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