SC - Haversacks and nefts (??)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Jessica Tiffin wrote:
> 
> "haversack" as a bag used to carry feast gear to feasts.  (The OED
> references it as a bag used by soldiers to carry their lunch, 18th
> century).

Ummm, for what it's worth, and I'm also working from memory, "haver" is
an Anglo-Saxon term meaning "oat"; I'll have to look through the back
issues or see if there's an index someplace, but there's an article in
some issue of PPC about Northern English oatcakes; I _believe_ it
mentions a reference to havercakes (more of a bannock than a sgian or
scone; in other words, thicker and possibly leavened) in Langland's
"Piers the Plowman". Somewhere I also have a text file version of Piers
Plowman; it is presumably searchable.

Anyway, if this is correct, it might conceivably mean words like
havercake, haversack, and haverstraw have some period relevance. I would
assume that a haversack might have other uses when the oats have been
used up, rather like the things we can do with potato or flour sacks
after the potatoes or flour are gone.

It may also be that the compilers of the OED simply didn't search
through all the right manuscripts and books in determining the earliest
known usage in this case -- not unprecedented. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com