9 th S. V. FEB. 3, 1900.]
NOTES AND QUERIES,
81
LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARYS, 1900.
CONTENTS. No. 110.
NOTES : R-Metalhesis in O.E., 81-The Wooden Horse, 82 Mr. Bernard Quaritch The Taxes on Knowledge, 83 The New Century -The Beginnings and Ends of Cen- turies - The Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 84-" Manatee "- "Gavel" and "'Shieling" "This maid no elegance" Recollections of Blackburn, 85 Cinderella Campbell and Keats -Taste, 8ti.
QUERIES : - " Hurgin " "Hun-barrow "-Classical Word for "Headsore" Armorial Depreciation of Coinage- Salmon Disease Sir Henry Carey Lady Shoemakers, 87 Card-matches Men wearing Earrings- Pond Farm, Leicester "Jesso" Dr. J. G. Morgan Whiskers "Every bullet has its billet" Devizes Beezeley Old Wooden Chest, 88 "Africander" Lyttelton's 'Dialogues of the Dead ' Teesdale London Church Registers Arms on Bar Gate, Southampton ' Naming the Baby' Aide- bright, Rex Norfolcifc-Walthamstow Church Bells Rate of the Sun's Motion' Charlotte Temple,' 89.
REPLIES : The Jubilee Number, 89 Field-Marshals in the British Army, 90 General Lambert in Guernsey Father Gordon, 9i The Dukes" Rogers's ' Ginevra ' The Surname Morcom "By the haft " " Anchylostomeasis " -Heraldic, 92 "The Enfrgetic Old Man": "The Chris- tian Knight" Nursery Rimes Bellringers' Rimes Danish Place-names in the Wirr.il, 93 " King of Bantam " Prime Minister Church in Canterbury Henry Caven- dish, 94" Wound " for " Winded " " Horse-bread " Lincolnshire Sayings Was Shakespeare Musical ? "Brotherhood of Fools "A Voltaire Engraving -Scott's Dialect, 95 Guild Mayor -Cowper " To Priest," 96 Poet Parnell Sir Johns " Argh " " Sock " Les Detenus, 97.
NOTES ON BOOKS : Campbell's ' Balmerino and its Abbey 'Budge's 'Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life' and ' Egyptian Magic 'Temple Scott's ' Works of Swift ' Weston's 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ' -Perkins's ' Wimborne Minster' 'The Hampstead Annual.'
R- METATHESIS IN O.E.
THE absence of the W. Saxon Brechung in such O.E. words as berstan, fterscan, fersc, $cers, bcerst, cern, and hoern, is explained by Sievers ('A.-S. Gram.' 79, Anm. 2) by the fact that the group r + consonant, before which in W.S. Germanic e becomes eo, and Germanic a = O.E. ce, becomes ea, is in these words a secondary development, and due to meta- thesis. Metathesis is considered as a late process, which did not come into play until the r + consonant Brechung process had passed away. (Cp. Sievers, loc. cit., and Bremer, 'Relative Sprachchronologie,' Indo- germanische Forschungen, iv. Bd. p. 29). There can be no doubt that by .placing metathesis later than Brechung we are able to explain the forms already men- tioned, nor, indeed, can they be accounted for on any other assumption. On the other hand, as Sievers points out, the forms iernan, earn, beornan, show Brechung, although the r + consonant group is in their case, as in that of the former class of words, due to metathesis. These forms have not, so far as I know, been explained.
The only way out of the difficulty, appa- rently, is to assume an early period of
metathesis, which preceded consonantal
Brechung, and consequently ^-umlaut. I
believe this first metathesis was Anglo-
Frisian, whereas the later process was purely
English. It may be mentioned here that the
later metathesis is later than the original
change of -an to -on, as is evident from the
forms born, orn = *ronn, *bronn, from earlier
- rann, *brann (Sievers, 65 ; Bremer, loc. cit.).
This latter change took place in the con- tinental period and affected East Frisian as well as English. (See Siebs, 'Fries. Spr.' Paul's ' Grundr.,' vol. i. ; cf. also Bremer, p. 16, &c., and Pogatscher, 'Lautlehre d. griech. und latein. Lehnworte in Altengl.,' p. 109.) O. West Frisian, on the other hand, has land, nama, compared with E. Fris. lond, noma.
There is also a second period of change of an to on, which is English alone. I propose the following scheme of development for, let us say, Germanic *ran- in Anglo-Frisian. I assume three varieties for the oldest Anglo- Frisian : 1. *ron-, 2. *rcen- (vrhich early became ran again), 3. *arn, with metathesis. It will be convenient to follow each type separately :
1. *Ron- was before t-umlaut ; it under- went the second (English) process of the metathesis and became orn (born, &c.).
2. *Rwn differentiated into *cern and *ran ; cern, due to the second (English) metathesis, remained, being later than Brechung; *ran became ron in the English period (cf. hron* 'Erf. Gloss.,' 146).
3. *Arn, the form with first metathesis, became *cern by the common Anglo-Fris. change of a to ce. This ce, being of continental origin, underwent, of course, the (English) process of Brechung to ea ; from this type, therefore, we get earn, &c. Above suggested scheme may be diagrammatically expressed thus :
'1. *ro (first change of an to on)=O.E. orn ; (by second metathesis).
a r*(ern (second metathesis, 2 *recn O E \ therefore no Brechung).
' A 1 * ran > l a ter ron (second change
P V. of an to on).
3. *arn (first period of metathesis, earlier than Brechung) = O.E. *a:rn, then, with Brechung, earn.
The three types may be regarded as due to dialectal differences in Anglo -Frisian. The second type (*r(xri) survives in the earliest English ; cf. hraen, Erf. raen, 400 ; rendegu, Erf. 1137 ; meter en, in a Kentish charter (Sweet, 'O.E. T.,' p. 440, Charter 313). The further development of this type also appears in the old glossaries ; uuinaern, Ep. Err. 1040. The other variety of type 2 occurs in hron (where o is due to a late English change from a before -n), Erf. (Ep. hran) 146. This word
Germanic
- raw=Anglo-
Frisian
