148 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[June 1, 1897. 



scarecrow, but -which is quite as often appHed to persons 

 who are negligent in their personal appearance as to the 

 effigy which scares crows. 



"If thee donna come in, ye hedgehog, I'll lace thee 

 warmly." This is an expression I heard issuing from the 

 mouth of a buxom woman with well-oiled and well-combed 

 hair, who was standing at the door of a thatched cottage 

 in the village of Offchiirch. Ou a patch of green in front 

 of the cottage an untidy boy, presumably her son, was idly 

 stretched out playing with a young lurcher dog, and show- 

 ing no disposition to obey the parental command. Now 

 " hedgehog," as a term of reproach, has been in vogue in 

 Warwickshire for a period of at least three hundred years. 

 It is used by Shakespeare in " Richard the Third," when 

 the ex-Queen Margaret, in cursing Richard, Duke of 

 Gloster, calls him a " hedgehog." In rural Warwickshire 

 the hedgehog is also known as an " urchin," and in former 

 times (as is set down in many parish books in the 

 immediate vicinity of Stratford-on-Avon) there were so 

 many hedgehogs or urchins overrunning the land that 

 sixpence a head was given for every one brought to the 

 farmer or churchwardens — the latter entering the payments 

 in their accounts. 



This offer of reward brought both pleasure and profit to 

 those concerned, and in it, I think, is to be traced the 

 association which has given to boys, from Shakespeare's 

 days to the present, the undesirable names of " hedgehog" 

 and "urchin." Shakespeare alludes to the urchin in 

 " Titus Andronious " (Act II., Scene 3). 



The " lace " mentioned in the above sentence has a 

 peculiar meaning in the lingo of the Warwickshire peasant. 

 It literally means to beat or thrash. 



Talking one morning to the shepherd of the Combe 

 Farm, about a mile and a half from my house at Leamington, 

 he suddenly surprised me by saying, " Well, I mun shog 

 on a bit. I were up at four, ye know, an' I can weUy do 

 wi' a shive o' summat to et an' a tot o' tay." 



Here was a perfect professor of Warwickshire dialect : 

 a veritable Shakespearean peasant in the art of the mother 

 tongue ! " Shog on a bit " '? " A shive o' summat an' a 

 tot o' tay" "? Words which Shakespeare had used three 

 centuries ago. 



To " shog " is a word very much used at the present 

 time by the peasants of this delightful county. Whether 

 it is older than "jog " I cannot say, but as Shakespeare 

 mentions " shog " in " Henry the Filth" (Act II., SceneS), 

 we are entitled to regard it as a dialect word of some 

 importance. It means to jog off, to make oft', to move on 

 slowly and easily, to shamble, to sidle. 



A " shive " has also the garments of antiquity upon it, 

 blended with the dres3 of modern days. If you go to-day 

 into a Warwickshire hay or corn field when the labourers 

 are having their lunch or dinner, the word " shive" will 

 often salute the ear. " I mun liev a shire o bread and 

 bacon," says the driver of the cutting-machine, getting 

 out his knife and opening it. A "shive' means a shave, 

 a slice, a piece. Shakespeare caught the meaning of 

 "shive" to a nicety in "Titus Andronicus " (Act II., 

 Scene 1), where he says : — 



" Wlmt, man ! more water glideth by the mill 

 Than wots the miller of; iind easy it is 

 Of a cut loaf to steal a shire/' 



The word " tot " used by the Combe shepherd is a very 

 prevalent word in all parts of rural Warwickshire. It 

 means a cup, a mug, a saucerful, or a drop of tea or any- 

 thing to drink. " Come thee in now, Biddy, lass, an' hev 

 a tot o' cider," or " Hey, I be so dry like, I could just do 

 wi' a tot o' drink," are expressions commonly beard in the 

 fields and lanes. " Tot " has also a dift'erent sigiiiScalion 



when used in conjunction with " out " or " up." To " tot 

 out" means to pour out. Again, "tot" is used in a 

 slightly varied form, as "Come, butty, tot vp," which 

 means to drink up. The landlord, too, is often requested 

 to "tot up" the score against a customer, meaning him to 

 " add " it up to find out how much is owing. 



The Warwickshire peasant is occasionally prone to use 

 " t " and " th " instead of " d " in some of his words, with 

 an effect at once peculiar and amusing. One day, in 

 walking over the fields from Leamington to Lillington, I 

 encountered a man who appeared travel- worn, and was the 

 last person from whose mouth I should have expected to 

 hear snatches of good dialect ; and yet no sooner had I 

 reached him than he said, without a word of introduction, 

 " There usen to be a lather o'er the runnel yander when I 

 wos a kiddie. Mother was nigh afraid to trusten me as 

 fur as thisen, but I crossed the lather to t'other side as 

 aim as aim." 



A "lather" in the language of the rustic means a ladder, 

 or little bridge with spars. This word is not very common, 

 but is still used by the older inhabitants of the village. 

 So far as I am aware, " lather '' is a purely Warwickshire 

 mode of expression. Some of the other words I have quoted 

 are doubtless in vogue in Staffordshire and Leicestershire 

 — at any rate, on the borders of those counties — but 

 "lather," and other allied words where the "d" is dropped 

 and the " t " sound substituted, is, I am disposed to think, 

 a feature peculiar to and characteristic of the strictly 

 Warwickshire dialect. 



Though I have but touched the fringe of a delightful 

 subject, I find that at this point I have written as much 

 as I ought in the compass of one paper, and must con- 

 clude the subject in a further contribution. In the vocabulary 

 of the Warwickshire rural dialect there are scores upon 

 scores of curious words — many of them undoubtedly 

 spoken by Shakespeare — which it would be a subject of the 

 greatest interest to explain ; but the few words I have dealt 

 with will serve to bear out the saying which George Eliot 

 placed in the mouth of Mr. Casson. Thoj air " cur'ous 

 talkers i' this country"; but it is the language which 

 Shakespeare spoke and wrote, and, as the following 

 quotation taken down from a woman's month will show, it 

 is a language at once poetic, strong, and teeming with 

 individuality of character : — 



" I canna get a blench ou the bonnie laddie's eye now, 

 hardly — hardly a blench. 'Tis the way with 'em all when 

 a dand faggot like Loo comes brevettln' about under their 

 noses. Bless her, though — bless her ! I cauna 'elp sayin' 

 on it. She's a sweet bit o' hussy, an' the darter o' my old 

 schulemate Ju. The recklin' o' the bunch, too, an' the 

 prettiest as Ju ever had. I munna be too hard on the 

 laddie, I s'poso. Mothers mun goo a-one side when daitd 

 maids come tootin' about artcr their sons. Eh! but my 

 life's as holler as a deaf-nut wi'out that laddie's love. 

 Hey, ho ! so 'tis. Just aa holler as a deaf-nut from 

 Ctiddington Wood." 



MEASUREMENT OF THE EARTH. 



By A. Fowler, F.R.A.S. 



THE town of Hammerfest, in Norway, has two chief 

 claims to distinction. It is the most northerly 

 town in the world (lat. 70^ 40' 11-3" N.) and it 

 possesses an astronomical monument of some 

 importance. The latter is depicted in the accom- 

 panying photograph, and one can better imagine than 

 describe the wonder with which it will be viewed by the 

 Lapp fisher-folk who frequent the place, and even by many 



