and we wôeren is shortened into we wer. Agên, ’œfre, þâs, neah, genoh, yfel, bydel, are replaced by aʓénes, efer, þes, nieh, innoh, euyl, bedele (against, ever, these, nigh, enough, evil, beadle). For is now found for the first time, answering to the Latin enim; and bread (panis) replaces the old hlaf. This reign of Henry the First is indeed an age of change, both in the Midland and in the South. Old English words were becoming strange to English ears. Thus the adapter of the Homilies in this reign has to add the word laga to explain ’œ, the Latin lex (p. 227). A verb sometimes gets a new sense; thus the old ágan, which of old meant nothing more than possidere, comes now to stand for debere; he is ofer us and ah to bienne (ought to be), p. 233; there is also þu ahst (debes). Burch is found instead of burh, as we saw it at Peterborough; and ch often replaces the old h, as richtwis, michti, nachte (nihil); in the word ʓeworhcte we see a mixture of both the forms. We now find a budding corruption that is for ages the sure mark of a Southern dialect; namely, the turning of the old i or y into u. Thus swipen here becomes swupen (p. 239),[1] and the old mycele is sometimes seen as mucele. This particular change has not greatly affected our Standard English, except that we use the Southern much and such instead of the old mycel and swylc. We once see the w thrown out of swa, for we read sa ful (p. 233). Hatrede is found for the first time as well as hate.
A few lines on The Grave, printed by Mr. Thorpe in his Analecta Anglo-Saxonica (p. 142), seem to belong to
- ↑ This old word only survives among cricketers, who make good swipes.
