poem cannot be earlier than the last quarter of the century is in the sabatounȝ which Gawain wore. Even in the last quarter of the century they were not yet in ordinary use.
Dialect.
Morris, in his second edition of the Early English Alliterative Poems in 1869, expressed the opinion that the dialect of these poems and of Sir Gawain was that of Cheshire or Lancashire. Such indications of dialect as can be discovered tend to confirm Morris’s opinion. The language of the poems as preserved closely resembles that of the romances in the Ireland MS., which there is reason to believe was written at Hale in south-west Lancashire, not many year earlier than 1413. [1] This resemblance, however, only goes to show that the dialect of the copyist was of Lancashire. As evidence of the dialect of the original form of the poem we have:
(1) The local knowledge shows by the author. In 691-702 of Sir Gawain he seems to show detailed knowledge of the geography of North Wales and Wirral. As the places he mentions cannot be identified, his knowledge is not certain, but undoubtedly he speaks of the natural features of these parts as if they were familiar to him. See the note on 691 ff.
(2) The evidence of vocabulary, which is slight. A large number of words used in the poem are characteristic of northern and north Midland dialects, but very few can be localized in a limited area. There are, however, two words of which the localization is significant: kay 422, found only in Lancashire and
- ↑ See Three Metrical Romances, ed. Robson, pp. xxxvii-xiv.
