‘Beard,’ once entered as ‘Peter Wi’-the-berd,’ or ‘Hugo cum-Barbâ,’ still thrives in our midst; and even ‘Copperbeard,’ ‘Greybeard,’ ‘Blackbeard,’[485] and ‘Whitebeard’ contrive to exist. ‘Redbeard’[486] together with ‘Featherbeard,’ ‘Eaglebeard,’ ‘Wisebeard,’ and ‘Brownbeard,’[487] have long disappeared, and ‘Bluebeard,’ of whose dread existence we were, as children, only too awfully assured, has also left no descendants; but this, I fancy, we gather from his history. ‘Lovelock’ is a relic of the once familiar plaited and beribboned lock which I have already alluded to, as having been familiarly worn by our forefathers of the more exquisite type. To the same peculiar, if not effeminate propensity, we owe, I doubt not, ‘Locke’ (‘Nicol Locke,’ A.) itself, not to mention ‘Curl’ (‘Marcus Curle,’ Z.) and ‘Crisp’ (‘Reginald le Crispe,’ J.). The former of these two, however, seems to denote the natural waviness, the latter the artificial production. In the poem from which I have but just quoted we find the same hero described as having his hair— Well crisped and cemmed (combed) with knots full many, and a memorial of the fashion still lingers in the ‘crisping pins’ of our present Bible version. In the Hundred Rolls appears the sobriquet of ‘Prikeavant.’ This, as Mr. Lower proves, lingered on till the close at least of the seventeenth century, in the form of ‘Prick-advance.’[488] I cannot agree with him, however, that it arose as a mere spur-expression. I doubt not it is but the earlier form of the later ‘pickedevaunt,’ the pointed or spiked beard so much in vogue in mediæval times. The word occurs in the ‘Taming of a Shrew’— Boy, oh! disgrace to my person! Sounes, boy, Of your face! You have many boys with such Pickedevaunts, I am sure. Nothing could be more natural than for such a custom as this to find itself memorialised in our nomenclature. Exaggeration in the habit would easily affix the name upon the wearer, and though not very euphonious as a surname, the popularity of the usage would take from its unpleasantness. This also will explain ‘Thomas Stykebeard,’ found in the H.R. at this time. But let us turn for a moment to an opposite peculiarity. Though we often talk of getting our heads polled, few, I imagine, reflect that our ‘Pollards’ must have obtained their title from their well-shorn appearance. It is with them, therefore, we must set our ‘Notts,’ ‘Notmans,’ and doubtless some of our ‘Knotts.’ The term ‘nott’ was evidently synonymous with ‘shorn,’ and to have a nothead was to have the hair closely cut all round the head. It is still commonly done in some parts of the country among the peasantry. Chaucer, describing the ‘Yeoman,’ says— A not-hed hadde he, with a browne visage.