We find both bikæchedd and bikahht for caught. This new word, which we saw first in the South, must have spread fast in England. Another new word is found in the lines: patt . . peod patt Jacob wass bilenge.-I. page 75 (belonging to Jacob). This word is akin to the Dutch verb belangen (attingere). Orrmin, like the Peterborough Chronicler of 1120, uses the Passive Participle chosenn for the old gecóren. He replaces the old cneowian by cnelenn (kneel), which came first in the Essex Homilies. He sometimes turns a Strong verb into a Weak one, a process begun long before his time. He uses hafedd (elatum) as well as hofenn; he has sleppte (dormivit) where it ought to be slep; weppten (fleverunt) instead of weópon; trededd (depressus) instead of treden. One of the peculiar shibboleths, brought hither by the Danes, is the word gar (facere), a word still in the mouths of Scotchmen. Orrmin uses the compounds forrgarrt and oferrgarrt. The verb gar is found neither in High nor in Low German. The Norse gow is used by him for observare. Hence comes our a-gog, the Icelandic à gœgium, on the watch. As might be expected, Orrmin follows the Northern hafan rather than the Southern habban (habere). We find a near approach to our modern corruption hast in his line Himm haffst tu slagenn witerrliz.-I. page 154. Heglenn is now first used for 'to salute.* The Old English gehyded is now contracted into hidd; hidden is one of the few Weak Participles that we have turned into Strong ones. Hutenn (vituperare), to hoot, which first appears in Orrmin's work, is a puzzle to lexicographers, and may come either from the Welsh or the Norse. The old onlihtan becomes lihhtenn in Orrmin's hands; but we have returned to enlighten. England cleaves to her own old word leap, Scotland to the Norse laupa (loup): they are both found in the Ormulum. The Old English saclode now takes its modern form secnedd, sickened; conversely, we shall see later the French train become trail. Scorcnedd (scorched) appears for the first time in English; Wedgwood quotes the Low Dutch schroggen, which has the same meaning. Orrmin uses both the Strong and the Weak form for the Past Participle of show; he has both showenn and showedd. We now prefer the former, though the latter is the true form; just as we mistakenly write strewn for strewed. But in the matter of Strong and Weak verbs, we usually err on the other side. We derive our modern notion of the word shift (in Latin, mutare) from the Scandinavian, and not from the Old English. In the latter, the word means 'to distribute,' and nothing more. We see the two senses in Orrmin's work (I. 13), when he speaks of Zachariah's service in the Temple. Our word shift (chemise) means a change of linen. The old meaning of stintan was 'to be weary;' it now has the meaning of 'to leave off.' See II. page 92. We now first find the verb stir with an intransitive sense. Tacan, ic tahte (docere, docui), become in Orrmin's mouth tœchenn, ic tahhte, not far from our own way of pronouncing it, and feccan becomes fecchenn. The old geworht is now seen as wrohht, not far from our wrought. We cannot help envying Orrmin his power of making long Teutonic compounds. He has no need to write the Latin immortality, when he has ready to hand such a word as unndæpshildiznesse, implying even more than the Latin. But this power was now unhappily on the wane in England. We have had a great loss in the Old English words mid (cum) and niman (capere).' These are, with little change, good Sanscrit; and the Germans have been too wise to part with them. Orrmin but seldom employs them, and they must have been now dying out in the North. He is fonder of the two words which have driven them out, i.e. with and take. Had the banks of Thames been the birthplace of our Standard English, we should have kept all four words alike. In giving a specimen of Orrmin's verse, I have been careful to take the subject from scenes in Courtly life, where, after his time, numbers of French words must unavoidably have been used by any poet, however much a lover of homespun English. Orrmin's peculiar way of doubling consonants will be remarked. He clings 1 The last survives in numb, and in Corporal Nym. fast to the Infinitive in enn, which had been dropped at Peterborough. If we wish to relish his metre, every syllable must be pronounced; thus, Herode takes an accent on all three vowels alike. all wass itt off þe bettste pall patt anig mann magz aghenn,ħ and all itt wass wundenn wipp gold and sett wipp deore staness, and all he wass wurrplike shriddi alls iff he wære o life, and onn hiss hæfedd wærenn twa gildene cruness sette, and himm wass sett inn hiss rihht hannd an dere kinezerrde *; and swa mann barr þatt fule1 lic |