The use of the personal pronoun "he," as, throughout the West of England, applied to things alike animate and inanimate, and the substitution of "thee" for you, when the speaker is angry, or wishes to be emphatic, may be here noticed. In the Forest, too, as in parts of Berkshire, a woman when employed upon out-door work is sometimes spoken of in the masculine gender, as the Hungarians are falsely said to have done of their queen on a certain memorable occasion. The confusion of cases which has been noticed by philologists is here, as in other parts of England, rather the result of ignorance than a peculiar character of the dialect.
Adder's-fern. The common polypody (Polypodium vulgare), so called from its rows of bright spores. The hard-fern (Blechnum boreale) is known as the "snake-fern."
Allow, To. To think, suppose, consider. This word exactly corresponds to the American "guess" (which, by the way, is no Americanism, but used by Wiclif in his Bible: see Luke, ch. vii. v. 43), and is employed as often and as indefinitely in the New Forest. If you ask a peasant how far it is to any place, his answer nearly invariably is, "I allow it to be so far." "Suppose," in Sussex, is used much the same way.
Bell-heath. See Red-heath.
Bed-furze. The dwarf furze (Ulex nanus), which is very common throughout the Forest.
Black-heath. See Red-heath.
Black-heart, The. The bilberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus), the "whimberry" of the northern counties, which grows very plentifully throughout the Forest. It is so called, by a singular corruption, the original word being hartberry, the Old-English heorot-berg, to which the qualifying adjective has been added, whilst the terminal substantive has been lost, and the first totally misapprehended. To go "hearting" is a very common phrase. (See Proceedings of the Philological Society, vol. iii. pp. 154, 155.)
Brize. To press. "Brize it down," means, press it down. Is this only another form of the old word prize, preese, to press, crowd?
Boughy. A tree, which instead of running up straight is full of boughs, is said to be "boughy." It is also used generally of thick woods. Akin to it is the old word buhsomenesse, boughsomeness, written, as Mr. Wedgewood notices (Dictionary of English Etymology, p. 285), buxomeness by Chaucer.
Bower-stone, A. A boundary-stone. Called a "mere-stone" in some of the Midland Counties. Perhaps from the Keltic bwr, an inclosure, intrenchment; just as manor is said to be from maenawr, a district with a stone bound.
Bound-oak. See Oak, Mark-.
Brownies, The. The bees. See chap, xvi., p. 185.
Brow. Mr. Halliwell and Mr. Wright give this as a Wiltshire word, in the sense of brittle. In the New Forest it is applied only to short, snappy, splintering timber of bad quality.
Buck, The. The stag-beetle, so called from its strong horn-like antennæ. The children, when catching it, sing this snatch—
"High buck,
Low buck,
Buck, come down."
It is also called pinch-buck. The female is known as the doe. See "Bryanston Buck," in Mr. Barnes's Glossary of the
