"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 _Woerterbuch_ 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
_Sprichwoerter_ of Master Egenolf, printed at Francfort in 1548, 4to.;
and may perhaps serve to illustrate some of our obsolete rural customs:--

"We Germans keep carnival (all the time between Epiphany and
Ash-Wednesday) St. Bernard's and St. Martin's days, Whitsuntide
and Easter, as times, above all other periods of the year, when
we should eat, drink, and be merry. St. Burchard's day, on account
of the fermentation of the new must. St. Martin's, probably on
account of the fermentation of the new wine: then we roast fat
geese, and all the world enjoy themselves. At Easter we bake
pancakes (_fladen_); at Whitsuntide we make bowers of green
boughs, and keep the feast of the tabernacle in Saxony and
Thuringia; and we drink, Whitsun-beer for eight days. In Saxony,
we also keep the feast of St. Panthalion with drinking and eating
sausages and roast legs of mutton stuffed with{11} garlic. To the
_kirmse_, or church feast, which happens only once a year, four
or five neighbouring villages go together, and it is a
praiseworthy custom, as it maintains a neighbourly and kindly
feeling among the people."

The pleasing account of the English harvest feast in Gage's _Hengrave_,
calls it _Hochay_. Pegge, in his Supplement to Grose's _Provincial Words,
Hockey_. Dr. Nares notices it in his _Glossary_, and refers to an account
of its observance in Suffolk given in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for
November, 1820. See also Major Moo