"I sit on a rock While I'm raising the wind, But the storm once abated, I'm gentle and kind; I see kings at my feet, Who wait but my nod, To kneel in the dust Which my footsteps have trod. Though seen by the world, I'm known but to few; The Gentiles detest me, I'm pork to the Jew. I never have past But one night in the dark, And that was with Noah, Alone, in the ark. My weight is three pounds, My length is a mile, And when I'm discover'd, You'll say, with a smile, My first and my last Are the wish of our isle." I should be obliged if any body could give me a key to this. QUAESTOR. * * * * * +Replies.+ 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 of sheaves_. _Hocken_ was the act of piling up these sheaves; and in that valuable repertory of old and provincial German words, the _Wörterbuch_ of J.L. Frisch, it is shown to belong to the family of words which signify a _heap_ or _hilly protuberance_. We should have been prepared to find the word in East Anglia; but from Herrick's use of it, and others, it must have formerly been prevalent in the West of England also. It has nothing to do with _Hock-tide_, which is the _Hoch-zeit_ of the Germans, and is merely [Transcriber's note: illegible] _feast_ or _highday_ of which a very satisfactory account will be found in Mr. Hampson's "Glossary" annexed to his _Medii Aevi Kalendarium_. An interesting account of the _Hoch-zeit_ of the Germans of Lower Saxony occurs where we should little expect it, in the _Sprichwörter_ of Master Egenolf, printed at Francfort in 1548, 4to.; and may perhaps serve to illustrate some of our obsolete rural customs:--