piannet

1) The common magpie, a pied or black and white bird that was very familiar to our ancestors.

Like other birds seen close to the village, the jackdaw for example, it was given a personal name. The ‘mag’ of magpie is of course for Margaret, and this alternative regional name has a suffix probably derived from 'Annot’, a diminutive of Agnes: 1632 A paine laid that noe tenant ... shall suffer any glead pyannatt water Crowe or Ruckes or any such Verment to brude but destroy either their eggs or young ones, Burton Agnes. Pyenot Hall in Liversedge dated from 1785 but was demolished in the 1990s.

places Burton Agnes
dates 1632

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Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0