(urth) Short Story 24: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories

[Stephen Hoy]

Marc

I'd like to re-visit something from The Island of Doctor Death and Other
Stories. You explored the onomastics of Tackman Babcock to connect Tackman
to Talar, relying on the German Tacke = bough and Armenian Talar =
evergreen. I'm with you on Talar, but I have a different take on Tackman.

'Tackman' was used in Scotland and the north of England to describe a
lease-holder or farmer. A tack is what we now call a lease on property.
Tack in this sense derives from Old Norse taka meaning 'take;' because the
tackman shared in the annual take of the property. The tackman was the
natural successor to the bondsman or villain, who in turn was preceded by
the serf or slave. See for example "History of the Tack or Lease
<https://books.google.com/books?id=-jwoAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA120&ots=-PR_EEWaeH&dq=%22History%20of%20the%20Tack%20or%20Lease%22&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q&f=false>"
in The Scots Magazine (Feb 1803).

I am less certain of the etymology of Babcock--one source suggests it
emerges from Babb-, a shortened form of Bartholomew or Barbara, plus cock,
a generic diminutive originally used to depict a strutting (cocksure)
youth. This suggests an unrefined juvenile.

In the context of allusions to The Island of Dr. Moreau through the
Lemurian Talar (and perhaps also to the Silent Planet trilogy of C.S. Lewis
through "Captain Ransom"), I sense a theme of a maturing
civilization--humankind progressing from serf to villain to tackman. For
are we not men?


None of this takes away from Tack as 'bough'--although Tack as 'twig' seems
more apt than bough, because according to the old saw, as a twig is bent,
so goes the bough.
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