Note 87 — NOTES ON PARISHES ROUND HORNCASTLE. (continued 3)

Streatfeild (“Lincolnshire and the Danes,” p. 219) says “from the old Norse ‘heri,’ or hare, come Eresby (or Heresby) and Hareby.” In south Lincolnshire, hares are still called “heres.” The canting crest of the Withers’s family, is a hare’s head, with ears up-pricked. Whether there is any connection between “ear” and “eres” or hares, I know not, but the long ears are a distinguishing feature, and often the only part of the animal visible in tall covers; and there is the same variation, in the presence, or absence, of the aspirate, between the noun “ear” and the verb “to hear,” as between Eresby and Hareby. The writer has a vivid recollection of the hares as a feature of the locality, as he has frequently joined coursing parties at Hareby, many years ago, when there was game enough to afford sport for 30 couple of greyhounds. Fuller in his “Worthies of England,” p. 150 (Circa 1659), tells of a Dutchman who came over and spent a season in hunting “in Lincolniensi montium tractu,” in the mountainous parts of Lincolnshire; and as foxhounds were not established at that date, this must have been hare hunting in these Wolds.