Part 5 (1/2)
The application of animals' names to diseases is a familiar phenomenon, e.g., _cancer_ (and _canker_), crab, and _lupus_, wolf. To this cla.s.s belongs _mulligrubs_, for which we find in the 17th century also _mouldy grubs_. Its oldest meaning is stomach-ache, still given in Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1864). _Mully_ is still used in dialect for mouldy, earthy, and _grub_ was once the regular word for worm. The Latin name for the same discomfort was _verminatio_, from _vermis_, a worm. For the later transition of meaning we may compare _megrims_, from Fr.
_migraine_, head-ache, Greco-Lat. _hemicrania_, lit. half-skull, because supposed to affect one side only of the head.
A good many names of plants and animals have a religious origin.
_Hollyhock_ is for _holy hock_, from Anglo-Sax. _hoc_, mallow: for the p.r.o.nunciation cf. _holiday_. _Halibut_ means _holy b.u.t.t_, the latter word being an old name for flat fish; for this form of _holy_ cf.
_halidom_. _Lady_ in names of flowers such as _lady's bedstraw_, _lady's garter_, _lady's slipper_, is for Our Lady. So also in _lady-bird_, called in French _bete a bon Dieu_ and in German _Marienkafer_, Mary's beetle. Here may be mentioned _samphire_, from Old Fr. _herbe de Saint Pierre_, ”sampire, crestmarin” (Cotgrave). The _filbert_, earlier _philibert_, is named from St Philibert, the nut being ripe by St Philibert's day (22nd Aug.). We may compare Ger. _Lambertsnuss_, filbert, originally ”Lombard nut,” but popularly a.s.sociated with St Lambert's day (17th Sept.).
[Page Heading: BAPTISMAL NAMES OF ANIMALS]
The application of baptismal names to animals is a very general practice, though the reason for the selection of the particular name is not always clear. The most famous of such names is _Renard_ the Fox. The Old French for fox is _goupil_, a derivative of Lat. _vulpes_, fox. The hero of the great beast epic of the Middle Ages is _Renard le goupil_, and the fact that _renard_ now completely supplanted _goupil_ shows how popular the Renard legends must have been. _Renard_ is from Old High Ger. _regin-hart_, strong in counsel; _cf._ our names _Reginald_ and _Reynold_, and Scot. _Ronald_, of Norse origin. From the same source come _Chantecler_, lit. sing-clear, the c.o.c.k, and _Partlet_, the hen, while _Bruin_, the bear, lit. ”brown,” is from the Dutch version of the epic. In the Low German version, _Reinke de Vos_, the ape's name is _Moneke_, a diminutive corresponding to Ital. _monicchio_, ”a pugge, a _munkie_, an ape” (Florio), the earlier history of which is much disputed. The cat was called _Tibert_ or _Theobald_--
MERCUTIO. ”_Tybalt_, you rat-catcher, will you walk?”
TYBALT. ”What wouldst thou have with me?”
MERCUTIO. ”Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.”
(_Romeo and Juliet_, iii. 1.)
The fact that the donkey was at one time regularly called _Cuddy_ made _Cuthbert_ for a long period unpopular as a baptismal name. He is now often called _Neddy_. The hare was called _Wat_ (_Walter_) in Tudor times. In the _Roman de Renard_ he is _Couard_, whence _coward_, a derivative of Old Fr. _coue_ (_queue_), tail, from Lat. _cauda_. The idea is that of the tail between the legs, so that the name is etymologically not very appropriate to the hare. _Parrot_, for earlier _perrot_, means ”little Peter.” The extension _Poll parrot_ is thus a kind of hermaphrodite. Fr. _pierrot_ is still used for the sparrow. The family name _Perrot_ is sometimes a nickname, ”the chatterer,” but can also mean literally ”little Peter,” just as _Emmot_ means ”little Emma,”
and _Marriot_ ”little Mary.” _Petrel_ is of cognate origin, with an allusion to St Peter's walking upon the sea; _cf._ its German name, _Sankt Peters Vogel_. Sailors call the petrel _Mother Carey's chicken_, probably a nautical corruption of some old Spanish or Italian name.
But, in spite of ingenious guesses, this lady's genealogy remains as obscure as that of Davy Jones or the Jolly Roger.
[Page Heading: NAMES OF BIRDS]
_Robin_ has practically replaced _red-breast_. The _martin_ is in French _martinet_, and the name may have been given in allusion to the southward flight of this swallow about Martinmas; but the king-fisher, not a migrant bird, is called _martin-pecheur_, formerly also _martinet pecheur_ or _oiseau de Saint-Martin_, so that _martin_ may be due to some other a.s.sociation. Sometimes the double name survives. We no longer say _Philip sparrow_, but _Jack a.s.s_, _Jack daw_, _Jenny wren_, _Tom t.i.t_ (see p. 123), and the inclusive _d.i.c.ky bird_, are still familiar.
With these we may compare _Hob_ (_i.e._ Robert) _goblin_. _Madge owl_, or simply _Madge_, was once common. For _Mag pie_ we find also various diminutives--
”Augurs, and understood relations, have By _magot-pies_, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The secret'st man of blood.”
(_Macbeth_, iii. 4.)
Cotgrave has _pie_, ”a pye, pyannat, _meggatapie_.” In Old French it was also called _jaquette_, ”a proper name for a woman; also, a piannat, or _megatapie_” (Cotgrave).
The connection of this word, Fr. _pie_, Lat. _pica_, with the comestible _pie_ is uncertain, but it seems likely that the magpie's habit of collecting miscellaneous trifles caused its name to be given to a dish of uncertain const.i.tuents. It is a curious coincidence that the obsolete _chuet_ or _chewet_ meant both a round pie and a jackdaw.[30] It is uncertain in which of the two senses Prince Hal applies the name to Falstaff (1 _Henry IV._, v. 1). It comes from Fr. _chouette_, screech-owl, which formerly meant also ”a chough, daw, jack-daw”
(Cotgrave).
A _piebald_ horse is one _balled_ like a magpie. _Ball_ is a Celtic word for a white mark, especially on the forehead; hence the tavern sign of the _Baldfaced Stag_. Our adjective _bald_ is thus a past participle.
Things are often named from animals. _Crane_, _kite_, _donkey-engine_, _monkey-wrench_, _pig-iron_, etc., are simple cases. The _crane_ picture is so striking that we are not surprised to find it literally reproduced in many other languages. The toy called a _kite_ is in French _cerf volant_, flying stag, a name also applied to the stag-beetle, and in Ger. _Drachen_, dragon. It is natural that terrifying names should have been given to early fire-arms. Many of these, e.g., _basilisk_, _serpent_, _falconet_, _saker_ (from Fr. _sacre_, a kind of hawk), are obsolete--
”The cannon, blunderbuss, and _saker_, He was th' inventor of and maker.”
(_Hudibras_, i. 2.)
More familiar is _culverin_, Fr. _couleuvrine_, a derivative of _couleuvre_, adder, Lat. _coluber_--
”And thou hast talk'd Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, _culverin_.”
(1 _Henry IV._, ii. 3.)
One name for a hand-gun was _dragon_, whence our _dragoon_, originally applied to a kind of mounted infantry or carbineers. _Musket_, like _saker_ (v.s.), was the name of a hawk. Mistress Ford uses it playfully to her page--
”How now, my eyas[31]-_musket_, what news with you?”
(_Merry Wives_, iii. 3.)
But the hawk was so nicknamed from its small size. Fr. _mousquet_, now replaced in the hawk sense by _emouchet_, is from Ital. _moschetto_, a diminutive from Lat. _musca_, fly. Thus _mosquito_ (Spanish) and _musket_ are doublets.