Obs. exc. Hist. [Origin obscure: connection with THISTLE sb. is doubtful; the second element is TACK sb.2] The name in some localities of a due levied upon the owners of pigs by the lord of the manor, as a charge for pannage. Cf. quot. 1523 for tack-swine, s.v. TACK sb.2 6.
1303–5. York Vac. Roll (Ministers Accts. 1144/1, P.R.O.). Et de xs. vijd. de operibus custumariorum … cum pannagio quod dicitur thisiltak.
1327. Inquis. Death Thomas Earl Larcaster (I. P. M. Edw. III., File 6 (m. 3), P.R.O.) (Yorks., Soureby). Et de quadam consuetudine porcorum ibidem vocata Thisteltack ad terminum Sancti Andree xviij d.
1377. Halymote of Halton, etc. (Court Rolls 50 Edw. III., Bundle 2. No. 27). Et de iij s collectis de pannagio vocato Thisteltak pro porcis diversorum tenencium domini apud Runkorn.
1419. Excheq. Accts. 7 Hen. V., Bundle 131. No. 14 (Forest of Galtres, Yorks.). Sed de Thistiltak nichil quia nullum tale proficuum accidit hoc anno.
¶ The following accounts of the term are given by 17th-c. writers:
1677. Thoroton, Nottinghamshire, 308/1. If any Native or Cottager [at Fiskerton, Nottinghamshire] having a Swine above a year old, should kill him, he was to give the Lord 1d. and it was called Thisteltak.
1691. Blount’s Law Dict. (ed. 2), Thistle-take,… a Custom in the honor of Halton,… That if in driving Beasts over the Common, the Driver permits them to graze or take but a Thistle, he shall pay a half-peny a Beast to the Lord of the Fee.
1906. N. J. Hone, Manor & Manor. Recds., 112. ‘Thistle-take’ was claimed by the lords [of Manors] in Lancashire and Yorkshire, as an acknowledgment of the hasty crop taken by droves of beasts passing over a common, and similar payments.
(The statement in quot. 1691 (whence in 1906) was evidently ‘popular etymology.’)
