26 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Feb. 1, 1S69. 



am indebted to Dr. Prior's interesting work " On 

 the Popular Names of British Plants." With these 

 necessary, if tedious, prefatory remarks, I will enter 

 upon my subject. 



It must be remembered that it is no argument 

 against the appropriateness of these common names 

 that the reasons for which they were given are now 

 forgotten by those who use them ; and that the 

 names themselves are often so corrupted that it re- 

 quires some ingenuity to discover what they were 

 originally. They were doubtless expressive and 

 comprehensible to those who first invented and used 

 them ; and the wide distribution of many of them is 

 sufficient proof that they were generally accepted as 

 such. In the first place, then, I will endeavour to 

 show what languages enter into our English plant- 

 names, illustrating each by a few examples, types of 

 numberless others, which might be cited, did space 

 permit. 



We are all familiar with the Hawthorn (Crataegus 

 oxyacantha), and we call its red fruit "haws." 

 Eurther north, however, as in Cheshire, Lancashire, 

 and Yorkshire, they are known as " haigs " or 

 "hagues." Eor the meaning of these words, we 

 must refer to the Anglo-Saxon, where we shall find 

 hawthorn rendered hagaSorn, hag&om, or hege^orn, 

 which closely corresponds with the German hagedorn. 

 Erom this we may gather that the Hawthorn was 

 employed from very early times in the manufacture 

 of our hedges (A.-S. haga, or hcege, perhaps from 

 the Icelandic hegna, to fence round) ; and possibly 

 its general use for that purpose may have led to the 

 application of haga, first to the shrub of which the 

 fences were formed, and, in later times, to the fruit 

 of that shrub. Mr. Holland, however, thinks that 

 A.-S. hag, a hedge, was derived from the tree, and 

 not the name of the tree from the place of its 

 growth ; for this simple reason, -hagcc&orn would 

 meau "the thorn-tree bearing luegs ;" and in A.-S. 

 times hags probably referred, as they do still, to 

 the fruit rather than to the shrub bearing them. 

 Hag, or haga, then, would be A.-S. for the fruit ; 

 hcrg^orii, the tree bearing the fruit ; and that being 

 used in the making of fences, a fence was therefore 

 called haga or /urge. In Cheshire and Lancashire 

 the origin of Hawthorn is more apparent, as it is 

 there called " Haythorn ;" and in Norfolk a hedge 

 is a "hay." Haguebush or Hagbush Lane, in 

 the north of London, formerly a favourite resort for 

 artists, but now doubtless covered with bricks and 

 mortar, meant originally Hawthornbush Lane. 

 But we have not yet done with haga. The Great 

 Mullein (Verbascum Thapsus) is, in modern books, 

 called High-taper, and this name is explained as 

 referring to the resemblance of its tall yellow spike 

 to the candles which formerly stood on the altars of 

 our churches. Here we have an illustration of the 

 readiness with which a reason may be invented to 

 account for a name. Gerarde and our older herbal- 



ists spelt it Hig-taper, which, being incomprehen- 

 sible to some, was transformed into High-taper, and 

 the above meaning added. Yet Hig-taper, or Hag- 

 taper, was the original word ; the " taper," perhaps, 

 referring to the tall stem of the plant, the affix " hig " 

 being A.-S. for hay, or if we take "hag" as the 

 correct form, referring to the usual place of growth 

 of this Mullein — viz. hedgebanks. The Buckingham- 

 shire names, "agg-paper" and " agg-leaf" counte- 

 nance the latter notion : here we observe another cor- 

 ruption, that of " taper " into " paper." "Agg-leaf," 

 however, is a sensible name enough ; the plant is a 

 biennial, and the prominence of its rosette of large 

 flannel-like leaves on the hedgeba.\\k during the first 

 year of its existence, would attract observation, 

 even though without blossom. Every one knows the 

 long hooked stems and small burs of the Cleavers, 

 or Goosegrass (Galium Aparine), which fasten upon 

 and persistently adhere to our clothing. In the 

 northern and midland counties this has a very 

 curious name, spelt by different correspondents 

 heriff, hayriff, herriff, ayriff, airup, aireve. Here, 

 again, we have hreg entering into the composition of 

 the name of another hedge-plant ; for all these 

 forms are from the A.-S. hegerife. Dr. Prior 

 derives the second half of this word from A.-S. 

 reafa, which, he says, " significantly enough, means 

 both a tax-gatherer and a robber." A writer in the 

 Athenceum, however, prefers to take the verb reafiau, 

 to seize, to lay hold of, as its origin. In either 

 case, no one will deny the suitability of the epithet ; 

 but it is worthy of note that here we have an 

 example of the transferring of a name from one 

 plant to another ; as the Burdock (Arctium Lappa) 

 was the original hegerife (Prior). The term is 

 equally appropriate to both ; but, curiously enough, 

 while it is applied to the Cleavers in many lists, I 

 haye not noted a single instance of its connection 

 with the Burdock. It has been attempted to show 

 that the word herriff is merely a contraction of hair- 

 rough, referring to the rough hairs with which the 

 plant is clothed ; but the derivation from the A.-S. 

 above given is the more satisfactory. It receives a 

 curious confirmation in the Cumberland names of 

 the plant : " Rob-run-up-dyke," and " Robin-run- 

 up-dyke ;" and the Dublin one, " Robin-run-the- 

 hedge ;" which look very like translations of hegerife, 

 robber-run-up-hedge ; robber having been corrupted 

 into Robin, or abbreviated into Rob. Haga, ovJurg, 

 enters into the old names Haymaids and Heyliovc 

 for the Ground Ivy (Nepeta glechoma), into Hag- 

 berry (or, in Cumberland, Heckberry) for the Wild 

 Cherry (Pruims avium), and others which we can- 

 not now stop to consider. 



That most troublesome weed to farmers, the 

 Couch-grass (Triticitm repens), has a variety of 

 names. In Cumberland and Essex it is Twitch ; in 

 Cheshire and Shropshire, Scutch ; in North Buck- 

 inghamshire, Squitch ; in South Buckinghamshire, 



