The surname Hogg does not necessarily imply a swinish personality: more probably the original Hoggs were like the Haigs, followers of the Hagman, who was commemorated in Scotland during the Hogmanay festivities. In Turkey _aga_ means _lord_ or _chief officer_, and in Greece _hagia_ means holy, whence the festival of Hogmanay has been assumed to be a corruption of the Greek words _hagia mene_, in _holy month_. If this were so it would be interesting to know how these Greek terms reached Scotland, but, as a matter of fact, Hogmanay does not last a month: at the outside it was a fête of three weeks, and more particularly three nights. _Three weeks_ before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace, And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place, And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps, And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps, And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell, A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well: Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee, For these three nightes are alwayes thought unfortunate to bee; Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight, And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.[208] During Hogmanay it was customary for youths to go in procession from house to house singing chants of heroic origin:-- As we used to do in old King Henry's day, Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh! The King Henry here mentioned is probably not one of the Tudors, but the more primitive Nick or Old Harry, and the percipient divine who thundered against the popular festival: "Sirs, do you know what Hagmane signifies? It is _the Devil be in the house_! That's the meaning of its _Hebrew original_," had undoubtedly good grounds for his denunciation. But the still more original meaning of Hagman was in all probability the _uchman_, or high man, or giant man. According to Hellenic mythology Hercules was the son of Jove and Alcmena: the name Alcmena is apparently the feminine form of _All_ or _Holy Acmen_--whence indirectly the word _acumen_ or "sharp mind"--the two forms _mena_ and _man_ seemingly figure in Scotch custom as _Hogmanay_, and as the _Hagman_ of "Sing Hagman heigh!"[209] One of the great Roman roads of Britain is known as Akeman Street, and as it happens that this prehistoric highway passes Bath it has been gravely suggested that it derived its title from the gouty, aching men who limped along to Bath to take the waters. But as _man_ is the same word as _main_ the word Akeman Street resolves more reasonably into _High Main_ Street, which is precisely what it was. In some parts of England fairy-rings are known as Hag-tracks, whence seemingly fairies were sometimes known as hags: at Lough Crew in Ireland, there is a cabalistically-decorated stone throne known as "the Hag's Chair".