In Irish mythology, it is said of Anu, the Great Mother, that well she used to cherish the circle of the Gods; in England Ked or Kerid was "the Great Cherisher," and her symbol as being _perpetual love_ was, with great propriety, that ideal mother, the hen. The word _hen_, according to Skeat, is from the "Anglo-Saxon _hana_, a cock," literally "a singer from his crowing". But a crowing _hen_ is notoriously a freak and an abomination.
In Lancashire there is a place called Ainsworth or Cockey: in Yorkshire there is a river Cock, and near Biggleswade is a place named Cockayne Hatley: the surname Cockayne is attributed to a village in Durham named Coken. In Northumberland is a river Cocket or Coquet, and in this district in the parish of St. John Lee is Cocklaw. Cockshott is an eminence in Cumberland and Cocks Tor--whereon are stone circles and stone rows--is a commanding height in Devon. In Worcestershire is Cokehill, and it is not improbable that Great and Little Coggeshall in Essex, as also the Oxfordshire place-name Coggo, Cogges, or Coggs, are all referable to Gog.
In Northamptonshire is a place known as _Cogenhoe_ or _Cooknoe_, and in seemingly all directions Cook, Cock, and Gog will be found to be synonymous. The place-name Cocknage is officially interpreted as having meant "hatch, half-door, or wicket gate of the cock," but this is not very convincing, for no cock is likely to have had sufficient prestige to name a place. The Cornish place-name Cogynos, is interpreted as "cuckoo in the moor," but cuckoos are sylvan rather than moorland birds: the word _cuckoo_, nevertheless, may imply that this bird was connected with Gog, for the Welsh for cuckoo is _cog_, and in Scotland the cuckoo is known as a _gauk_ or _gowk_. These terms, as also the Cornish _guckaw_, may be decayed forms of the Latin _cuculus_, Greek _kokkuz_, or there are equal chances that they are more primitive. In Cornwall, on 28th April, there used to be held a so-called Cuckoo Feast.[205]
There is an English river Cocker: a _cocker_ was a prize fighter, and it is possible that the expression, "not according to cocker," may contain an allusion older than popularly supposed. There are rivers named _Ock_, both in Berks and Devon, and at Derby there is an Ockbrook: there is an Ogwell in Devon, a river Ogmore in Glamorganshire, and a river Ogwen in Carnarvon. In Wiltshire is an Ogbourne or river Og, and on the Wiltshire Avon there is a prehistoric British camp called Ogbury. This edifice may be described as _gigantic_ for it covers an area of 62 acres, is upwards of a mile in circuit, and has a rampart 30 to 33 feet high.[206] The number 33 occurred in connection with the original British giants, said to be 33 in number, and we shall meet with 30 or 33 frequently hereafter. _Ogre_ (of unknown origin), meaning a giant, may be connoted with the Iberian _ogro_, and with _haugr_ the Icelandic word for hill, with which etymologers connect the adjective _huge_: the old Gaulish for a hill was _hoge_ or _hogue_,[207] and the probability would seem to be that Og and _huge_ were originally the same term. There is a huge earthwork at Uig in Scotland, the walls of which, like those at Ogbury in Wiltshire, measure 30 feet in height.