Magpie - OE agu, higera

Agu is the name that translates pica (Latin for magpie) in an 11th century glossary. However, higera (a name for the jay) may also have been applied to the magpie. Both names are likely onomatopoeic (higera is likely a cognate of hragra, the name for grey heron with its similarly rasping call). Jays and magpies were known in the Middle Ages for their cleverness and mimicking capabilities (there’s an Old English riddle on the jay/magpie in which the bird tells us all the other animals sounds it can imitate). Perhaps somewhat strangely, neither magpies or jays are at all common in place-names. Agu doesn’t feature at all. Higera might be the specific in Harlow Hill in Northumbria (condensed in the har part of the name), meaning ‘magpie hill’, and it appears in one charter description to a location known as hingran hongran ‘jay/magpie’s hanging woodland’ (Cholsey and Moulsford, Oxon, 9th cen.) Additionally, it has been suggested that the place-name Tardebigge (a village in Worcestershire) may derive from a primitive Welsh word for magpie: Ardd-y-Big, meaning ‘hill or height of the magpie’. (See also the page for jay.)

Harlow Hill (Northumbs)

Tardebigge (Worcs)

Magpies appear in charters relating to the following places: Cholsey and Moulsford, Oxon (9th cen).

Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Watt, Cambridge Dictionary; Hooke, ‘Beasts, Birds’; www.langscape.org.uk. Magpie as a specific in Ardd-y-Big was first suggested by Andrews Breeze in a publication for Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society.