Sunday, or Holy Sunday, and Easter was from
Oster-monat, or East-wind month, as April was
called before it got christened by the Latin
term of Opening; fret means to eat or devour,
wherefore moths fret or eat garments, and a
man is fretted or devoured by his troubles. To-
day and to-night we all know and to-morrow
was to-morning, to keep them company; friend
was from frian, to love, fiend from tian, to hate;
gospel is good spell or good story; twilight is
twin or two lights; a haw is real Saxon for a
ditch, hence a haw-haw fence, and the haw thorn,
or ditch thorn, the thorn planted on the top of
the haw or ditch. Craven is a coward, craving
or begging for his life; a sheaf was in the
beginning a bundle of arrows tied round the middle,
and a wheat-sheaf was so called because of its
resemblance in form. Sheffield was not the
field of sheff, but sheaf-held, for it was always
famous for its cutlery, and took as its arms
four arrows held as in a sheaf. Bell and to
bellow, signify roarer and to roar; heal is to
cover; health is that which is covered or healed;
hell is the covered or unseen place, and the hull
of a ship comes from the same root; the earth
is from crean, to plough, and the hearth was so
called after the great Saxon mother earth;
dearth is dere, to injure; mazed is mad; tidy
timely; lad is a man-child under the leading of
his parents, his sister was laddess, now clipt
down to lass. Bode is a house, an abiding-
place; and came to be the body, the house or
abiding-place of the soul; and each member of
the body has a special significance, as neck
from niccan, to bend, whence also knee, and
knuckle, the little knee of the finger. The
worm came from werpen, to move in curved
lines, and werpen is our warp, and the moldy
warp is the mole, or mould-warper. The spider
is a spinner; moth is the contraction of an
unpronounceable verb which signified to eat; the
snail and the snake are both born of sniccan, to
creep, as is also sneaking; a slug is slow, so is
a sluggard; a gnat is from naetan, to sting;
lobster from loppe, to leap; and crab from creopan,
to crawl; wassail was was-heai, be of good
health, and was the initiatory bowl, and carouse
was garouz, all out, and no heel-taps. Another
derivation brings this from the Irish crowse or
karrows, lively, jolly.

Coward is a vexed question: some say from
cow-herd, fit only to herd cows, others from
the Latin cauda, through the Italian codardo
and the French couard, as one would say
tailed, or with his tail between his legs;
collar is collier, the necker; biscuit the twice
baked; courier is the runner; costard an apple,
whence costard-monger, apple-merchant; a river
is that which rives or tears its banks; and a
cutler is a coutelière, from couteau, a knife.
Haberdasher is wrapped in profound mystery—
habt ihr das, or avoir d'acheter, both given as
the sponsors of this uncouth word; to meshis
from the German meischen, to mix; to maunder
is maudire, to curse, speak ill, mutter; mortar
is a mortière, a killer; mortress, a plate of meat
pounded in a mortar; salt-cellar is the salière,
the salter or salt-holder; parlour is the speaking-
place, boudoir the pouting-place, a drawing-
room the withdrawing-room—an English
dictionary has it under the unintelligible sign
of Zeticula; merry-andrew was one Andrew
Borde, in the time of Henry the Eighth, who
first vended his wares in public, and who ever
since has given his name to a certain class of
buffoons; Madge Howlet is from machette, an
owl; statues were once called dances; daube
was a particular way of dressing veal; mic-mac
is old French for all kinds of messments and
intrigues; mean, low, vulgar, comes from the
Saxon gemaene, common; mean, the midst, from
the Latin medium, through the French moyen.
Maim is from the old French word maheigner,
to hurt or lame; bedes-man is a prayer-man,
bede standing for beads or prayers; and bond-
man is a bound man, which then went into
bondy, as simpleton: with good reason, none
but simpletons being content to remain bound.
The original meaning of bride was to cherish; the
bridegroom was the servant of the bride—for
the wedding-day only; the original meaning of
buxom was to bend, then it went to mean a
flexible, jolly woman; cock-a-hoop was coq-à-
hupe, a crested cock, and cock apparel was
quelque apparel; a barley cake was a bannock,
is so yet, and an oat cake was a jannock;
basiate, osculate, basse, and buss, all were used
for our homely pleasant kiss; a crotchet is a
little hook; a dicket is a key; coint or quaint
comes from the French, and bequeath is from
the Saxon quith, a wish or will. The crier's
O yes! O yes! O yes! comes from the oyez!
oyez! oyez! with which the Norman courts
were opened; limbo is from limbus, the edge
or border, so limbo was placed just on the
confines of hell; ait is real Saxon for a small
island clothed with osiers; royal is real or
true; and the San Graal, or holy graal, which
all the Sir Galahads of the middle ages went
mooning over Europe to find, was properly the
sang real, or true blood of the Saviour, which
got corrupted with the mysterious holy graal
or grail. Another strange instance of corruption
is in Taudry lace. It was originally Saint
Audry's lace, a certain kind of fine silk necklace,
such as the scrofulous-necked saint was
accustomed to wear round her throat, "and
being afterward," says Southey, "tormented
with violent pains in her neck, was wont to say
that God in his mercy had thus punished her, and
the fiery heat and redness of the swelling which
she endured was to atone for her former pride
and vanity. Probably she wore this lace to
conceal the scrofulous appearance, and from this,
when it was afterwards worn as an ornament
which was common and not costly, the word
taudry may have been taken to designate any
kind of coarse and vulgar finery."

Touching names, there are curious meanings
at the back of some. Audry, for instance, is
the same as Ethelreda, and Ethelreda is noble in
council, or noble speaker; Edmund is the mouth
of truth, Edward and Edgar a keeper of his
word; Gertrude is all truth; Margaret is a