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But the greatest Midland work of 1280 is the Lay of Havelok, edited by Mr. Skeat for the Early English Text Society. This is one of the many poems translated from the French about this time, when King Edward the First was welding his French-speaking nobles and his English yeomen into one redoubtable body, ready for any undertaking either at home or abroad. The poem, which belongs to the Mercian Danelagh, has come down to us in the hand of a Southern writer, transcribed within a few years of its compilation. This renowned Lincolnshire tale was most likely given to the world not far from that part of England where Orrmin wrote eighty years earlier: it is certainly of near kin to another Lincolnshire poem, compiled in 1303. Mr. Garnett, in page 75 of his essays, has suggested Derbyshire or Leicestershire as the birth-place of the author: Dr. Morris is in favour of a more Southern shire. We find the common East Midland marks: the Present Plural ending in en; the Past Participle oftenest without a prefix; are for the Latin sunt; niman for the Latin ire; and the oath Goddot, which is said to be of Danish birth. But there is also a dash of the Northern dialect; the second person singular of the Present tense, and the second person plural of the Imperative, both end in es now and then; a fashion that lingers in Scotland to this day. The Norse Active Participle in ande is also found, and Norse phrases like thusgate, hethen, gar. Orrmin's munnde has now become mone, which is almost the Scotch maun, as in line 840.

'I wene that we deye (die) mone.'

Orrmin's zho (the old heo) is now changed into she

and sho; his they and their are sometimes seen, but have been often altered by the Southern transcriber into hi and hir. The Southern thilk (ille) is not found once in the whole poem. We now for the last time see the Old English Dual (this we must have brought from the Oxus) in the line 1882:

'Gripeth eper unker a god tre.'

Grip each of you two a good tree.

This was of old written incer. Strange tricks are played with the letter h. The letter d is dropped after liquids, for we find here shel, hel, bihel; and the Danes to this day have the same pronunciation. We may remark the Westward march, up from East Anglia, of the letter o, replacing the older a swa has become so, and is made to rime with Domino; on the other hand, wa (dolor) still rimes with stra, our straw. But such words as ilc, swilk, mikel, hwilgate, prove that our modern corruptions of these words had not as yet made their way to the Humber; the Havelok shows us our Standard English almost formed, but something is still wanting.

There are Northern forms, which could never have been used in the South in Edwardian days; such as sternes, intil, tinte, coupe, loupe, carle. The Plurals of Substantives end in es, not en; and to this there are hardly any exceptions.

The old seofopa (septimus) now first becomes sevenpe, owing the intrusive n to Norse influence; many others of our Ordinals are formed in the same way.1

We saw it as sequepende at Peterborough in 1120.

Other English words, common in our mouths, are found in their new form in the Havelok for the first time, such as yonder, thoruthlike: overthwart has been pared down to athwart since that age.

The French use vous, when addressing the Almighty. This took root in England; and we find of you, a word unmusical in Quaker's ear, employed for the Latin tuus:

'For the holi milce of you

mercy

Have merci of me, louerd, nou!'-Line 1361.

lord

I give the earliest instance of a well-known vulgarism: 'Hwan Godard herde pat per prette.'-2404.

In substantives, we find the Plural shon (our shoon), one of the few corrupt Plurals in n that we keep, and which will never die out, thanks to a famous old ballad in Hamlet. What Orrmin called laf (panis) is now seen as lof: we have not changed the sound of this word in the last six hundred years.

The Old English cwide is now seen as quiste (our bequest).

We see two lines in page 55 which explain why the Irish to this day sound the r so strongly :

'And he haves on poru his arum (arm),

Perof is ful mikel harum (harm).'

So the Irish sound the English boren (natus) in the true old way. We see the Old English word for a wellknown bird, in line 1241:

'Ne pe hende, ne pe drake.'

The former substantive, akin to the Latin anas, anatis, was still to last two hundred years, before it was supplanted by the word duck. As to drake, this poem first shows us that the word had lost its old form end-rake, that is, anat-rex. There is hardly a word in English that has been so corrupted; one letter, d, alone remains now to show the old root, and this letter is prefixed to a word akin to the rajah of Hindostan.

In line 968, we find a new phrase:

'And bouthe him clopes, al span-newe.'

Span, the old spón, means a chip.

In line 27, we see an idiom well known to balladmakers, when it becomes something like an indeterminate pronoun: this first appeared in the Ancren Riwle. It was a king bi are dawes

That in his time were gode lawes, &c.

In line 1815, a man slaughtered is said to be stan-ded. The word smerte (painful) keeps its old English sense, though we saw other meanings of the word farther to the North.

The verb leyke (ludere) is sounded in this poem, just as the Northern shires still pronounce it; we of the South call it lark, following the Old English lácan.1

To fare of old meant only to journey: we see in the line 2411 a derivative from another old verb, ferian:

'Hwou Robert with here loverd ferde' (egit).

1 One of the earliest instances I remember of the modern use of this good old word, which is thought to be slangy, occurs in Miss Eden's Letters from India, about 1839. She calls one of the Hindoo gods, 'a kind of larking Apollo.'

To prick is used in the sense that Macaulay loved, and that Croker blamed :

'An erl, þat he saw priken pore,

Ful noblelike upon a stede.'-Line 2639.

As might be expected, there are many Norse words in the Havelok. I give those which England has kept, together with one or two to be found in Lowland Scotch.

Beyte (bait), from the Icelandic beita (incitare).
Big, from the Icelandic bolga (tumere).

Bleak, from the Icelandic bleikr (pallidus).

Blink, from the Danish blinke.

Boulder (a rock), from the Icelandic ballaðr.

Coupe, as in horse-couper, from the Icelandic kaupa (emere). Crus (Scotch crouse), from the Swedish krus (excitable). Ding, from the Icelandic dengia, to hammer.

Dirt, from the Icelandic drit (excrementa).

Goul (to yowl, ululare), from the Icelandic gaula.

Grime, from the Norse grima (a spot).

Hemp, from the Icelandic hampr, not from the Old English

hanep.

Put (to throw), from the Icelandic potta.

Sprawl, from the Danish sprælle.

Stack, from the Danish stak.

Teyte (tight, active), from the Norse teitr (lively).

Besides these Scandinavian words, we find in the Havelok other words now for the first time employed. Such are lad (puer), from the Welsh llawd; 2 stroute, our strut (contendere), a High German word; boy (puer), akin to the Suabian buah; to butt, akin to the Dutch botten; but

1 Hence comes the phrase, putting the stone, first found in this poem.

2 Lodes, the Welsh female of this word, has become our lass.

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