_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:--