"The thief the chough, and eek the jangelyng pye" (Parliament of Fowls, 305).

The latter has a dim. Pyatt.

Rainbird is a local name for the green woodpecker, but as an East-Anglian name it is most likely an imitative form of Fr. Rimbaud or Raimbaud, identical with Anglo-Sax. Regenbeald. Knott is the name of a bird which frequents the sea-shore and, mindful of Cnut's wisdom, retreats nimbly before the advancing surf--

"The knot that called was Canutus' bird of old."

(Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 368.)

This historical connection is most probably due to folk-etymology. Titmus is of course for tit-mouse. Dialect names for the woodpecker survive in Speight, Speke, and Spick, Pick (