Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New Englandhags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched.
I don't plan to stop drinking. But... I don't wanna forget. I can't turn away anymore. So, if I'm gonna die, well, it might as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderoushag.
1646, Richard Crashaw, “Sospetto D' Herode”, inSteps to the Temple, stanza 37:
Fourth of the cursed knot ofhags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell's shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution
Ahagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the familyMyxinidae, allied to thelamprey, with asuctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
(obsolete) An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair.
1656, Thomas White,Peripateticall Institutions[2], page149:
Flamma lambentes (or those we callHaggs) are made of Sweat or some other Vapour issuing out of the Head; a not-unusuall sight amongst us when we ride by night in the Summer time: They are extinguisht, like flames, by shaking the Horse Mains
(Northern England) A smallwood, or part of a wood orcopse, which is marked off or enclosed forfelling, or which has been felled.[from 15th c.]
1845, Edward Fairfax (tr.),Godfrey of Bulloigne; or, The Recovery of Jerusalem: Done into English Heroical Verse[3], page168:
This said, he led me over hoults andhags; / Through thorns and bushes scant my legs I drew
Amarshyhollow, especially an area ofpeat lying lower than surroundingmoorland, formed by erosion of a gully or cutting and often having steep edges.[from 16th c.]
1662, Sir William Dugdale,The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes[4], page292:
And they likewise ordained[…] that all the warp should be thrown into the Common wayes, to fill uphaggs and lakes, where need was, upon a great penalty, where it should ly neer the Common rode.
[…] upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses,[…]
1845,The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Ayr, Bute, page107:
The uplands are generally mossy, resting on clay of a yellow colour, covered by moss of various depths, which often break into what are calledhags, or flow-moss.
1868, James Salmon,Gowodean, page49:
[…] I had made sure to find him in thehag o' Coars-Neuk Moor,[…]
1882, Joseph Senior,Smithy Rhymes and Stithy Chimes, Or, the Short and Simple Annals of the Poor, page46:
The strongest nag that crosses th'hagg / Wi wots ta Fullod mill.
1898, Charles Spence,From the Braes of the Carse: Poems and Songs by the Late Charles Spence, page189:
[…] the murky flag / Flaps on Turftennant's rushyhag."
The shallow slow-running groughs fed thehag with a trickle of coppery water.
2023 October 12, Mike Billett,Peat and Whisky: The Unbreakable Bond, Saraband,→ISBN:
The winter snow has collected amongst the eroded peathags and is being actively reshaped into deep dunes and linear ripples by the strong winds whipping across the summit ridge. In the winter light, large sandblasted granite tors, sugar-coated with ice, stand out[…]
hag (third-person singular simple presenthags,present participlehagging,simple past and past participlehagged)
To cut or erode (as) ahag (a hollow into moorland).
1874,Notes and Queries, page253:
hag[…] is that part in mosses which is naturally or artificially cut, hollowed,hagged, or hacked; naturally by water runlets forming hollows, and artificially by, among other means, the cutting and removal of peat.
1956,Scotland's Magazine, volume52, page39:
Covenanters too met often on our moss-hagged moors.
1990, Angélique Day, Patrick McWilliams,Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Co. Antrim VIII-IX, page 5:
[…] on one occasion, where the bog had been cut away, a stump was discovered which bore evident marks of having beenhagged [hacked].
2024, Peter Hadden, Iain Chisholm,A Very British Journey:
Crowberry is particularly abundant onhagged peat and in cotton grass mires; it prefers drier ground,[…]
FromMiddle Englishhaggen(“to hack, chop, cut”), fromOld Norsehǫggva(“to hew”). CompareEnglishhag, above. Noun attested from the 14th century in Older Scots, with the verb from c. 1400.
[…]and the rawzorhaggit like a saw—Trumbull o’ Selkirk makes good rawzors, but the weans are unco fond of playing wi’ mine, puir things—Od keep us!
when the razor ishacked like a saw-tooth—Trumbull from Selkirk makes good razors, but the children are uncommonly fond of playing with mine, the poor things—then God help us!
