THE ' STOTT: 409 



feet of oxen used in ploughing, and heifers or stutts in 

 harrowing, were shod at threepence each.' 



It is necessary here to remark, that Richardson^ derives 

 the word 'stott' from the Anglo-Saxon stod-ho?'s, and as 

 applied to oxen from the Swedish stut, Danish ,sfu(l, a 

 steer. The word has given rise to some discussion, it 

 having been used for a very long time in Scotland as a 

 designation for a steer, heifer, or bullock, and the notice 

 in the above is thought by the antiquarian who quotes it, 

 to mean heifer. Of this, however, there may be con- 

 siderable doubt ; as the term has been constantly applied 

 in England to under-sized strong horses or cobs. In 

 the 'Vision of Piers Plowman' (1362?) it occurs in this 



sense : 



Grace of his goodnesse, gaf 

 Peers foure stottes. 



And Chaucer, in his ' Canterbury Pilgrims,' says : 



This Reeve sat upon a right good slot, 



That was all pomelee (dappled) gray, and highte Scot. 



Signifying, I think, that the word came from beyond the 

 Tweed. Sir David Lyndsay also applies it to a horse. On 

 a part of the border of the so-called Bayeux tapestry, re- 

 presenting the landing of William the Conqueror and 

 the battle of Hastings, a piece of needlework by some 

 ascribed to Saxon embroiderers, there is a representation 

 of a man driving a horse attached to a harrow — one of 

 the earliest instances we have of horses being used in field- 

 labour ; but which was a common enough custom in the 

 time of Richard II. 



' Archaeologia, p. 284. London, 181 7. 

 "" Dictionary of the English Language. London, 1837. 



