Snipe

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Snipe - OE snite, *snipe - ON myrisnipa

An old name. W. B. Lockwood speculates that it comes from an ancient word for ‘long, protruding object’, which would certainly describe the most distinctive thing about this bird. Snipe draw attention to themselves in spring in places where they breed because the male performs a staggering display flight, during which he splays his tail feathers and dives, causing air to rush through them and produce a surprising, otherworldly aerial song which has inspired its name in more than one language: hæferblæte ‘goat-bleater’ in Old English and Gabhar-athair ‘goat of the air’ in Irish Gaelic, for instance. In other respects, snipe are one of our most cryptic species, but in this, like bitterns in reeds, they are the very embodiment and epitome of their habitat, being the perfect expression of miry marsh mud and hummock. Snipe were almost certainly birds put into the pot as well, like many water birds must have been.

Note: asterisks at the end of names denote ambiguity about the meaning, the bird referent in the name being just one possible interpretation.

Snitter (Northumb)*

Snitterfield (Warks)

Snitton (Shrops)*

Snydale (Yorks)

Field names: The Snipe (Broughton, Yorks), Snipe Moor (Puddletown, Dor), Snite (Stone, Glos), Snitelega (Slimbridge, Glos) Snitemore (Cassington and Westcott Barton, Oxon), Snytfen (Cambs), Snyttergill (Great Salkend, Cumbs).

Snipe appear in charters relating to the following places: Shellingford, Oxon (?).

Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Watts, Cambridge Dictionary; Ekwall, Oxford Dictionary; Cavill, English Field-Names; landscape.org.uk.

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