Note 430 — Chapter V · SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION. (TOWN). (continued 2)

This word ‘lead’ is worthy of some extended notice. We still speak of a path leading our steps to a place, but we scarcely now would say that we lead our steps to it. Shakespeare, however, does so, where Richard III. addresses Elizabeth—

‘Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul

Leads discontented steps in foreign soil.’

Several commentators on Shakespeare have proposed ‘treads’ in the place of ‘leads,’ not knowing, seemingly, how familiar was this sense of carrying or bearing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A century earlier the Malvern Dreamer says—

‘And maketh of Lyere a lang cart

To leden all these othere:’

while just before he writes—

‘And cart-saddle the commissarie,

Oure cart shall he lede

And fecchen us vitailles.’

In North Yorkshire to this very day they do very little carting. They all but invariably ‘lead hay,’ ‘lead corn,’ etc. An old form of ‘lead’ was ‘lode.’ We still talk of a ‘lode-stone.’ This explains such an entry as ‘Emma le Lodere’ or ‘Agnes le Lodere.’ They were both doubtless ‘leaders’ or ‘carriers,’ that is, wandering hucksters.