"He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the church-yard after even-song. Rock-Monday, and the wake in summer shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas eve, _the hoky or seed-cake_, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of Popery." As I have not the book by me, and am only quoting from an extract, I am unable to give a more precise reference. E.R.J.H. Chancery Lane. It may be possible further the purpose of the noble Querist as to the word _Howkey_ or _Horkey_, if I state, that when in my boyhood I was accustomed to hear this word, it was pronounced as if spelt _Hockey_. As _Howkey_ I should not have recognised it, nor hardly as _Horkey_. AN EAST ANGLIAN. _Hockey_, a game played by boys with a stick bent at the end, is very likely derived from _hook_, an Anglo-Saxon word too. But we cannot suppose that anything else was derived from that, and especially when we come to words apparently more genuine than that. It seems natural to connect them with a hock-tide, Hoch-zeit (German), and Heoh-tid (A.-S.), a name given to more than one season when it was usual to have games and festivities. Now surely this is nothing else than _high_ tide, a time of some high feast; as we vulgarly say, "high days and holidays." So in the Scripture, "that Sabbath day was a high day." So high Mass. We Protestants have no conception of the close connection between the superior sanctity and the superior jollity of a particular season. Among the heathen Romans, _festicus_ is derived from _festus_.[3] We say high romps, high jinks. See Wachter, who applies Hoch-zeit to Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and says it may be derived either from high, or from _Hogen_, "gaudere," which also see. He says that the lower Saxons "hodie utuntur '_Höge_'" to mean "gaudium privatum et publicum convivale et nuptiale." See also Hohen. See Lye, who has also heah, freols summa festivitas, summum festum. Ihre (_Lex. Suio Goth._) says _Hugna_ is "to make glad." But in Hog-tid he observes, that gladness is only the secondary meaning of _Hogen_,--"_Hokanat_ vocabatur a Borealibus festum quod media hieme celebrabatur;" and he shows that hawks were formerly sacrificed at it. C.B. [Footnote 3: Is not the derivation of "feast" and "fast" originally the same? that which is appointed, connected with "_fas_," and that from "_fari_."] _Howkey or Horkey_ (No. 17. p. 263.).--Is not this word simply a corruption of _Hockey_? Vide under "Hock-cart," in _Brand's Antiquities_ by Ellis, where the following quotation from _Poor Robin's Almanack_ for 1676 occurs:-- "_Hoacky_ is brought home with hallowing, Boys with plum-cake the cart following." J.M.B.