''Earsh'' (noun) ( ang, ersc) was used in South and West
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
to describe a stubble field in which a grain crop – wheat, barley or rye - had been harvested, leaving short stubble or short stalks. The field is prepared for seeding by ploughing the stubble into the ground, or
burning
Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combusti ...
. It is frequently pronounced "ash". It is written also as arrish, arish, eddish or ersh.
Etymology
The word as a description for a stubble field is found in medieval tithe maps and their apportionments, and is
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
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peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
in origin.
Place names such as
Earsham
Earsham is a small village in Norfolk, England. Its postal town is the nearby Bungay, Suffolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 907 in 357 households at the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census, the population falling to 882 at th ...
,
Winnersh
Winnersh is a large suburban village and civil parish in the borough of Wokingham in Berkshire, England. The village is located around northwest of Wokingham town centre and around southeast of central Reading. It is roughly bounded by the ...
and
Wonersh
Wonersh is a village and civil parish in the Waverley district of Surrey, England and Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Wonersh contains three Conservation Areas and spans an area three to six miles SSE of Guildford. In the o ...
derive from their situation in an earsh field. ''Hazlehurst'' means earsh (arable) land overgrown with
Hazel
The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ...
.
Noah Webster
Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
describes earsh as a plowed (sic) field linking it to arrish, but also to eadish which is described as latter pasture of grass that comes after mowing or reaping, called also eargrass, earsh, and etch.
Literary references
''Fires oft are good on barren earshes made, With crackling flames to burn the stubble blade''
Thomas May
Thomas May (1594/95 – 13 November 1650) was an English poet, dramatist and historian of the Renaissance era.
Early life and career until 1630
May was born in Mayfield, Sussex, the son of Sir Thomas May, a minor courtier. He matriculated a ...
1628
''It can wait another day, today I will do like Tarka, and gallop joyfully through the arrish.''
Henry Williamson
Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history and ruralism. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 for his book ''Tarka ...
1927
''The hay was gathered from the fields, and the cattle turned onto the eddish''.
D H Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...