Bread and millers

I volunteer at a 17th-century watermill locally and the National Trust, who owns the mill, persuaded me to give a talk on the subject of the language associated with milling. I found these words, which would appear to have nothing to do with bread, but etymologically, they do:
companion = com + panis, ie with bread (the person you share your bread with)
lord: OE hláfweard/hláford = loaf keeper (cf modern English ‘ward’). There was also the Old English word for servant hláf-ǽta = bread eater.
lady: OE hlæfdige = loaf kneader

I also found several old proverbs – from English, and other languages – relating to millers. It’s interesting to see how the miller had a similar reputation in all cultures:
You can never tell upon whose grain the miller's pig was fattened
The miller's horse is fed upon the grain of others
Many a miller, many a thief
The miller's hogs were always fat
No miller can enter heaven
One who on earth has been a miller tells nought but lies afterward
As stout as a miller's waistcoat, that takes a thief by the throat every day
As safe as a thief in a mill (ie not safe or honest)

Comments

[john]

Interesting. Did your research indicate whether the proverbs were unique to Br. English or had found their way into Am.English? Although my perspective is limited, I've never heard those proverbs in the US, but then again, I've not lived in rural areas.

[Jemmy Hope]

My late mother-in-law used to refer to people she considered impertinent as having "the cheek of a miller's horse". I never worked out the connection.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, John and Jemmy. I didn't come across that particular saying, Jemmy; presumably millers' horses got too big for their boots, just as millers did.

John, "The miller's hogs were always fat" is an old American saying, apparently. However, I haven't personally heard any of the phrases being spoken either - I think they all belong to a bygone era when the miller was a very important person in the village.

[Gaylord]

The mention of hláf-ǽta = bread eater recalled to mind a saying I first heard in Swedish, but that is also, and more widely, current in French : Den äter inte bröd (där den står/ligger) It doesn’t eat [any] bread (where it stands/lies), in French ça ne mange pas de pain. When juxtaposed to a bread gobbling servant, the idea expressed acquires or regains fuller force. The Swedish phrase is most often encountered simply with figurative meaning: the object in question doesn’t eat into your means, it requires little or no upkeep, or with the optional extension, is of little or no encumbrance; with reference to actions, it means something like “it’s no big deal.” [Is that a distinctly American expression?] The French use it that way to for actions; for things, though, its most often used to signify something that doesn’t cost much and often, by extension, therefore is not worth much.
Seems likely a case of borrowing, but who took from whom? Interestingly, the only thing similar in other languages turned up by a quick google just now is a Basque proverb, which deserves wider currency: Jakiteak ez du ogirik jaten—Knowledge doesn't eat bread.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks Gaylord, that's fascinating. Odd, too, that the phrase should be limited to just a handful of languages.