The equally foreign ‘Belteste’ (‘John Beleteste,’ A.) is content, likewise, to allow ‘Fairhead’ (‘Richard Faireheved,’ H.) to transmit to posterity the claims of its early possessor to _capital_ grace. ‘Blackhead’[454] existed in the seventeenth, and ‘Hardhead’ in the fifteenth century. These are all preferable, however, to ‘Lambshead’ (‘Agnes Lambesheved,’ A.), found some generations earlier, and still firmly settled in our midst, as the ‘London Directory’ can vouch.[455] So much for the head. ‘Neck’ and ‘Swire’ are both synonymous. Chaucer describes Envy as ready to ‘scratch her face,’ or ‘rend her clothes,’ or ‘tear her swire,’[456] in respect of which latter feat we should now more generally say ‘tear her hair.’ Either operation, however, would be unpleasant enough, and it is just as well that for all practical purposes it only occurs in poetry. Some characteristic of strength, or beauty, or deformity (let us assume one of the former) has given us our ‘Hands,’ ‘Armes,’ and ‘Brass’s,’ from the old ‘Braz.’ ‘Finger,’ once existing (‘Matilda Finger,’ H.), is now obsolete. Whether this sobriquet was given on the same grounds as that bestowed on the redoubtable ‘Tom Thumb,’ I cannot say. ‘Brazdifer’ (‘Simon Braz-de-fer,’ E., ‘Michael Bras-de-fer,’ B.B.), arm of iron, once a renowned nom-de-plume, still dwells, though obsolete in itself, in our ‘Strongithams’ and ‘Armstrongs.’[457] A common form of this North-country name was ‘Armstrang’ or ‘Armestrang’ (‘Adam le Armstrang,’ G.), reminding us that our ‘Strangs’ are but the fellows of our more southern ‘Strongs’ (‘John le Strang,’ E., ‘Joscelin le Strong,’ H.). ‘Lang’[458] and ‘Long’ represent a similar difference of pronunciation. The ‘Armstrongs’ were a great Border clan. Mr. Lower reminds me of the following lines:— Ye need not go to Liddisdale, For when they see the blazing bale Elliots and Armstrongs never fail. (_Lay of the Last Minstrel._)