Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore. Elizabeth Mary Wright
hōh, a promontory, lit. a hanging (precipice); hull (in gen. dial. use in Sc. and Eng.), a husk, a pod, also used as a verb, to remove the outer husk of any vegetable or fruit, O.E. hulu, husk, cp. ‘Take Whyte Pesyn, and hoole hem in þe maner as men don Caboges,’ Cookery Book, c. 1430; hoar-stone (Sc. Lan. Oxf.), a boundary stone, O.E. hār stān (lit. a hoar stone, i.e. a grey or ancient stone), often occurs in Charters in the part describing the boundary line; haysuck (Wor. Glo.), hedge-sparrow, O.E. hegesugge; hobbleshow (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan.), a tumult, disturbance, &c. ‘An hubbleshowe, tumultus’, Levins, Manipulus Vocabulorum, 1570; litten (Brks. Sus. Hmp. Wil. Som.), a churchyard, a cemetery, O.E. līctūn, an enclosure in which to bury people; lide (w.Cy. Wil. Cor.), the month of March, O.E. hlȳda; lave (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks.), the remainder, O.E. lāf; leap (many dials.), a large basket, seed-lip (gen. dial. use in Yks. Midl. e. s. and w. counties from Lei.), a basket used to hold the seed when sowing, O.E. sǣdlēap; oly-praunce (Nhp.), a merry-making, M.E. olipraunce, vanity, fondness for gay apparel; pollywig, pollywiggle (Sc. Lan. Lei. Nhp. e.An. Hmp. Dev.), a tadpole, cp. ‘Polewigges, tadpoles, young frogs,’ Florio, 1611, ‘Polwygle, wyrme,’ Promptorium Parvulorum; porriwiggle, porwiggle (n.Cy. Yks. Lei. e.An. Sur.), a tadpole, cp. ‘that which the ancients called gyrinus, we a porwigle or tadpole,’ Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors, 1646; preen (Sc. Nhb. Lakel. Yks.), a pin, O.E. prēon; rake (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Lin.), a track, path, &c., cp. O.E. racu, a hollow path; ridder (Oxf. Hrt. Mid. e.Cy. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Cor.), a sieve for sifting grain, O.E. hrīdder; rivlin (Sh. & Or.I.), a kind of sandal made of undressed skin with the hair outside, O.E. rifeling; ream (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. Cum. Yks. Lan. Dev. Cor.), cream, O.E. rēam; rother (n.Cy. Lan. War. Wor. Hrf. Sus.), horned cattle, M.E. rother, an ox; sax (Sh.I. Lin. Brks. w.Cy. Som. Dev. Cor.), a knife, O.E. seax; seal (Sc. Chs. e.An.), time, season—the seal of the day to you is a friendly salutation; to give a person the seal of the day is to give him a passing salutation—O.E. sǣl, time, season, &c.; shippen (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a cow-house, a cattle-shed, O.E. scypen, scipen, a stall, a fold for cattle or sheep; slade (many dials.), a valley, a grassy plain between hills, O.E. slæd; souter (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Nhp.), a shoemaker, O.E. sūtere, from Lat. sutor; soller (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Shr. Hrf. e.An. s.Cy. Cor.), an upper chamber or loft, O.E. solor, a loft, upper room, from Lat. solarium; singreen (Wor. Shr. Bck. Ken. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil.), the house-leek, O.E. singrēne, the houseleek, lit. evergreen; snead (in gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), the handle of a scythe, O.E. snǣd; whittle (Irel. Dur. Lei. War. Pem. Glo. Oxf. Suf. Sus. Hmp. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), a cape, a shawl, &c., O.E. hwītel, a cloak, a blanket; wogh (Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der.), a wall, O.E. wāg, wāh; yelm (War. Glo. Bdf. Mid.), straw laid ready for thatching, O.E. gelm, a handful, a sheaf.
It would be possible to produce samples of these retired English words categorized under each of the various parts of speech, but it will be sufficient here to keep to the most important categories, namely, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Not but what many interesting words will thus perforce stand neglected, for even the humble adverb is often worth a glance. Take for example the modest form tho (Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), then, at that time. This is the regularly developed lineal descendant of O.E. þā, and Chaucer’s tho in the line:
To don obsequies, as was tho the gyse.
Knightes Tale, l. 135.
The common dialect adverb nobbut, only, nothing but, lit. not but, occurs in Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. When Sir Gawayne is looking for ‘þe grene chapelle’, to his disgust he finds that it consists of a hollow mound, ‘nobot an old caue,’ where, he says:
… myȝt about mid-nyȝt,
Þe dele his matynnes telle!
ll. 2187, 2188.
Adjectives now disused in Standard English
But to come to our second category, namely, old adjectives now disused in standard English, examples are: argh (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Yks. Lin.), timorous, apprehensive, O.E. earh (earg), cowardly (cp. Germ. arg), ‘His hert arwe as an hare,’ Rob. of Gloucester, Chron., c. 1300; brant (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Lin.), steep, high, also erect, and hence proud, pompous, e.g. as brant as a besom, O.E. brant, bront. Brantwood on the eastern margin of Coniston Lake, the residence of Ruskin, was so called from the brant, or steep wood which rises behind it. Dern (Sc. Nhb. Chs.), secret, obscure, also dreary, dark, O.E. dyrne, derne, cp. ‘For derne love of thee lemman, I spille,’ Milleres Tale, l. 92; elenge (Ken. Sur. Sus.), solitary, lonely, tedious, O.E. ǣlenge, tedious, tiresome, lit. very long; fremd (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Lin. Nhp.), strange, foreign, not of kin, O.E. fremde, foreign, cp. Germ. fremd. In M.E. this word is often coupled with sibb, which latter word has the opposite meaning of related, akin, as for example in the lines from the Moral Ode, c. 1200:
Wis is þat him seolue biþenkþ þe hwile he mot libbe,
Vor sone willeþ him for-yete þe fremede and þe sibbe.
ll. 34, 35.
‘Sib’ and ‘Lief’
This too remains in the dialects as sib (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Nhp. War. Wor.), closely related, akin, e.g. Oor Marmaduke’s sib to all the gentles in th’ cuntry, though he hes cum doon to leäd coäls. Fenny (Ken. Hmp. Wil.), mouldy, mildewed, also in the form vinny (Glo. Brks. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), O.E. fynig, used by Ælfric in translating Joshua ix. 5, of the Gibeonites’ bread; hettle(Sc. Nhb. Dur. Yks.)-tongued, foul-mouthed, irascible in speech, O.E. hetol, full of hate, malignant. Lief, dear, beloved, is obsolete as an adjective even in the dialects, but as an adverb it is common throughout the country, so too is the comparative form liefer, more willingly, rather, M.E. me were lever, I had rather, a phrase familiar to us in the description of the Clerk of Oxenford:
For him was levere have at his beddes heede
Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reede,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Then robes riche, or fithele, or gay sawtrie.
Prologue, ll. 293–6.
Piping hot (gen. dial. and colloquial use) is a phrase also found in Chaucer:
And wafres, pyping hote out of the glede.
Milleres Tale, l. 193.
Punch (Sc. n.Cy. Yks.), short, fat, occurs in Pepys’s Diary, April 30, 1669, ‘I … did hear them call their fat child punch, which pleased me mightily, that word being become a word of common use for all that is thick and short.’ Rathe (Sc. Irel. Yks. Hrf. Gmg. Pem. Glo. Brks. Hrt. e.An. Ken. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev.), adj. and adv. early, soon, quick, O.E. hræð, adj. quick, swift, hræðe, adv. quickly, soon, recalls Milton’s line:
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.
Lycidas, l. 142.
Familiar Miltonic Words
In many of the dialects the word is found in the compound rathe-ripe, coming early to maturity, for the use of which we have evidence as far back as the seventeenth century, in an epitaph on two little children who died in 1668 and 1670:
Such early fruites are quickly in their prime,
Rathe ripes we know are gathered in betime;
Such Primroses by Death’s impartiall hand
Are cropped, and landy’d up at Heaven’s command.
Another familiar Miltonic word is scrannel (Yks. Lan. Not. Nhp. War.), lean, thin; of the voice: weak, piping.