Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

or 'magot-pie.' Many will remember that Macbeth so uses it —

Blood will have blood:

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak,

Augurs and understood relations have

By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth

The secretest man of blood. — ii. 7.

'Madge-owlet,' too, from its occasional use by writers of this later period, seems to prove that the still more homely owl of the barn owed an appellation to Dame Marjorie. Her issue, as we should expect, is large. We have 'Maggs,' 'Maggots,' and 'Magotson;' 'Margots,' 'Margetts,' and 'Margetson;' 'Margison,' 'Margerison,' 'Meggs,' and 'Megson.' 1 It will be surprising to many that we cannot place 'Mary' in the first place among female names, as it is now among those of either sex, but such was far from the case. Edward I.'s daughter 'Marie ' seems to have been the first instancewe possess of its use among the higher families of the realm; and doubtless its presence at this time must be referred, as in so many other cases we have mentioned, to the Crusades. Mariolatry, we must remember, was not yet an article of Romish belief. Indeed, the name is still of the rarest for generations after this. Maid Marion, the mistress of Robin Hood, seems to have made that diminutive popular, and either from the actedplays in which she frequently afterwards figured, or the little ornamental image of the Virgin worn by women, is come our marionette. The one only form in which it can be said to occur in our English records

1 The various forms of the diminutive are found as Christian names in the 'Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne' (Ch. Soc.), where occur such entries as 'Magot, that was wife of Richard,' 'Merget of Staley,' 'Marget of Stanly,' 'Mergret, that was wife of Hobbe.' — pp. 96-7.

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

is that of 'Mariot,' such names as 'Mariot Goscelyn,' or 'Mariota Giffard,' or 'Mariota Gosebeck,' being found as a very occasional registry. Thus our 'Mariotts' and 'Maryatts' are explained. With regard to another batch of names said to have sprung from this, I find a difficulty sets in. We have the clear statement of the author of the 'Promptorium Parvulorum' that 'Malkyne' in his day was the sobriquet of Matilda, that is, 'Mawdkin.' On the other hand, I find Halliwell has a single quotation from a manuscript in which Maid Marion is styled Malkyn also.' All modern writers, saving Mr. Lower, who has come to no decision at all, have comfortably put it down to this latter. I have no hesitation whatever myself in deciding differently, or at least in qualifying their conclusion.

'Since writing the above, I find several notices in Brand's 'Popular Antiquities' which, while corroborating the view I have taken, shed a clearer light as to Maid Marian's other sobriquet of 'Malkin.' In his allusion to the Morris dances, he quotes Beaumont and Fletcher as saying

'Put on the shape of order and humanity,

Or you must marry Malkin, the May-lady.'

Thus far, then, adding this to Mr. HalIiwell's quotation, we find that Maid Marian for several centuries was also 'Malkin.'But we must remember that it was during this very period that Robin Hood and his mistress were popularly believed to be Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, and Matilda, daughter of Lord Fitzwalter. That the May Queen, therefore, should be occasionally styled 'Malkin' will appear natural enough if we accept the view of the origin of that name as recorded in the text. But it may he asked how (lid she get the sobriquet of ' Marian'? Perhaps Mr. Steevens's quotation from an old play, 'The Downfall of Rob. Earl of Huntingdon,'dated 1401, may help us

'Next 'tis agreed (if thereto she agree)

That fair Matilda henceforth change her name;

And, while it is the chance of Robin Hoode

To live in Sherwodde a poor outlaw's life,

She by Maid Marian's name be called,'