HOWKEY OR HORKEY

*Howkey* or *Horkey* (Vol. i. p. 263.) is evidently, as your East Anglian correspondent and J.M.B. have pointed out, a corrupt pronunciation of the original *Hockey*; *Hock* being a heap of sheaves of corn, and hence the *hock-cart*, or cart loaded with sheaves. Herrick, who often affords pleasing illustrations of old rural customs and superstitions, has a short poem, addressed to Lord Westmoreland, entitled "The Hock-cart, or Harvest Home," in which he says:— "The harvest swains and wenches bound, For joy to see the hock-cart crown'd." *Die Hocke* was, in the language of Lower Saxony, *a heap…