SCUTCH': 
I7I 
gone yet another alteration. In many dialects, especiall}’ those 
of the north of England, the initial c has been dropped alto- 
gether, and instead of cwic we say wick. We do not know exactly 
how the Anglo-Saxon may have been pronounced ; but as we 
northern English people use a great many Anglo-Saxon words, 
and as we still say wick instead of quick, it is by no means un- 
likely that that was the original Anglo-Saxon pronunciation, 
perhaps with a slight guttural sound, like whick. At any rate, 
in Cheshire, wick means alive, as cwic meant in Anglo-Saxon ; 
and we speak of young thorn plants as wicks and wickwood. The 
various scutch grasses are called wicks in Cumberland, Yorkshire 
and Lincolnshire ; in Yorkshire also wickens ; and in Durham 
and parts of Cumberland they have lengthened the word as much 
as they could, and call it wickenins. The most extraordinary 
corruption of the word, however, appears in Scotland, in IMoray 
and Elgin, where Triticum repens is called wizards. One cannot, 
I think, by any turning or twisting of the Anglo-Saxon word 
cwic convert it into wizards. But still, I fancy, it is not very 
difficult to find the connection. If quitch were pronounced as 
the Scotch do pronounce words with a guttural sound it would 
become whitch ; and wizard is simply the masculine of witch. 
Thus we see what a number of names of a grass have been 
formed from the one little Anglo-Saxon adjective, cwic. We 
have quick, quicken, quitch, couch, cooch, twitch, twike, squitch, scutch, 
wicks, wickens, wickenins, and wizard ; and that all these names 
refer to the great vitality of the creeping, underground shoots of 
a grass, there can be no possible doubt. 
I mentioned that the names quick-heam and quicken had been, 
by some means or other, transferred from the aspen with its 
tremulous leaves to the mountain ash. In Cheshire we call the 
mountain ash wicken, and it is no doubt a very old and appro- 
priate name, but it has nothing to do with wick, meaning lively. 
The mountain ash is the subject of much popular superstition, 
and it was firmly believed to be a protection against witches. The 
Anglo-Saxon for a witch was mere, and here without doubt is the 
derivation of our Cheshire name wicken, meaning witch-tree ; 
and as the north country word wick means alive, and quick also 
means alive, the names quicken and quick-beam have been trans- 
ferred to the mountain ash from a misconception of the real 
meaning of the name wicken as applied to that tree, and they 
have thus nothing whatever to do with the Anglo-Saxon adjec- 
tive cwic. 
Robert Holl.a.nd. 
