Etymology
From the Scottish folk tradition that this is the cry that fairies make when they leave a place.
Interjection
horse and hattock
- A call that invokes the fairies to transport someone or something.
1835, Fraser's magazine for town and country - Volume 11, page 219:...but one of their number being, it seems, a little more bold and confident than his companion, said Horse and hattock with my top!' and immediately they all saw the top lifted up from the ground, but could not see which way it was carried, by reason of a cloud of dust which was raised at the same time.
1992, Robert Rankin, The Antipope, →ISBN, page 18:Archroy had noticed that his old Morris Minor, which his wife described as 'an eyesore', was no longer upon its blocks in the garage but seemed to have cried horse and hattock and been carried away by the fairies.
2001, Lizanne Henderson, Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History, →ISBN, page 37:The Miscellanies of John Aubrey (1626-97) noted two cases involving the phrase "Horse and Hattock" and fairy levitation.
- An incantation used in witchcraft in order to fly.
1833, Criminal Trials in Scotland: 1609-1624, page 604:I haid a little horse, and wold say, " Horse and Hattock, in the Divellis name !"
2004, Margeret Alice Murray, The God of the Witches, →ISBN:Isabel Gowdie of Auldearne in 1662[318] announced that she had two forms of words, one was "Horse and Hattock in the Devil's name"; the other was, "Horse and Hattock! Horse and go! Horse and Pellatis! Ho! Ho!"
2011, Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons, →ISBN, page 158:We would fly like straws when we please; wild-straws and com-straws will be horses to us, if we put them between our feet and say, 'Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's name!'
2011, Anthony C. Gilbert, Farther Up and Farther In, →ISBN, page 45:“Give it commands,” Mike concluded, “with the formula 'Horse and Hattock,' and activate it by saying three times: Horse and Hattock, horse and go, Horse and Pellattis, ho, ho!”