User:Andreas/Sandbox

THE DIALECT

OF THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES OF

SCOTLAND:

ITS

PRONUNCIATION, GRAMMAR, AND HISTORICAL RELATIONS.

WITH AN APPENDIX

ON THE PRESENT LIMITS OF THE GAELIC AND LOWLAND SCOTCH, AND

THE DIALECTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE LOWLAND TONGUE.

AND A LINGUISTICAL MAP OF SCOTLAND.

BY

JAMES A. H. MURRAY, F.E.I.S.,

MEMBER OF COUNCIL OF THE PHILOLOGICAL, AND EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETIES,
EDITOR OF THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND, THE MINOR POEMS OF LYNDESAY, ETC.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY, BY

ASHER & CO., 13, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN;

AND

11, UNTER DEN LINDEN, BERLIN.

1873.

STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, BERTFORD.

CONTENTS.

	PAGE
Historical Introduction (for arrangements see commencement)		1
Pronunciation—	General characteristics	93
	'Visible Speech' Alphabet	99
	Vowels	103
	Diphthongs	113
	Consonants	118
	Unaccented Syllables and Terminations	132
	Scotch pronunciation of English	139
	Phonetic relation between Modern Scotch and Anglo-Saxon	140
	„and English	144
Grammar—	Nouns	150
	Adjectives	166
	Pronouns	187
	Verbs	199
	Adverbs	226
	Prepositions	228
	Conjunctions	230
	Interjections	230
Appendix—	Present limits of the Gaelic	231
	Dialects of Lowland Scotch	237
	Specimens	240

Index of Subjects and Words specially referred to

249

PREFACE.

The local dialects are passing away: along with, them disappears the light which they are able to shed upon so many points in the history of the national tongue that supersedes them, and the contributions which they, more than artificially trimmed Literary idioms, are able to make to the Science of Language, whether in regard to the course of phonetic changes, or the spontaneous growth of natural grammar. They are passing away: even where not utterly trampled under foot by the encroaching language of literature and "education, they are corrupted and arrested by its all-pervading influence, and in the same degree rendered valueless as witnesses of the usages of the past and the natural tendencies of the present.

These pages attempt to photograph the leading features of one of the least-altered of these dialects, that of the Southern Counties of Scotland, and, with this as a basis, to illustrate the characteristics of that group of dialects descended from the old 14th century "Inglis of the Northin lede," which under the names of Northern English and Lowland Scotch, still prevail in more or less of their original integrity from the Yorkshire dales, to the Pentland Firth. Farthest removed from Celtic contact, and from the influence of the literary English, the Northern tongue has in the south of Scotland retained more of its old forms than elsewhere, and so far as concerns its vocabulary, and grammatical structure, affords almost a living specimen of the racy idiom in which Hampole and Barbour, at opposite extremes of the Northern-Speech-land, wrote five centuries ago. Its pronunciation has of course changed since then, but with a consistent course and definite direction; and its system of sounds is still of interest, showing in actual operation, the processes by which the old guttural -gh, -ch, has sunk into the -f and -w of modern English, and that by which the long ī and ū in so many of the Teutonic tongues have from simple vowels, become the diphthongs in English mine, house, German mein, haus, Dutch mijn, huis.

As the history of the Lowland Scotch division of the Northern tongue, and its relations to the adjacent dialects in England, have been the subject of much wild theory and but little research in the direction whence light was to be obtained, the Historical Introduction has been made especially full and complete.

The spelling employed to represent Scottish sounds will probably be objected to in many points by Scotchmen, who would prefer our shoon, to oor schuin. I have no quarrel with their taste; when they give specimens of the speech heard around them, they may choose what symbols they please, provided they only explain what sounds their symbols mean. My own aim has been truth and distinctness. Spelling is only a means (a cumbrous one at best) to an end: the written forms so often misnamed words, are but conventional signs of the real words, the spoken sounds for which they stand. To convey to the reader's ear and mouth, by the circuitous medium of the eye, a clear and correct idea of the real word, is the first use of spelling. At the same time, no student of a language can be insensible to the associations of the "historical spelling" which has grown up along with its spoken forms, nor will he willingly discard the drapery with which it was clothed in earlier times, and which in so many cases is our only guide to the living organism which once breathed within. Still in dealing with a living dialect of the 19th century, one cannot always do justice to its own form and spirit by confining it to the winding sheet which decently enough envelopes the dead language of the 16th. If the spelling used, with help of the key and account of the pronunciation, succeed in giving an idea of the living words to those who never heard them spoken, it will fulfil its purpose. Of course in quoting the ancient language, where the spelling is the only guide we have to the words, care has been taken faithfully to preserve their original written forms; the quotations are, wherever possible, from the editions of the Early English Text or Philological Society, or of such conscientious editors as Dr. David Laing, and in most other cases from the original MSS. or editions. Only in cases of importance are references to the actual passages given; where the point in question was the ordinary usage to be found on every page of a work, it seemed unnecessary to give reference to page and line.

James A. H. Murray.

Mill Hill, Middlesex, N.W.,
March, 1873.

ERRATA.

Page	2,	Note 1,	l. 4,	for	some centuries	read	a century.
„	10,	„	40,	„	a few	„	few.
„	39,	„	4,	„	allanely	„	allanerly.
„	54,	„	30,	after	left-handed,	add	partan, a crab.
„	74,	„	1,	„	oy s	„	oy^rs.
„		„	37,			dele	tartan (this word
	being of French origin and unknown to Celtic).
„	99,	In the "Glides"		for	i, j	read	i, j.
„	113,	„	4,	for	löcke	„	Böcke.
„	126,	„	12,	„	husiz	„	husiz.
„	147,	„	47,	„	road	„	rode.
„	195,	„	20,	„	owms	„	rowms.
„	202,	„	1,	„	the past ai	„	the past ui.
„	205,	Note 1	l. 2,	„	gie	„	gis.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

PAGE
§ 1.	Changes in the application of the words Scot and Scottish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	1
§ 2.	In what sense the Lowland tongue is called Scottish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	4
§ 3.	Its early history, not the history of Scotland, but of the Angles of Northumbria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	5
§ 4.	The country south of the Forth from the Angle settlement to its union with Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	6
§ 5.	The language south of the Firths originally Welsh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	15
§ 6.	An Anglo-saxon dialect older in the south of Scotland than in most parts of England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	16
§ 7.	It thence spread northward and westward over the original Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	19
§ 8.	Early remains—the Ruthwell Cross—already exhibits northern characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	20
§ 9.	Scanty materials from the 10th to the 13th century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	22
§ 10.	The Scandinavian influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	24
§ 11.	Language of Scotland from the 14th century divisible into three periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	28
§ 12.	The Early Period—identical with old Northern English—Specimens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	29
§ 13.	Known only as English to those who used it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	40
§ 14.	When and how it began to be called Scotch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	43
§ 15.	The Middle Period—its characteristics—the Celtic influence—the French element—the Classical element—Specimens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	49
§ 16.	The Reformation and English influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	65
§ 17.	Decay of Scotch as a literary language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	71
§ 18.	The Modern Period—popular poetry—conventional spelling—fails to represent the living speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	74
§ 19.	The spoken language—exists in several dialects—their classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	77
§ 20.	The dialect of the Southern counties—its area—its peculiarities and their origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	80

§ 1. The words Scot and Scottish have passed through important revolutions in signification since they first appeared in history. Originally applied to inhabitants of the country now called Ireland, they included in the eighth century, and for some centuries previous, a portion of the inhabitants of North Britain, to whom all accounts concur in ascribing an Irish origin, and whose territory lay along the west coast of Alban, beyond the Firth of Clyde. At that period the terms Scot and Scottish found their usual correlatives in Pict and Pictish, names applied to the race and language which prevailed on the east side of the Island, as far south as the Firth of Forth—perhaps somewhat farther. The quæstio vexata of the ethnological relations between the Scots and Picts does not here concern us, and we have only to notice that, when, in the middle of the 9th century, the Scottish ruler succeeded also to the Pictish throne, he retained his original title of King of the Scots, the latter word gradually^[1] acquiring a corresponding extension of meaning, so as to embrace the inhabitants of the whole country north of the Forth, or Scottis-wath (Mare Scoticum), which, as the territory subject to the king of the Scots, came in the 10th century to be spoken of by the Angle writers as Scot-land. Scot and Scottish were now opposed to Angle and English,^[2] terms embracing the Teutonic tribes who already occupied the greater part of the present England, as well as the southern part of what is now Scotland, as far as the Forth; the terms Scottish and English having thus an ethnological or linguistic value.

Even after the territory south of the Forth had, through the Northumbrian and Saxon alliances of the Scottish kings, become part of their dominions, it does not appear that it was included in Alban or Scotland. It was an outlying province of Saxonia or England (ethnologically, if not politically), over which the king of the Scots held dominion, much as, in later times, kings of England held sway over large parts of France. Thus, so late as 1091, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle, that when King Malcolm learned that William Rufus was advancing against him with an army, he proceeded with his army out of Scotland, into Lothian in England, and there awaited him (he fór mid hys fyrde ut of Scot-lande into Loðene on Engla-lande and þær abád). The simple and natural meaning of these words, which partisan writers have displayed much ingenuity in explaining away, is confirmed by the oldest Scottish laws, which show that, even a century later, Lothian was still considered "out of Scotland." In those laws Stirling is spoken of as a town on the frontier of Scotland, and provision is made as to the mode to be adopted by an "inhabitant of Scotland," i.e. a dweller north of the Firths, when he had to make a seizure or distraint, "ultra aquam de Forth."^[3] Moreover, Lothian and Galloway, as well as the Bretts or Welsh of Strathclyde, long retained their special laws as distinct from the laws of Scotland,^[4] and these the king of the Scots bound himself to abide by and preserve. The charters of David I., Malcolm IV., and William the Lyon, were addressed to all their subjects, Normans, English, Scots, Galwegians, and Walenses, or Welsh of Clydesdale; and the same ethnical elements are distinguished by contemporary chroniclers as composing the army of David at the battle of the Standard.

Under the succeeding sovereigns of the line of Malcolm; down to Alexander III., the "English," that is to say, the Anglo-Saxon-speaking portion of their subjects, became ever the more important and predominant, and that with which the reigning line became more and more closely identified, and, as a consequence, the country south of the Firths, if not strictly Scotland,^[5] became, at least, the most important possession of the King of Scots. For exactly as the royal house adopted the language, and became identified with the sympathies and fortunes of its Anglo-Saxon territories, it lost the sympathies of its own ancient kinsmen, and the allegiance of its early cradle land; so that of the descendants of the Scots, Picts, Welsh, Galwegians, English, Normans, Flemings, and Northmen, out of which arose the Scottish nationality, the only section over whom the king of Scots no longer ruled was the Scots themselves—those Celtic clans of the north and west who, from the days of Edgar to those of James III., ignored the authority, and defied the arms of the Sasunnach sovereign who ruled on the banks of the Forth. It was reserved for the great struggle for the independence of the Scottish crown and nation to give to the words Scottish and English the political and geographical import which they now bear, as distinct from the questions of language and race; just as it was reserved for the wars between England and France to give a political and geographical definition to the terms French and English, which, for generations after the conquest, were used in England to distinguish the French-speaking descendants of the conquerors from the English-speaking descendants of the conquered; although both alike born in England, and both, in the eyes of their French rivals, English. The War of Independence, although it created the Scottish nationality of after times, was in its essence the struggle of the last remaining bit of Anglo-Saxonism to preserve its freedom from the Norman yoke; the Celtic population of Scotland, so far as they shared in it, ranked chiefly on the side of England. The Gaelic-speaking clansmen had never been reconciled to the Scoto-Saxon line of kings, founded by Duncan and Malcolm; a sovereign on the Thames was likely to leave them more freedom than a king on the Forth; and accordingly we find them, under the Macfadyans and Macdougalls, the Lords of the Isles, of Lorn, and Galloway, implacable foes to Wallace and Bruce, and formidable enemies to the Anglo-Saxon Lowlanders in their struggle for independence. Nevertheless, it was under the Scottish name and against the English king that the combat was fought and won; and its result was to extend, we might almost say to transfer, the name of Scot from the Gael of the north and west—who thenceforth ranked rather as Erschmen than Scotsmen—to the Angles of Lothian, of Tweedside, and Annandale,—men of the same blood and the same tongue as the Angles of Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire.^[6]

§ 2. It is in this latter or geographical sense that the dialect which forms the subject of this paper is called Scottish. Ethnologically speaking, the Lowland Scotch dialects are Scottish only in the sense in which the brogue spoken by the descendants of Strongbow's followers, or of the Cromwellian settlers, is Irish; or in which the Yankee dialect of the descendants of the New England Puritans is American—in other words, they are not Scottish at all. They are forms of the Angle, or English, as spoken by those northern members of the Angle or English race who became subjects of the King of Scots, and who became the leading race, and their tongue the leading language of the country; to which, however, another race, with whom the monarchy had originated, gave its name. More particularly they are forms of the Northumbrian or Northern English,—

"The langage of the Northin lede,"

which, up to the War of Independence, was spoken as one language, from the Humber to the Forth, the Grampians, and the Moray Firth; but which, since that war, or at least since the final renunciation of attempts upon the independence of the kingdom, has had a history and culture of its own, has been influenced by legal institutions, an ecclesiastical system, a foreign connection, and a national life, altogether distinct from those which have operated upon the same language on the southern side of the border. And yet, despite these diversifying influences, which have obtained more or less for five centuries,—despite the incessant warfare, the legacy of wrongs done and suffered, and "undying hate," which were entailed from father to son, on both sides, during the first half of that period, and the remembrance of which it has taken nearly the whole of the second half entirely to efface,—the spoken tongue from York to Aberdeen is still one language, presenting indeed several well-defined sub-dialects on both sides of the Tweed, but agreeing, even in its extreme forms, much more closely than the dialect of Yorkshire does with that of Dorset. It is the old phenomenon with which ethnology has continually to deal, of a community of name concealing an actual difference, a diversity "of names disguising an identity of fact. The living tongue of Teviotdale, and the living tongue of Northumberland, would, in accordance with present political geography, be classed, the one as a Scottish, the other as an English dialect: in actual fact, they are the same dialect, spoken, the one on Scottish the other on English territory, but which, before Scottish and English had their political application, was all alike the Anglian territory of Northan-hymbra-land. The living tongues of the Carse of Gowrie, at the mouth of the Tay, and of Eannoch, at its sources, would both be viewed as dialects of one Scottish county, and their speakers classed under the common appellation of Scotchmen, while in fact they are representatives of two distinct linguistic families, more remote from each other than English and Eussian, or English and Sanscrit.

§ 3. The early history of the Lowland Scottish, therefore, especially in the southern counties, is not the early history of Scotland, with which it came into contact only at a later period; but of the Angle settlement, state, or kingdom, of Northan-hymbra-land. In its original extent the Northan-hymbra-land—Latinized Northumbria—included the whole country occupied by the Angles north of the Humber, that is, the territory from the Humber to the Forth. The oldest division of this territory was at the river Tees, by which it was parted into the two provinces of Bernicia and Deira—the Bryneich and Deifr of the ancient British bards—which were now under the rule of a single monarch, now independent of each other; the seat of the Bernician ruler being at Bamborough, that of the sovereign of Deira at York. After the final separation of the two provinces, the name of Northumbria was retained by the northern province between the Tees and the Forth, until the cession of the district north of the Tweed to the King of the Scots, and the placing of the district between the Tees and Tyne under the jurisdiction of Durham, left the territory between the Tyne and Tweed, or the present shire of Northumberland, as the mutilated representative of the ancient Northan-hymbra-land. Cymraland, Cumbra-land, or Cumbria, the territory of the northern Cymry, the Gwynedd-a-Gogledd, or "Wales of the North" of Aneurin, stretched from the Firth of Clyde to Morecambe Bay; but after Strathclyde and the territories adjacent had been annexed to Scotland, the name of Cumberland became restricted to the fragment south of the Solway. It is necessary to distinguish carefully these varying applications of the names of Northumberland and Cumberland; and especially not to confound the ancient territories with the modern English counties, which are the mere stumps of the original provinces, after the kings of England and Scotland had successively cut off and appropriated their northern and southern extremities, and England, as the stronger power, finally absorbed the remainder.

§ 4. The date at which the Teutonic invaders first appeared in the north has not been accurately determined. There seems good reason for believing that, before the abandonment of the country by the Romans, they aided the Picts and Scots beyond the Northern Wall in their attacks upon the Eomanized provinces, and shortly after that event they appear as permanent settlers. According to Nennius, shortly after the landing of the Saxons in Kent, Octa and Ebissa, the son and nephew of Hengist, crossed the North Sea with forty ciules, and having devastated the Orkneys, and sailed round the land of the Picts, they came and seized several districts below the Forth (Mare Fresicum, which he describes as forming—in his day—the boundary between the Saxons and Scots) as far as the confines of the Picts. According to the tradition preserved by Fordun, they came at the invitation of Drust or Drostan, the Pictish king, a statement which tallies with Bede's account of a league between the Saxons and Picts. William of Malmesbury, who wrote at a much later period, in the midst of the feudal notions of his age, states, that having in several conflicts overcome the natives who withstood them, they admitted the rest to terms of peace, but that they continued 100 years, all but one, in dependence on the kings of Kent, at the end of which their dependent state (Ducatus) was changed into a kingdom, Ida being advanced to the royal dignity. From all of which we may at least infer a Teutonic settlement, or series of settlements, slowly establishing themselves in defiance of native opposition, and, during a century of struggle and conflict, shaping themselves into something of a coherent state. The natives whom the invaders found in possession of the soil were not Picts or Scots, but Britons, of the same race as the inhabitants of the more southern parts of the island, who were known to the Angles as Welsh, and are shown by the contemporary poems of the bards, Taliesin, Aneurin, and Lliwarch Hen, to have acquired from the Romans no small degree of refinement and civilization. But centuries of peace, and dependence upon the protection of the Roman legions, had rendered them, like the inhabitants of all parts of the empire, ill-fitted to defend themselves against the ferocious assaults of their untamed enemies; and although under the leadership of Arthur, Urien, Owain, and other valiant princes, whose very personality seems afterwards to melt away in a cloud of poetry and romance, they maintained a gallant struggle against the "heathen barbarians,"—it was a losing struggle with a hapless issue. It was evidently during the early part of this hundred years' contest for the establishment of the North Angle State, that the twelve great battles recorded by Nennius were fought between the Saxons and the Britons under Arthur, the first of which was on the Eiver Glen, and several at Dubglass, identified with "the strong frontier afforded by the waters of the Dunglass and Peass Burn," at the east end of the Lammermoors.^[7] Had any genuine works of Merddyn or Merlin Caledonius come down to us, we might have possessed contemporary glimpses of this period, like those of the heroes, battles, and sieges of the generation that followed in the poems of the other three northern bards.

The Arthur period was over when Ida, the son of Eoppa, whom all accounts agree in denominating the first local ruler of the Northan-hymbrian Angles came to the throne in 547, a century after the arrival of the Saxons in Kent, and half a century after the "two ealdormen," Cerdic and Cymric, landed at Cerdices-ore, to found the West-Saxon kingdom. According to Welsh accounts, Ida, named by the Britons, Flamddwyn, the Flame-bearer, formed an alliance with one of the British chiefs, Culvynawyd Prydain, the son of Gorion, marrying his daughter, Bun or Bebban, distinguished in the Triads as one of the three shameless wives of Britain, and execrated by Aneurin in the Gododin as Bun Bradwenn, Bun the fair traitress. In honour of his wife, Ida conferred upon the place where he fixed his residence the name of Bibban-burh, the modern Bamborough, and long the most important fortress of Northumbria. He fought with the Britons in many battles, until his career was cut short and himself slain in 560 by Owain, son of Urien, prince of Reged, as sung by Taliesin in the Maronad Owen Mab Urien. It was apparently during the reign of his successors that the famous battle of Cattraeth or Caltraeth was fought, commemorated by Aneurin in the poem of the Gododin. On that occasion the entire British forces of the old province of Valentia were drawn up to defend a pass or position, apparently at one end of the northern wall, against the united attack of the Angles of Deifr and Bryneich, and the Picts. After seven days fighting, the Britons, who spent the intervals in mead-drinking and revelry, were, on account of their inebriation, defeated with terrific slaughter, so that out of 363 chiefs who wore the golden torque and led their men to battle, only three survived the fatal day, one of them being Aneurin himself, son of the prince of Cwm Cawlwyd, in Strathclyde. This great victory confirmed the power of the Angles in the east, as far north as the Forth, the Britons either becoming slaves, escaping to join the larger body of their countrymen in Wales, or retreating to the west, where British power made a stand for a while, and formed itself into a doubtfully independent kingdom, known as Cumbria, or Strath clyde and Reged, the capital of which was the fortress of Alclwyd, or Petra Cloithe, the Rock of Clyde, known also to the Scoto-Irish as Dun-breton, the fort of the Britons, now modernized into Dumbarton. The battle of Caltraeth is placed by Villemarque about 578, by Mr. Skene in 596. It is somewhat curious that no direct record of an event which figures so prominently in early Cymric literature, should be found in the Anglo-saxon writers; however, the date 596 falls under the reign of the Northumbrian Æthelfrid, who, according to Beda, "ravaged the Britons more than all the princes of the Angles. For he conquered more territories from them, either making them tributary, exterminating or expelling the inhabitants, and planting Angles in their room, than any other king or tribune." The Cymry in their straits called in the aid of Aedan, king of the Scots of Dalriada, who, passing south of the Firths with an immense army, joined in the struggle against the Angles. The war ended in 603 with the decisive battle of Dægsastan (understood to be Dalston, near Carlisle, if not Dawstone Rigg, in Liddesdale), in which the Britons and Scots sustained such a crushing defeat that the latter never again ventured south of the Forth, till after their union with the Picts in the 9th century.

For some years after the battle of Dægsastan, the attention of the Northumbrian rulers was directed more towards the south than the north; but when Eadwin ascended the throne in 617, he seemed destined to reduce beneath his sway the whole island. According to the Chronicle, "he became supreme over all Britain, the Kent-ware alone excepted," and in the north he firmly established the Angle dominion as far as the Forth, where he is said to have erected his strong fortress of Eadwines-burh, which was at a later date to become the far-famed metropolis of Scotland.^[8] The reign of Eadwin is memorable for the adoption of Christianity by the Angles of the north, he and his people, being baptized by Paulinus in 627. The Scots, Picts, and Strathclyde Britons had been Christians long before. Eadwin was succeeded by Oswald and Oswiu, during whose reign the Angle power was still further extended in what is now the south of Scotland, their supremacy being apparently recognized by the Cumbrian Britons. Witnesses to this extension of the Northumbrian area, at or shortly after this period, exist in the Cross at Bewcastle, in Cumberland, with a Runic inscription commemorating Alchfrid, son of Oswiu, who was associated with his father in the government about 660, and the Runic Cross at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire, of the same high antiquity.

The reign of Ecgfrid was marked by still more ambitious designs, being occupied by incessant wars with the Picts, and efforts to extend the Northumbrian dominion beyond the Forth. In these he was at first successful, and gained such an extension of territory in the north, that it was deemed proper to form a new bishopric, the seat of which was fixed at Abercorn, on the upper estuary of the Forth, and, according to the Chronicle, A.D. 681, "Trumbriht was consecrated bishop of Hexham, and Trumwine of the Picts; for at that time they were subject to this country." In 685 "Ecgfrid made war upon the Pictish king Bredei, and resolved, in opposition to the advice of his nobles and the forebodings of his bishops, among whom was the famous Cuthbert, to invade the Pictish territory. He is supposed to have passed the Forth below Abercorn (at the modern Queensferry), and destroying everything before him, plunged into the forests of Caledonia. After laying waste the Scottish and Pictish capitals of Dunadd and Dundurn, he crossed the Tay into Angus. Bredei, the Pictish king, feigning flight, retired before the invaders till he had drawn them into the recesses of the country, where he attacked them in a narrow pass in the Sidlaw Hills, at Nechtans-mere, near Dunnechtan (now Dunnichen in Forfarshire), on the 20th May, 685. The Angle army was defeated with great slaughter, and the king was himself slain by the hand of Bredei. Ecgfrid's body was carried to Iona, and there buried; and few of his followers returned to Northumbria to tell of his defeat." As a result of their victory, according to Bede, who wrote 46 years after the event, "not only did the Picts recover possession of their land which the Angles had seized, but the Scots and even a considerable part of the Britons regained their freedom, which they continued to hold at the date of his writing; while a great number of the Angle race perished by the sword, were reduced to slavery, or driven to a hasty flight from the land of the Picts; amongst others, the venerable man of God, Trumwine, who had received the bishopric among them, withdrew with his companions from the monastery of Æbbercurnig, situated indeed in the Angle territory, but in the immediate vicinity of the Firth which divides the land of the Angles from the land of the Picts—and took his abode at Strea-næs-healh" (Whitby), where he remained till his death. This expulsion of Angle settlers from the land of the Picts, with Bede's careful distinction between what was Pict-land and what Engla-land, and his care to explain that Abercorn was not in Pict-land, though dangerously near to it, imply that, during the victorious period of Eadwin, Oswald, Oswiu, and Ecgfrid, numerous Angles had crossed the Forth and settled in the Pictish territory beyond. An attempt of the Angles in 699 to avenge their defeat was again repulsed, but in 710, Berhfred, the general of King Osred, defeated and overcame the Picts, slaying their king Bredei.

From this date, for more than a century, we hear of a few or no hostilities between the Angles and Picts or Britons, and the former held undisputed possession of what is now the south-east of Scotland, the elevated range distinguished as the Peht-land or Pentland Hills, indicating probably the north-western frontier. Along the Solway their dominions evidently extended farther west, since from the contemporary words of Beda, in closing his history, we learn that "in the province of the Northumbrians, of which Ceolwulf is king, there are now (A.D. 731) four Bishops, to wit,— Wilfrid in the church of York, Æthelwald in that of Lindisfarne, Acca in that of Hexham, and Pectelm or Peht-helm in that which is called Candida Casa (Whitherne)." On Pecthelm's death, in 735, he was succeeded by Frithewald, and at his decease, in 763, Pechtwin held the see till 776. Four bishops—Æthelberht, Baldwulf, Heathored, and Ecgred succeeded in due course. Not only do the names of these bishops indicate their nationality, but their existence proves that this part of the country was under the rule of the Northumbrian kings, for the rivalry between the Scoto-Irish and Latin-English branches of the church was so strong, that the expulsion of the ecclesiastics of either party followed as a matter of course when a territory changed hands.

But with the eighth century the tide of Northumbrian prosperity decisively turned. During the greater part of that century the North Anglian kingdom was torn and distracted by internal feuds and disputes for the crown, while its closing years brought the first instalments of those heathen hordes, whose devastations were continued with unabated fury for more than a century. The Danes were closely related kinsmen of the original Angle settlers, but being still heathens, their ravages were as terrible to the Christians of Northumbria, as those of Ida and his followers had been to the British. The final result of their invasion was to people the southern part of the Northan-hymbra-land (Deira) with a considerable Danish and half-Danish population, forming an important element in the ethnology, and what was of more immediate consequence, constituting a barrier which long retarded the incorporation of Northumbria, and permanently prevented that of the country between the Tweed and the Forth, with the rest of England. During this period the Northumbrian kingdom relapsed into utter anarchy and dismemberment, and the territories beyond the Tweed and Solway would have fallen an easy prey to the attacks of a powerful neighbour on the north. But the final struggle for mastery between the Scots and Picts, north of the Forth, on one or other side of which the Strathclyde Britons were generally engaged, occupied all the energies of these tribes, and restrained them from taking advantage of the weakness of the Angles. After the union of the Picts and Scots under Kenneth Mac Alpin in 843, "Saxonia" or Lothian was, according to the Pictish Chronicler, six times invaded and pillaged by him, in which incursions he is recorded to have "burnt the fortress of Dunbar, and spoiled the Abbey of Melrose." But he and his immediate successors made no attempt to retain possession of these districts, having enough to do in holding their own against the turbulence of their new Pictish subjects, the hostilities of the Britons of Strathclyde, and the inroads of the Danes and Norwegians, who, having now permanently occupied the east of England, the Orkneys and Caithness, the Isles and coasts of the West of Scotland and the Irish Sea, used these as points of vantage whence to ravage and plunder, with indiscriminate fury, the territories of Saxons, Scots, and Britons. In the south, the rulers of Wessex had been gradually gaining that ascendency over the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which converted the shadowy dignity of Bretwalda into the more tangible authority of king of England, but they also were engaged for nearly a century in a death struggle with the Danes, and it was not until the days of Edward the Elder, the worthy son of the great Alfred, that their hands were sufficiently free in the south to allow of their effective interference north of the Humber. In 924, Edward had reduced to submission the Danish and half-Danish rulers of the northern provinces, and received their allegiance, when, in the words of the contemporary chronicler, there "chose him for father and lord, the king of the Scots [Constantine III.], and the whole nation of the Scots, and Regnald [Danish ruler of York], and [Ealdred] the son of Eadulf [of Bamborough], and all those who dwell in Northan-hymbra-land, as well English as Danes, and Northmen and others, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, and all the Strathclyde Welsh."^[9] Thus early began that theoretic recognition of the supremacy of the Bretwalda, or king of England, which another Edward tried to reduce to practice, and which was only finally repudiated at Bannockburn. In the reign of Edward's successor, Æthelstan, Constantine king of the Scots, alarmed at the consolidation of the English dominion, combined, on several occasions with the Welsh, the Northumbrian and Irish Danes, against the Anglo-Saxon monarch, by whom Scotland was in consequence ravaged by land and sea, as far as Caithness. At length Constantine, "the hoary warrior," effected that great alliance of Scots, Danes, Britons, Welsh, and Irish, who invaded England in 937, and were defeated in the famous battle of Brunan-burh, which resulted in establishing more firmly than ever the Anglo-Saxon power in the north.

An event of great importance to the Scottish monarchy occurred in 945, when the English king, Eadmund, having overrun the principality of Cumbria or Strath-clyde, over which the English kings claimed authority as a dependency of Northumbria, but which was too remote to be worth the trouble of keeping, transferred the supremacy to Constantine's successor, Malcolm, on condition of obtaining his aid whenever required for keeping in order his troublesome half-Danish subjects in Northumbria. The rule of the king of the Scots was thus extended south of the Firths, which had hitherto been its boundary, and although the Strathclyde Britons offered a persistent resistance to their incorporation in the Scottish dominion, the union was fully consummated before the close of the century. In pursuance of this engagement we learn that when the Northumbrian Danes revolted in favour of their native leaders, the Scottish kings repeatedly overran the territories of Lothian and Northumberland, in co-operation with the Anglo-Saxon monarch. Similar reasons to those which prompted the transfer of Cumbria, led probably also to the cession of the Northumbrian frontier fortress of Eadwinesburh, to Malcolm's successor, Indulf, the son of Constantine, in whose time, according to the Pictish chronicle (954-962), "oppidum Eden vacuatum est, et relictum est Scottis usque in hodiernum diem."^[10] While Northumbria was an independent kingdom, whose relations to the Picts and Scots were generally hostile, Edinburgh was of course one of its most important bulwarks; but to the English kings, separated as it was from the rest of their dominions by the two only half-subdued Northern provinces, it was probably better in the hands of their ally and "fellow-worker," the king of the Scots, whose aid they so often required against their own refractory Northumbrian subjects. Whether the cession was due to the policy of Eadred or the weakness of Eadwig is unknown, but it shews the direction in which the Scottish kings were now casting eager glances, and it paved the way for that possession of Lothian and Tweeddale, which proved so pregnant with mighty consequences for the language, the laws, the civilization, and whole history of Scotland. The circumstances of the latter transaction are not quite clear, but according to John of Wallingford and Roger of Wendover, the grant of Lothian, or that part of Bernicia north of the Tweed, was made by Eadgar, who died 975, to Kenneth III., son of Malcolm I., who began to reign 970, and therefore between those two years; the latter holding it in the same capacity as it had been held by the Northumbrian eorls, and engaging that the province should retain its own laws and customs, and its Angle or English language ("promittens quòd populo partis illius antiquas consuetudines non negaret, et linguâ Anglicanâ remanerent"), stipulations which we know were faithfully observed; this "English" of Lothian, as we shall presently see, having become the national language of Scotland, or "Lowland Scotch."

Shortly after this date began the second great series of Danish invasions, which, after devastating England for forty years, resulted in placing a Danish dynasty upon the English throne. During the utter helplessness and prostration to which the central power was reduced in this struggle, the remote provinces again relapsed into quasi-independence, the eorls of Northumbria acting for themselves without any reference to their nominal sovereign in the south. A quarrel, the grounds of which we do not know, broke out between the eorl of Northumbria and Malcolm II., king of the Scots; perhaps the former wished, with the help of the Danes, to reunite Lothian to the rest of his dominion, and rule once more over a united Northan-hymbra-land,—at any rate, Malcolm invaded Bernicia and laid seige to Durham, where he was defeated in a great battle, by Uhtred, son of eorl Waltheof. Whether, in consequence of this, Malcolm lost part of his territories south of the Forth is uncertain, but in 1018, the year after the accession of Cnut to the English throne, he renewed the war with Eadwulf, the brother of Uhtred, whom he defeated in a great battle at Oarham. Eadwulf afterwards came to an agreement with Malcolm, and ceded to him Lothian for ever. The division of the old Northan-hymbra-land, lying between the Forth and Tweed, was thenceforth a portion of the dominions of the king of the Scots, who held it however, as it had been held by the eorls of Northumbria, and as he himself held Strathclyde, i.e. in his own right when he could maintain it,—when he could not, in dependence upon the king of England. In the latter capacity, when Cnut personally visited Scotland in 1031," the king of the Scots, Malcolm, submitted to him, and became his man, but that he held only a little while; and two other kings, Macbeth and Jehmarc."^[11]

The history of the Scottish kingdom during the 10th century exhibits the struggles of two dynasties, one of which was by marriage and sympathies more connected with Northumbria, and courted the English alliance; the other identified with the northeast, and more exclusively Celtic in its leanings. The Celtic or native line found its greatest representative in Macbeth, who, after the defeat and death of Duncan, ruled over the original Scotland, while the Angle districts south of the Forth remained attached to the family of Duncan. It was rather as a king of Lothian, conquering Scotland, that Malcolm Ceanmor, son of Duncan and the Northumbrian eorl's daughter, at the head of an Anglo-Saxon army overthrew Macbeth and recovered the crown of his fathers. Having spent the days of his exile with his uncle, Eorl Siward, in Northumbria, and at the Court of Edward the Confessor, Malcolm returned to Scotland the heir of a line of Celtic kings, but half a Saxon in blood, and wholly Saxon in tastes and sympathies, which were still more confirmed by his marriage, in 1067, with Margaret, sister of Edgar the Ætheling, heiress of the hopes and aspirations of the English Saxon dynasty. The southern names of the children born from this union are thus recorded by Wyntown (Book VII. iii. 30):—

"Malcolm kyng, be lawchfull get,
Had on hys Wyff Saynt Margret,
Sownnys sex, and Dowchtrys twa.
Off þir Sownnys, thre of þa
Wes Edmwnd, Edward, Ethelrede,
Kyng of þire nowcht ane we rede;
Bot Edgare, Alysawndyre, and Dawy yhyng
Ilkane of þire wes crownyd a kyng."

They form quite a contrast to the characteristic Celtic nomenclature of the Donalds, Kenneths, Duncans, Malcolms, and Ferguses, who had hitherto occupied the throne, and mark the turning point from which the Scottish royal family may be looked upon as an Anglo-Saxon line, and the history of Scotland that of its Teutonic element. This element continually increased, through the policy of Malcolm and his successors, in encouraging English settlers north of the Forth, affording refuge to the fugitives from the Norman conquest, and displacing the ancient troublesome chiefs by a nobility personally attached to the sovereign, of Saxon, Flemish, and Norman origin. The Celtic portion of their subjects, who had formed the original germ of the kingdom, did not submit to be thus ousted from the first place without many a struggle, and in the reign of Malcolm's immediate successors, it seemed doubtful for a while whether the Celt or the Saxon should eventually gain the predominance. The struggle was scarcely decided before the year 1100, and after fortune finally declared in favour of the latter, backed as they were by their kinsmen in England, the work of Saxonizing the seaboard country north of the Firths went on rapidly under Edgar, Alexander, and David I.; or, as Wyntown puts it:—

"Þe Saxonys and þe Scottis blude
In natyownys twa before þan ȝhud, (i.e. went)
Bot þe Barnetyme off þat Get
Þat Malcolme had off Saynt Margret,
To-gyddir drw full vnyowne
To pass syne in suceessyowne."—(Book VII. iii. 163.)

§ 5. Having traced the course of events by which the Angles of Northern Bernicia became politically connected with the ancient kingdom of the Celtic Scots, and a leading element in the later Scottish nationality, we approach the question of the language. At the arrival of the Teutonic invaders on the east coast, the territory between the walls, now forming the south of Scotland, was like England, British; that is, Celtic, of the Cymric or Welsh division. The names of the princes with whom the invaders leagued or fought, of the principalities and places mentioned in the record of the wars, are all Cymric. It is in an ancient form of "Welsh, and by the care of the Welsh bards, that the poems of Taliesin, bard of Urien and Owain, princes of Reghed, of Lliwarch Hen, son of Elidir, chief of Argoed, both divisions of ancient Cumbria, and of Aneurin, a native of Strath-clyde, and probably of Alclwyd, or Dumbarton, have come down to us with contemporary delineations of the great events of the struggle.^[12] It was among their kinsmen in Wales or Brittany that all the three northern bards ended their lives; to Wales also that many of the Cumbrian Britons fled after the battle of Caltraeth. It is as Bretts and Welsh, moreover, that the inhabitants of Cumbria or Strathclyde are referred to by the contemporary Saxon chroniclers, and in the charters and proclamations of David I., Malcolm IV., and William the Lion. So late as 1305, it was enacted by Edward I., in revising the laws of Scotland, that "the usages of the Scots and Bretts should be abolished and no more used." Finally, it is to the ancient British or Welsh that we must still look for the etymology of the names of the great natural features of the country, "the ever-flowing rivers and the ever-lasting hills." It is to this tongue that we look for the derivation of the names of the Tweed, the Teviot, the Clyde, the Nith, and the Annan, the numerous Esks, Edens, Tynes, Avons, Calders, and Alns or Allans; that we explain Cheviot, and the other border hills, which were conspicuous enough to retain the names given by the earlier race. The eminences of the south country, when not hills, fells, laws, or knows, are pens like Pennygent, Pen-maen-maur, and the other Pens of Wales and Cornwall. In Teviotdale we have Penielheugh, Pen-chrise Pen, Skelf-hill Pen, and the obsolete Penango and Penangoishope; on the watershed between Teviotdale and Liddesdale, Pennygent repeats a southern name in its entirety. At the head of Eskdale rises Ettrick Pen; in the vicinity of Innerleithen in Tweeddale, the Lee Pen. There is no trace of any Gaelic element at this time in the south-east of Scotland; the occupation of Galloway and Carrick by a colony of Scots from Ireland took place some centuries later. A few monastic and missionary settlements of the Scoto-Irish church like Melrose have a Gaelic etymon; but these are isolated, and, from their very nature as exceptions, prove the rule. Many of the Celtic local names which occur along the southern borders of the Firth of Forth doubtless belong to the period when the Scottish kings first extended their authority over Lothian, and Celtic Scots were mixed with the Angles who occupied the district.

§ 6. An Angle or Engl-ish dialect has been as long established in the South-east of Scotland as in any part of England, with the exception, perhaps, of Kent. According to accredited accounts, the district was entirely abandoned by the Britons after the battle of Caltraeth, and even though we allow of a much less sweeping change of population, it is evident that Northumbria north of the Tweed and Cheviots was as completely peopled by the Angles as Northumbria south of these lines. In confirmation of this we find that the geographical names of the Southern Scottish counties, so far as they refer to the dwelling-places of men, or even to the smaller streams or burns, the hursts, shaws, morasses, and lower hills, are as purely Teutonic as the local names of Kent or Dorset. Such names as Coldingham, Redpath, Haliburton, Greenlaw, Mellerstane, Wedderburn, Cranshaws, in Berwickshire; Linton, Morebattle, Newbigging, Edgarston, Fernieherst, Kutherford, Middleham or Midlem, Langton, Eckford, Hassendean (Halestanedene), Hawick, Denholm, Langlee, Whitmoor, Whitriggs, Whitchesters, Wilton, Ashkirk, Essenside, Harwood, Wolfelee, Wolfcleuchhead, Swinnie, Swinhope, Todlaw, Todsnaw, Todrig, Catcleuch, Oxenham, Buocleuch, Newstead, Stow, Drygrange, Darnwick, Selkirk, Oakwood, Hartwood-myres, Hindhope, Drykope, Midgehope, Hellmoor, Thirlstane, Oorsecleugh, in Boxburgh and Selkirkshires; Langholm, Broomholm, Muckledale, Westerkirk, Morton, Thornhill, Euthwell, Lookerby, Canonby, Mousewald, Torthorwald, Tinwald, Applegarth, Elderbeck (the latter of which are Norse), in Dumfriesshire, are only specimens of the common names of towns, hamlets, parishes, and farms. The instant we leave the dales of the Esk and Annan, in Dumfriesshire, and cross into that of the Nith, we find ourselves in the midst of a foreign nomenclature, that of the Ersch of Galloway. Drumfries, Sanquhar, Auchencairn, Auchendarroch, Glencairn, Oairnkinna, Linncluden, Dalscairth, Darngarroch, Drumlanrig, Drummore, and hundreds of other examples of Dal, Drum, Auchen, Craigen, Bal, Glen, and Cairn, testify to the ethnological change. To return to the Angle area, it was from the banks of the Leader, a northern tributary of the Tweed, that the shepherd boy, Cuthberht, was called to be the apostle of Northumbria; it was over the area of Tweeddale, Teviotdale, and Ettrick Forest, as well as in Tynedale and Lindisfarne, that his labours of faith and love were performed, and that commemorative chapels rose to his memory. One of the most famous of these, to the history of which six chapters are devoted by Reginald of Durham,^[13] stood by the Slitrith, a tributary of the Teviot, and among the worshippers we have recorded the genuine Anglo-Saxon names of Seigiva (Sæiᵹifu) and Rosfritha (Rosfrið), "duae mulieres de villâ quâdam Hawich dictâ, ipsius provintiæ de Tevietedale." Dumfriesshire has, moreover, preserved to us, in the "Dream of the Holy Rood," inscribed in Anglo-Saxon Runes upon the Ruthwell Cross—perhaps the most venerable specimen of the language of the Northumbrian Angles, which ranks with the Runic inscription upon the Bewcastle Cross, commemorative of Alchfrid, son of Oswiu (ab. 664)—the genuine fragment of Cædmon, and the deathbed verses of Beda, as our chief, almost our only, data for the state of that dialect in the 7th and 8th centuries. The Ruthwell Cross is of course of Christian origin, but a relic of North Anglian heathendom seems to be preserved in a phrase which forms the local slogan of the town of Hawick, and which, as the name of a peculiar local air, and the refrain, or "owerword" of associated ballads, has been connected with the history of the town "back to fable-shaded eras." Different words have been sung to the tune from time to time, and none of those now extant can lay claim to any antiquity: but associated with all, and yet identified with none, the refrain "Tyr-ibus ye Tyr ye Odin," Týr hæb us, ᵹe Tyr ᵹe Odin! Tyr keep us, both Tyr and Odin! (by which name the tune also is known) appears to have come down, scarcely mutilated, from the time when it was the burthen of the song of the gleó-mann, or scald, or the invocation of a heathen Angle warrior, before the northern Hercules and the blood-red lord of battles had yielded to the "pale god" of the Christians.^[14]

It seems probable that although the Northumbrian territory extended to the shores of the Forth, the Anglian occupancy of Lothian was more fitful and precarious than that of Tweeddale and the basin of the Solway, and that it was not till a later period that the Teutonic dialect exclusively prevailed there. This idea is supported by the geographical nomenclature; such names as Dunbar, Aberlady, Drummore, Killspindy, Pencaithland, Dalgowrie, Dalkeith, Dalhousie, Roslin, Pennicuick, Abercorn, Cathie, Linlithgow, Torphichen, Cariden (Caer-eiden?), Kinneil, are mixed with the Teutonic Haddington, Linton, Stenton, Fenton, Dirleton, Athelstaneford, Ormiston, Whittingham, Gifford, Newbattle, Cranston, Duddingston, Broxburn, Whitburn, and, so far as they are ancient, indicate the continued existence of a British or Pictish population, among whom the advancing Teutonic made its way more gradually.^[15] To this later prevalence of the North Angle dialect on the shores of the Firth, I also attribute, in part, the difference still existing between the pronunciation of Lothian (in the modern restricted sense of the word), and that of the Southern counties.

§ 7. As to the country north of the Firths, or Scotland proper, we find that the vulgar tongue, the lingua Scotica, was still Celtic in the reign of Macbeth. Still later, in the days of Malcolm Ceanmor, when "Queen Margaret in 1074 caused a council to be convened to inquire into the abuses which were said to have crept into the Scottish church, it was found that the clergy could speak no language but Gaelic. As Margaret, who was to be the chief prolocutor, could speak to them only in Saxon, her husband, king Malcolm, who happened to know Saxon as well as Gaelic, was obliged to act as interpreter."^[16] Gaelic continued to be the language north of the Forth down to the final defeat of Donald Bane, under whom the Celtic element made its final struggle for predominance in connection with the succession to the crown and the accession of Edgar, son of Malcolm and Margaret in 1097. Such was the effect, however, of the identification of the royal dynasty with the English-speaking portion of their subjects, and of the policy of Edgar, David, and their successors, in encouraging the settlement of Anglo-Saxons, Flemings, and Normans, by grants of land, charters, and privileges, that during the course of the two following centuries, the Teutonic dialect, hitherto confined to the district south of the Forth, crept northward along the coast line to the shores of the Moray Firth, and before the death of Alexander III. was apparently the spoken tongue of the greater part of the population, the Welsh having disappeared before it in Strathclyde, and the Gaelic being confined pretty nearly to what we still designate the Highlands, and to Galloway. There is no need to account for this change by the operation of any sudden and violent causes; the Celtic dialects of the north-east, and the British of Strathclyde, disappeared before the Anglo-Saxon tongue of the court, and education, just as at a later time the Erse of Galloway and Carrick, the British of Cornwall, the Irish of Leinster, died out before the English, or as in our own day the Gaelic of Perthshire, the Cymric of Wales, the Irish of Tipperary, are ever retreating backwards before the same advancing tide. The people remain, but with the change of language they lose the greatest of their distinctive marks, and in course of time merge their history in that of the country at large.

The name of Scotland, and the language now known as Scotch, were thus in their introduction and diffusion exactly the converse of each other. Neither of them indigenous to North Britain—the name was introduced from Ireland to the extreme west, and by a gradual movement eastward and southward, in the wake of the ascendancy of the king of Scots, attained its present limits in the thirteenth century; the language, introduced from the opposite coast of the continent to the extreme south-east, extended itself westward and northward, till by the end of the same century it occupied something like its present area. Totally unconnected, and even antagonistic in their origin, the encroaching monarchy and the encroaching language met each other on the battle-furrowed banks of the Forth, when the kings of Scotland commenced their attempts upon Lothian. The struggle which ensued ended in a compromise. The Angles of Lothian and Tweeddale accepted the Scottish king and the Scottish name—Scotland and the king of Scots accepted the Angle tongue, and the Anglo-Saxon character. The sovereign ruled as the hereditary descendant of Fergus the son of Ere and the fabulous Gathelus—he reigned because he represented the feelings and sympathies, and was identified with the interests and national spirit, of his Anglo-Saxon subjects.

§ 8. Of the dialect of the North Angles before the tenth century, the remains are scanty. The inscription upon the Euthwell Cross, the most certain specimen^[17] afforded by that part of the Northan-hymbra-land now included in Scotland, forms no inconsiderable portion of the whole. The following transcription of that fragment, chiefly after its latest and most eareful editor, Professor Stephens (by whom it is attributed to Cædmon), along with the West Saxon version or paraphrase of the poem from the Codex Vercellensis, shews that already in the seventh century the Northern dialect was distinguished from the Southern by some of the chief characteristics which afterwards defined them.

The Ruthwell.	The West Saxon paraphrase.
On-geredæ hinæ	On-gyrede hine þa ᵹeonᵹ hæleð
God almeyottig	þæt wæs God ælmihtig
þa he walde	Strang and stiðmod
On galgu gi-stiga	gestah he on gealgan heanne
Modig fore	Modig on manigra gesyhðe
Alle men	þat he wolde mancyn lysan
Buga ik ni darstæ	Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbelypte
..................	Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan.
..................	Rod wæs ic aræred
Ahof ik riiknæ künigk	Ahof ic ricne cynig
Heafunæs hlafard	Heofna hlaford
hælda ik ni darstæ	hyldan me ne dorste
Bismærædu ungket men	Bismeredon hie unc
ba ætgadre	butu ætgædre
Ik [wæs] miþ blodæ bistemid	Eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed
Bi-goten of ..........	begoten of þæs guman sidan
..................	syððan he hæfde his gast onsended.
Krist wæs on rodi	Crist wæs on rode
Hweþræ þer fusæ	Hwæðere þær fuse
fearran cwomu	feorran cwomon
Æþþile til anum	to þam æþelinge
Ik þæt al biheald	Ic þæt eall beheold
Sare ik wæs	Sare ic wæs
Miþ sorgum gidrœfid	Mid sorgum gedrefed
Hnag ic [hweþræ]	Hnag ic hwæðre
..................	þam secgum to handa
Miþ strelum giwundad	Eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod
A-legdun hiæ hinæ lim-wœrignæ	Aledon hie ðær limwerigne
Gistoddun him æt his likæs heafdum	Gestodon him æt his lices heafdum
Bihealdun hiæ þer heafun ....	Beheoldon hieðær heofenedryhten.

Translation of the Ruthwell.

On-graithed him(self)	Out-gushed from [the hero's side,
God almighty	Since his ghost he had sent forth.]
When he would	Christ was on rood;
On the gallwos ascend,	Howbeit there hastily (fussily)
Strong-of-mood before	From-afar came
All men.	Noble ones to him alone (?)
Bow I dared not	I that all beheld.
....	Sore I was
[A rood I was reared]	With sorrows oppressed;
Up-heaved I the rich king,	Inclined I yet
Heaven's lord.	[To the hauds of his servants.]
Lean I dared not!	With shafts wounded,
Men reviled us-two	Laid they him limb-weary;
Both together;	Stood (by) him at his lyke's head,
I [was] with blood bestained	Beheld they there heaven['s lord].

In the form walde for the southern wolde, we see the distinction between the northern wald, wad, and the southern wold, would. Bi-heald for beheold, and darstæ for dorste, are dialectical points of the same kind. The use of ea for eo, as heafun for heofon, heaven, fearran for feorran, and the use of æ for e, miþ for mid, and the prefixes gi- and bi- for ge- and be-, are well-known characteristics of the Northumbrian glosses of the tenth century. But the most interesting point to be noticed is the dropping of final n from the inflections of nouns and verbs (galgu, buga, hælda, bismærædu, kwomu), also noted in the glosses, in which the Old North Anglian agreed with the Scandinavian and Frisian, rather than the Saxon, and anticipated the early loss of the noun and verb inflections by the northern dialect, seen in comparing the southern thei loven to ben, we wolden gon, with the northern thai luf to be, we wald ga.

§ 9. In the tenth century, or thereabouts, several interlinear translations or glosses of Latin ecclesiastical works were executed in a Northern dialect in England, especially a gloss to the Ritual of Durham, and two glosses of the Gospels, the Lindisfarne, or Durham-bóc, and the Rushworth,^[18] the intimate relation between which suggests the existence of a currently recognized rendering of the Evangel in the Vernacular. A charter written at Durham^[19] gives a specimen of the language, about 1100, and a few words in the native tongue in the Latin charters of David, William the Lion, and their successors, such as "cum sacca et socca cum tol et them et infangtheefe," answering to the "mid saca and socne, mid tolles and. teames, and mid infangenes theofes" of the contemporary English charters; the terms ut-were and in-were, foreign and internal war, tri-gild, a penalty for cutting down trees, and a reference in defining the boundaries of properties to landmarks, known in the vulgar tongue as þe stane cross, þe standard stane, are contemporary witnesses of the dialect in Scotland.^[20] The Leges Quatuor Burgorum (Berewic, Eokisburg, Edinburg, et Strevelin) and other of the early Scottish laws, have also embalmed in their Latin originals, some of which date to David I. numerous words and phrases of the vernacular speech, some with Latinized terminations, but others in their naked forms, intended to identify more thoroughly the subjects of legislation. Thus "Si quis verberando fecerit aliquem blaa et blodi, ipse qui fuerit blaa et blodi prius debet exaudiri," etc. In the 15th century translation, "Gif ony man strykis anoþir, quhar-thruch he is mayd blaa and blodi, he þat is mayd blaa and blodi sail fyrst be herde, etc. "Stallingiator nullo tempore potest habere loth, cut, neque cavyll de aliquo mercimonio, nisi infra nundinas quando quilibet potest habere loth, cut, atque cavyll," translated "Na stallangear (itinerant stall-keeper) may hafe na tyme loth, out, or cavyll wyth a burges of ony maner of merchandise, but in þe tym of þe fayris, quhen þat ilk man may hafe loth, cut, and cavyll, wythin the kyngis burgh." The stalingiator may also have "botham coopertarn" a covered buith. " Et sciendum est quod intra burgum non debet exaudiri blodewite, styngesdynt (a cudgelling), merchet, herieth (transl. here-gild, military-tribute, the heriot), nee aliquid de consimilibus." The widow of a burgess is to have left to her "interiorem partem domus que dicitur le flet;" among the personal effects of which the destination is fixed are "plumbum cum maskfat (mash-vat, masking-fat in Lyndesay's Flyting), hucham (a hutch, transl. schyrn, shrine), girdalium (the gyrdle or griddle)," etc. Further instances are found in the following expressions:—"Infantem clamantem vel plorantem vel braiantem," the chylde cryand or gretand or brayand; "Si in responsione negaverit wrang et unlaw et dicat, etc"; " post woch (A.S. woh, injustice) et wrang et unlaw"; "Non ut husbandi non ut pastores"; "forestarius habebit unum hog." So also among other terms we meet with hamesokyn, ibur þeneseca seu berthynsak, explained in the translation as "berthynsak, þe thyft of a calf or of a ram, or how mekill as a man may ber on his bak;" inboruche et [h]uteboruche potestatem habens ad distinguendum, cokestole, opelandensis, "ane uplandis-man," schorlinges (shearlings), etc., etc. So "fremd" do these terms look in the Latin texts, so entirely natural are they in the vernacular versions, that it is very difficult to realize that the Latin is the older by two or three centuries, and the conviction is forced upon one that there must have been an earlier vernacular in oral if not in written existence, which the scribes had in their mind, if not before their eyes, and which was drawn upon where the Latin would have been wanting in precision, or failed altogether to render a technicality.

But, with the exception of such isolated fragments, the history of the northern dialect is all but a blank for nearly three centuries, and that precisely at the period when the old Northan-hymbra-land was being incorporated with the English and Scottish monarchies respectively; so that we have no connected data shewing the transition of the Old North Anglian into the Early Northern English of Cursor Mundi and the Scottish laws, such as those which enable us to trace the insensible passage of the classical Anglo-Saxon into the Southern English of the Ancren Riwle and Ayenbite, or to inform us of the date at which the Northern tongue emancipated itself from the trammels of inflection, and assumed that essentially modern form which it wears in the earliest of these connected specimens. All we know is, that the grammatical revolution had already begun in the 9th and 10th centuries, and that the change was completed long before it had advanced to any extent in the south, so that when the curtain rises over the northern dialect, in England towards the close of the 13th century, and in Scotland nearly a hundred years later, the language had become as thoroughly uninflectional as the modern English, while the sister dialect of the south retained to a great extent the noun-, pronoun-, and adjective-declension of the Anglo-Saxon. The same phenomenon of earlier development has been repeated in almost every subsequent change which the language has undergone. The South has been tenaciously conservative of old forms and usages, the North has inaugurated often by centuries nearly every one of those structural changes which have transformed the English of Alfred into English as it has been since the days of Shakspeare. Hence, of two contemporary writers, one northern and the other southern, the Englishman of to-day always feels the former the more modern, the nearer to him—Cursor Mundi and Barbour are infinitely more intelligible, even to the southern reader, than the Kentish Ayenbite of Inwyt.

§ 10. The same deficiency of materials, in the period preceding the 13th century, renders it difficult to estimate the amount of influence exerted upon the Northern dialect by the Scandinavian, in consequence of the Danish invasions and settlements of the 8th and 10th centuries. In the opinion of the writer the present tendency is rather to over-estimate the amount of this influence. He sees reason to believe that the Northern dialect from the beginning diverged from the classical Anglo-Saxon in a direction which made it more closely connected in form with the Scandinavian. The chief points in which the language of the Ruthwell Cross, and the verses of Crodmon and Beda differ from the contemporary West Saxon, are the inflectional characteristics which distinguish the Scandinavian and Frisian from the Saxon and German division of the Teutonic languages. There seems ground, therefore, to regard many of the characteristics of the northern dialect which currently pass as Danish as having been original elements of the North Angle speech, due to the fact that this dialect was, like the Frisian, one which formed a connecting link between the Scandinavian and Germanic branches. Such characteristics would of course be strengthened and increased by the influx of Danish and Norwegian settlers, but the influence of these was necessarily at first confined to particular localities, and only gradually and at a later period affected the northern dialect as a whole. Cursor Mundi and Hampole have more of it than the glosses of the 10th century, but Cursor Mundi and Hampole have little of it in comparison with certain modem provincial dialects of the north of England, such as those of Cleveland, Whitby, Lonsdale, Furness, and parts of Cumberland. In the county of Northumberland, and in Scotland, the Danish influence is apparently at a minimum, agreeing with the fact noted by Mr. Worsaae, that "the whole east coast of Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to Moray Firth, is entirely destitute of characteristic and undoubted Scandinavian monuments."^[21] As a consequence the Lowland Scotch of the present day represents Hampole and Cursor Mundi, and the Northern dialect of the 13th and 14th centuries generally, much more closely than those North English dialects, in which the Danish element, or what currently passes for Danish is more apparent. The use of at as the relative, of til for to, thir for these, and waar for worse, are common to the modern Scotch with the old northern writers. The use of t' or 't as the article, instead of the (t' master o' t' houses), of at instead of to in the infinitive (a sup o' summat at drink), of the form I is for I am, I war for I was, are unknown in Scotland. In general it may be said that the contributions which the Scotch has received from the Scandinavian affect rather the vocabulary than the grammar; numerous words passed from the districts in which the Danes settled into the Northern dialect generally; the grammatical inflections, particles, and formative affixes have not been so widely adopted. As an illustration of the caution which ought to be exercised before pronouncing a word or grammatical form to be of Scandinavian origin upon internal evidence alone, we may take the case of the relative ăt (the man ăt was here) for that. This is generally, if not universally, accepted as Scandinavian, as the same word occurs in Old Norse and the modern languages derived from it.

Old Norse	Ek hefi spurt at þú hafir aldri blótat skúrgoð.
Færcæese	E hävi spurt at tú hevir aldri ofra til Afgudar
	I have learned at thou hast never offered to idols.
Swedish	Du wet, att jag sade, att jag horde det
Danish	Du veed, at jeg sagde, at jeg hörte det
	You know at I said, at I heard that.

So far nothing could seem clearer than that the at of the English dialects is the Norse at. But there is another class of facts requiring consideration. In the Gaelic, although th is one of the commonest of written combinations, the sound is quite lost in the language as now spoken, its place being indicated by a breathing, or a simple hiatus. Thus athair, mathair, brathair, ceithir=father, mother, brother, quatuor, are pronounced a'air, ma'air, bra'air, kai'er. Cath, cathair (Welsh cad, cader), fathast, leth, are ca', ca'air, fa'ast, le'. Thighearn, thigh, Thomais (vocative of Tomas), Theurlach (genitive of Teurlach, Charles), are pronounced hee-arn, hee or high, homish, hairlach. Now the Lowland Scottish dialects, all along the Celtic border-line, or in districts where the Teutonic has only lately superseded the Celtic, have a tendency to drop the initial th of unaccented subordinate words and particles. Aa'nk or aa'ink for I think is generally diffused; and in Caithness we hear not only at, but ee, ay, aim, an, air, are, for that, the, they, thaim, than, thair, thare. In the West of Forfar and Fife, South of Perth, in Kinross, Clackmannan, etc., the article is regularly abbreviated into ee "ee haid ŏ ee toon, ee haid ee toon, pyt ee braid i' ee prêss" (the head of the town put the bread in the press).^[22] After disappearing in Clydesdale and Lothian this peculiarity crops up again in Galloway, a district which was Celtic in the 16th century. Lest in these districts, and Caithness in particular, this peculiarity should be claimed as Norwegian (although it extends to words never so contracted in Norse), we have a conclusive example in the interesting dialect of Barony Forth, in County Wexford, Ireland. The baronies of Forth and Bargy were occupied by an isolated colony of Strongbow's followers in 1169, who have preserved almost to the present day a remarkable form of speech, being a very archaic stage of English (with verbal -eth singular and plural, as in Chaucer, the ye- prefix to past participles, etc.), modified in pronunciation and glossary by the native Irish, by which it was surrounded, especially in this matter of the aphæresis of initial th, as may be seen in the following passages:

Yn ercha an ol o' whilke yt beeth
wi' gleezom o' core'th our eene dwytbeth
apan ee Vigère o' dicke zouvereine,
Wilyame ee Vourthe, unnere fose
fatherlie zwae ure dai-ez be ye-spant;
az avàre ye trad dicke lone yer name
waz ye-kent var ee Vriene o' Livertie
an he fo braak ee neckàr-ez o' zlaves.
Mang ourzels—var wee dwytheth an
Eerloane, as ure general haime—y'ast
be ractzom o' hoane ye-delt t'ouz ee
laas ye-mate var ercha vassàle, ne'er
dwythen na dicke waie nar dicka.
Wee dwitheth ye ane fose daiez bee gien
var ee gudevare, o' ee lone ye zwae,
t' avance pace an livertie an wi' oute
vlynch, ee garde o' generàl reights an
poplàre vartùe.

In ever-each and all of which it beeth
with joy of heart that our eyen looketh
npon the Viceroy of thilk sovereign
William, the fourth, under whose
fatherly sway our days are y-spent;
as before you trode thilk land your name
was y-known for the friend of liberty
and he who broke the halters of slaves.
Among ourselves—for we look on
Ireland as our common home—you have
by righteousness of hand, y-dealt to us the
laws y-made for ever-each subject, never
looking to thilk side nor to thilk (i.e. this nor that),
We look on you as one whose days be given
for the well-fare, of the land you sway
to advance peace and liberty, and without
flinching, the guard of common rights and
public virtue.

(From Address to the Viceroy, 1836.)

Mot w' all aar boust, hi soon was ee-teight
At aar errone was var aam ing aar angish ee-height
Zitch vezzeen, tarvizzeen, tell than w' ne'er zey
Nor zitchel n'e'er well, nowe, nore ne'er mey.

Ha-ho! be mee coshès, th'ast ee-pait it, co Joane;
Y'oure w' thee crokeèn, an yie mee thee hoane.
He at nouth fad t'zey, llean vetch ee man
Twish thee an Tommeèn, an ee emothee knaghane.

(From a "Yola Zong.")

But with all their boasting, they were soon y-taught
That their errand was for them in their anguish y-heightened,
Such driving and struggling, till then we ne'er saw,
Nor such never will, no, nor never may.

Hey-ho! by my conscience thou hast y-paid it quoth John;
Give over with thy croaking, and give me thy hand.
He that knows what to say, mischief fetch the man
Twixt thee and Tommie and the emmet-hill (knockan)

(From an "Old Song.")

Aar was a weddeen ee Ballymore
An aar was a hundereth lauckeen vowre score.

There was a wedding in Bally-more
And there was a hundred lacking four score.^[23]

To the Scottish philologer this dialect is of importance in more respects than one. Not only does the aphasresis of initial th illustrate the similar forms in some Scottish dialects, but the same (or a similar) Celtic influence which has changed the hwo, hwose, hwat, hwan, hware, of Strongbow's English followers into fo, fose, faad, fan, far, has changed the hwa, hwas, hwat, hwan, hwar, of the Angles and Flemings of the north-east, and Norwegians of the north, into the faa, faa's, fat, fan, faar of Aberdeen, Caithness, Angus, and Moray. The same (or a similar) influence which has in Barony Forth produced loane, hoane, sthoan, eiloane from the old Southern English lond, hond, stond, ilond, has in Scotland produced laan', haan', staan', hielan's, wherever the Teutonic has come in peaceful contact with the Celtic, the original land, hand, stand, heelands, being retained in the old Angle area of the south-east. There is therefore as much to be said for the Celtic as for the Norse influence in at; and what has been shown with regard to at, may mutatis mutandis be shown, I believe, of much else that passes as Danish.

§ 11. From the fourteenth century onwards, Scotland presents a full series of writers in the Northern dialect,^[24] which, as spoken and written in this country, may be conveniently divided into three periods. The first, or early period, during which the literary use of this dialect was common to Scotland, with England north of the Humber, extends from the date of the earliest specimens to the middle or last quarter of the fifteenth century. The second, or middle period, during which the literary use of the northern dialect was confined to Scotland (the midland dialect having supplanted it in England), extends from the close of the fifteenth century to the time of the Union. The third, or modern period, during which the northern dialect has ceased to be the language of general literature in Scotland also, though surviving as the speech of the people and the language of popular poetry, extends from the union of the kingdoms to the present day.

§ 12. The language of the early period may be called Early Lowland Scotch, at least that of the early Scottish writers. In point of fact it is simply the northern English, which was spoken from the Trent and Humber to the Moray Forth, and which differed characteristically from the Midland English, which adjoined it on the South, and still more from the Southern English which prevailed beyond the Thames.^[25] The final division of the Northan-hymbrian territory—over which the King of Scots had at times held dominion as far south as the Tees, and the King of England claimed supremacy as far north as the Forth—between the two kingdoms, produced no sudden break in the common language. Previous to the War of Independence, the relations of the owners of the soil in this territory were such that the division was more nominal than real; and even after that struggle, which made every one either an Englishman or a Scotchman, and made English and Scotch names of division and bitter enmity, Barbour at Aberdeen, and Richard Rolle de Hampole near Doncaster, wrote for their several countrymen in the same identical dialect. It is not, of course, implied that in the matter of orthography, in which every man did that which was right in his own eyes—and ears—and in which every copying clerk altered the spelling or his original to suit his own taste or convenience, there was absolute uniformity, although, even in this matter, the older our examples are, the closer is the agreement. The following specimens show the identity of the Northern dialect in England and Scotland, and illustrate the difficulty experienced in judging, from internal evidence alone, whether a given production of the period was written north or south of the Tweed. They consist of: 1. Passages from the Northern version of Cursor Mundi, written, near Durham, about 1275-1300 (while Alexander III. reigned in Scotland), and preserved in an orthography not much later. 2. Extracts from the Early Scottish Laws, the Latin originals of which date to the reign of David I., William the Lion, &c.; and the vernacular translations to the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. 3. Passages from Barbour's Brus, written at Aberdeen about 1375; but as the existing MSS. are more recent by a century, the extracts are taken from the passages incorporated by Wyntown in his "Orygynal Cronykil of Scotland," 1419-30, and preserved in the Royal MS. 17 d. xx., of date 1430-40. 4. The same passages from John Bamsay's transcript of Barbour in 1489, assimilated to the orthography of that later period. 5. An Extract from The Craft of Deyng, one of the 15th c. Scottish pieces contained in Camb. Univ. MS. K.K. 1, 5, and important as being, with exception of some of the older translations of the laws, and other formal documents, perhaps the most archaic specimen of Scottish prose yet published. 6. From Hampole's "Pricke of Conscience," written near Doncaster early in the fourteenth century, but of which the MS. is not earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth, and the orthography influenced by that of the Midland English. 7. From the prose works attributed to Hampole in the Thornton MS., of which the orthography is also somewhat modified, but, upon the whole, more Northern; and 8. Specimens of contemporary date with the Thornton MS., from the Acts of the Scottish Parliament of James I. and James II.

The identity of the language of these works may be studied, first, in the words and word-forms, such as wone, mirkness, byggin, gar, tynsel, pousté, reauté, to-morn, barne, dede, mekyll, mare, maste, kynrik, quhilk, swilk, ilka, swa, quha, stane, ald, cald, liald, aucht, ga, gang, gede, gane, tas, tane, ma, mas, sal, sould, wald, chese, ane, twa, nowcht, na, wrang, lang, nathyng, bath, ryn, hyng, hym, kyng, &c.

Secondly, in the grammatical inflections: the irregular plurals, brether, childer, kye, gait, schone, &c.; the possessive, as in his fader broder, his syster sone, the childer ayris; the indefinite article identical with the numeral, a before a consonant, ane or an otherwise; the demonstratives, thir, tha; distinction between tha and thay; the pronouns, scho, thay, thair, thame; the relative, at; the forms, whatkyn, alkyn, nakyn, swylkin, the tane, the tother; the verbal inflections, thow cumis, clerkes sayis, we that lyves; the participle, in and, and gerund in ing, falland, fallyng; preterites, like fand, rayse, &c.; the negative, nocht, noght; the preposition, tyl, for to, &c.

Thirdly, in the orthography, in which we notice that the guttural was originally gh, both with English and Scottish writers, but with the latter gradually changed into ch; the Ags. hw became first qw, qu, afterwards quh, qwh, and, in England, at length wh; sh, originally sc, became, in both, sch, upon which the Midland English sh intrudes; i and y are interchanged; the past participle in -yd in the oldest Scotch, as in English, but later changed into -yt.

1.—Cursor Mundi, or Cursor o Worlde (Cott. MS. Vesp. A. iii.)

God's creative might.

Quat man mai wiit, quat man mai lere
Quat man may se, quat ere may here
Quat man in erth mai thine in thoght
Hu al þis werld ur laverd wroght,
Heven and erth al in fair haldes,
Þat mighti godd þat alle waldes?
Qua can sai me hu of a sede(i.e. ae seid)
He dos an hundret for to brede?
Thoru his mighti wille dos þat king
Ute of the erd tre to spring
ffrst the lef and sithen þe flur
And þan þe frut with his savur
Ilkin frut in his sesun . . .

The Resurrection.

Sua haali sal þai þan rise fare,
Þam sal noght want a hefd hare, (i. e. one hair of the head)
Ne noght a nail o fote ne hand;
Þof-quether, we sal understand
Þat nail and hare þat haf ben scorn,(i. e. schorn)
Bes noght al quar þai war beforn;
Bot als potter with pottes dos,
Quen he his neu wessel fordos,
He castes al þan in a balle,
A better for to mak with-alle;
O noght he lokes quilk was quilk
Bot maks a nother of þat ilk
Wel fairer þan þe first was wroght;
Eight sua sal crist, ne dut þe noght.

Here the Anglo-Saxon u (and even the French ou) is still represented by u, which in later times was written ou, u alone being reserved for the French u. The vowels remain simple, ai and ei, being used only to represent an original diphthong, mai, nail. Qu and sc prepare the way for the Scotch quh, sch, for which the English afterwards substituted wh and sh.

2.—The Old Scottish Laws (Acta Parlm. Scott., vol. i.).

Þe blude of þe hede of ane erl or of a kinges son is ix ky.Item þe blud of þe sone of ane erl is vi ky or of a thayn.Item þe blude of þe sone of a thayne is iii ky.Item þe blud of þe nevo of a thayn is twa ky and twa pert a kow.Item þe blud of a carl (rustici) a kow.—Leges inter Scottos et Brettos.

Giff ony be tane with. þe laff (loaf—pane) of a halpenny in burgh, he aw throu þe toun to be dungyn.And for a halpenny worth to iiij penijs worth, he aw to be mar fayrly (A.S. faeᵹer) dungyn.And for a pair of schone of iiij penijs he aw to be put on the cuk stull, and efter þat led to þe hed of þe toune and þar he sail forsuer þe toune.And fra iiij penijs till viij penijs and a ferthing he sall be put upon þe cuk stull, and efter þat led to þe hed of þe toune and þer he at tuk hym aw to out his eyr (A.S. eár, South, eȝr) of.And fra viij penijs and a ferding to xvj penijs and a obolus he sail be set apone þe cuk stull and efter þat led to þe hed of þe toune, and þer he at tuk hym aw to cut his uther ear of.And efter þat, gif he be tane with viij penijs and a ferding he þat takis hym sail hing hym.Item for xxxij penijs j obl he þat takis a man may hing hym.—Fragmenta Vetusta, ii. t 364.

It is to wyt þat all playntis þe quhilkis ar in burgh sail be endyt wythin þe burgh, out-takyn þa at fallis to þe kyngis croune—Leges Quatuor Burgorum, vj.

Þa landis at war gottyn in þe tyme of þe fyrst wyffe sail turn agayne to þe childer ayris of þe first wyffe.—Ibid, xxiv.

Nane aldirman, bailȝe (French bailli), na beddell sail bake brede na brew ale to sell wythin þar awin propir house durande þe tym þat þai stande in office.—Ibid, lix.

Baxtaris at bakis brede to sell sail bake quhyte brede and gray eftir þe consideraoion and prise of þe gud men of þe toune eftir as þe sesson askis . . . And quha þat bakis brede to sell aw nocht for to hyde it, but sett it in þair wyndow, or in þe mercat þat it may be opynly sauld.—Ibid, lx.

Gif ony man fyndis his bonde in the fayre, the quhilk is fra hym fled, quhil the pece of the fayre is lestande, he may nocht of lauch chace na tak hym.—Ibid, lxxxviii.

Gif a leil man passis thruch a wildernesse or thruch woddis, and seis a man þat he weil knawis leddand a hors or an ox, or suilk othir maner of gudis, and he knawis nocht quha þat it aucht, and syn it be spent at hym be ony man þat þe said gudis hes tynt, gif he wyst ocht of suilk maner of gudis, and gif he sayis þat he saw sic a thyng in þe hand of sic a man, he aw to suer þat sa it is, as he sais, and syn e tothir sal seik to his gudis. And gif forsuth he þat challangis þe gudis sais wytterly þat he hes art and part of þa gudis takyng, and þat he wald pruff eftir þe assyse of þe land, þat he þat sa is challangyt, gif he be fre man and worthi to fecht, wyth his awyn hand he sal defend hym thruch bataile.—Assise Regis Davidis, xx.

Here ou has come into use for the Anglo-Saxon ú (u being used for Ags. o), but the other vowels generally remain simple. The qu and sc of Cursor Mundi have become quh and sch; and ch is seen generally taking the place of gh as the symbolisation of the guttural. Final e also becomes more abundant, but, upon the whole, the language approaches closely to that of the former specimen.

3.—Andro of Wyntown's Extracts from Barbour's Brus in the "Cronykil," (ab. 1440.)

Qwhen Alysandyre oure kyng wes dede,
Þat Scotland had to stere and lede,
Þe land, sex yhere and mayr perfay,
Wes desolate eftyr his day.
Þe barnage off Scotland, at þe last,
Assemlyd þame and fandyt fast
To cheß a kyng þare land to stere,
Þat off Awncestry cummyn were
Off kyngis þat aucht þat Reawte,
And mast had rycht þare kyng to be.
Bot Inwy þat is fellowne
Amang þame mad dissensiown.

••••

A! blynd folk, fulle of all foly,
Had yhe wmbethowch[t] yowe inkyrly
Quhat peryle to ȝowe mycht appere,
Yhe had noucht wroucht on þis manere.
Had yhe tane kepe how þat þat kyng,
Off Walys, for-owtyn sudiowrnyng,
Trawalyd to wyn þe Senhowry,
And throw his mycht till occupy
Landys, þat ware till hym merchand,
As Walys wes and als Irland,
Þat he put till sic threllage,
Þat þai þat ware off hey parage
Suld ryn on fwte als rybalddale,
Quhen ony folk he wald assale
Durst nane off Walis in batale ryd,
Na yhit fra evyn fell, a-byde
Castell or wallyd towne wyth-in,
Þan he suld lyff and lymmis tyne,
In till swylk thryllage þame held he
Þat he oure-come wyth his powstè.
Yhe mycht se, he suld occupy
Throwch slycht, þat he na mycht frow maystri.
Had yhe tane kepe quhat was threllage,
And had consydryd his oysage,
Þat grypyd ay, but gayne-gyvyng,
Yhe suld, for-owtyn his demyng,

Hawe chosyn yhowe a kyng þat mycht
Hawe haldyn welle yhoure land at rycht.
Walis ensawmpill mycht hawe bene,
To yhow, had yhe It before sene.
Quha will be oþir hym-selff chasty
Wyß men sayis, he is happy,
And perylowß thyngis may fall perfay,
Als well to-morne as yhystyr-day
Bot yhe trastyd in lawté,
As Sympil folk but mawvite,
And wyst noucht quhat suld efftyr tyde;
For in þis warld þat is sa wyd,
Is nane determyne may, na sall
Knaw thyngis þat ar for to fall:
For God, þat is off mast powsté
Reßerwyt þat till hys Maiesté.

4.—Barbour.The same passage from John Ramsay's transcription of the Brus, towards the close of the century (1489).^[26]

Quhen Alexander þe king wes deid,
That Scotland haid to steyr and leid,
The land vj ȝer, and mayr perfay,
Lay desolat eftyr hys day;
Till þat be barnage at þe last
Assemblyt þaim, and fayndyt fast
To cheyß a king þar land to ster,
Þat off awncestry cummyn wer
Off kingis, þat aucht þat reawte
And mayst had rycht bair king to be.
Bot enwy, bat is sa feloune,
Maid amang bairn gret discencioun.
«» o « «
A! blynd folk full of all foly!
Haid ȝe wmbethocht ȝow enkrely,
Quhat perell to ȝow mycht apper,
Ȝe had nocht wrocht on that maner:
Haid ȝe tane keip how at þat king
Alwayis, for-owtyn soiournyng,
Trawayllyt for to wyn senȝhory,
And throw his mycht till occupy
Landis, þat war till him marcheand,
As walis was, and als Ireland;

Þat he put to swylk thrillage,
That þai, þat war off hey parage,
Suld ryn on fute, as rebaldaill,
Quhen he wald our folk assaill.
Durst nane of Walis in bataill ride;
Na yhet, fra ewyn fell, abyd
Castell or wallyt toune with-in,
pat he ne suld lyff and lymmys tyne.
In-to swilk thrillage j>aim held he,
Þat he ourcome throw his powste.
Ȝe mycht se he suld occupy
Throw slycht, þat he ne mycht throw maistri.
Had ȝe tane kep quhat was thrillag,
And had consideryt his vsage,
Þat gryppyt ay, but gayne-gevyng,
Ȝe suld, for-owtyn his demyng,
Haiff chosyn ȝow a king þat mycht
Have haldyn veyle þe laud in rycht.
Walys ensample mycht have bene
To ȝow, had ȝe It forow sene.
Þat be oþir will him chasty,
And wyß men sayis he is happy.
For wnfayr thingis may fall perfay,
Alß weill to-morn as ȝhisterday.
Bot ȝe traistyt in lawte,
As sympile folk, but mawyte;
And wyst nocht quhat suld eftir tyd.
For in þis warld, þat is sa wyde,
Is nane determynat þat sall
Knaw thingis þat ar to fall;
But god þat is off maist poweste,
Reserwyt till his maieste,
For to knaw, in his prescience,
Off alkyn tyme the rnowenoe.

In the later transcription of Barbour we note the greater frequency of the orthographic peculiarities of the Scottish writers of the Middle period, ai, ay, and ei, ey, being used for the older a and e. Thus, deid, leid, weill, cheys, steyr, keip—travayll, bataill, thaim, thair, mayst, maid, traist, haiff, haid, faynd, represent the older, dede, lede, well, chese, stere, kepe—travail, batale, tham, thar, mast, mad, trast, have, had, fand. In the 16th c. all long a's and e's were represented by ai and ei, which in early times were used only for an original diphthong Anglo-Saxon or French. Observe also the change of the Ags. and Eng. past participle in d, assemlyd, travallyd, wallyd, consydryd, grypyd, trastyd, used by Wyntown, into the Middle Scotch form in t, assemblyt, travaylyt, wallyt, consideryt, gryppyt, traistyt.

4.—The Craft of Deyng.^[27]

Efter the dear [i.e. dier] be informyt of thir temptaciouns, at will be put to hyme, he ſuld be demandyt, Fyrſt, gyf he be blyth at he deis in the faith of criſt and of haly kirk, and ſyne gyf he grantis at he has nocht leuit rycht wyſly, as he aucht to do, and gyf he forthinkis his myſdedis, and gif he has wyll to mend thaim at his poware. Syne ſuld he ask at hym, gyf he trowis that criſt, godis ſonne our lord, deit for hym, and al ſynaris; and gif he thankes hyme thar of with al his hart, And gyf he trowis ony oþer ways than be the faith of hym and ded to be ſauf. Than byd hyme be ſtark and ſykir in that faith, and have hop of nan vthir thinge for temptacioune of the deuill: and gif thi ſynis be laid befor the by the angell gud or Ill, ſay than, "the paſſioune of criſt I put betuex me and my ſynis, & betuex me and the eternall ded, the ded of criſt." And alſua, he fuld be examynit in the arteclis of the treuth, that is to ſay, gyf he trowis in the faþer, and in the ſone, and the haly gaiſt, and ane anerly god, makar of hevyne and erde; and in our lord Ihesu criſt, anerly ſone to god by natur, at our lady mary euervyrgne conſauit by þe werkis of the haly gaist, but ſeid of man: the quhilk tholyt ded one the corß, for ws ſynaris, and was grawyne and diſcendyt to hell, to radem our eldaris at had hope of his cumyne. The quhilk raiß one the thrid day, fra ded to lyf, one his awne mycht, and aftendyt to hevyne, & ſytis one his faderis rycht hand, and fra thyne, in the ſamyne wyß as he paſſyt, is to cum agan one domys day to Iug all mankynd. Als he ſuld trow in the haly gaist, & in the bydingis of haly kirk, and the ſacramentis þarof. He Suld trow Alſua, in the reſurrectioune of al mem, that is to ſay, at the ſam body and ſaull, as now is, ſal met to-gyddyr and tholl perpetuall Ioy or payne. He ſuld nocht anerly trow in thir xii arteclis, bot als in the haly wryt, and haf his hart rady to do thar-to, as his curat chargis hyme; and he ſal forſak al hereſyß ande wichcraftis, forbydin[g] be haly kyrk. Als þe fek man ſuld aſk mercy with al his hart, of the ſynis done agane þe lufe, gudnes, and mycht of god, and erar for the luf of god, than for the dred of ony payne; alſua, he ſuld ſykirly think that in caß he mend of that feknes, that he ſal neuer wylfully ſyne in thai ſynis, na in na vthir dedly: For in the thocht, at the ſaull paſſys fra the body [it] is tan For euer, and thar after ched or rewardyt ay leſtandly, as the angellis was in the begynyng.

Comparing this with the extract from Wyntown, we see at once the striking similarity of the language. Although here the past participle ends in -yt instead of -yd, the orthography of the Middle Period otherwise scarcely appears in it. Its close correspondence with the following specimens from Hampole is no less marked:—

6.—Hampole's Pricke of Conscience^[28]

The miseries of old age.—1. 766.

Bot als tyte as a man waxes aide,
Þan waxes his kynde wayke and calde,
Þan chaunges his complexcion
And his maners and his condioion;
Þan waxes his hert hard and hevy,
And his heved¹ feble and dysy;¹ head.
Þan waxes his gaste seke and sare,
And his face rouncles, ay mare and mare;
His mynde es shorte whan he oght thynkes,
His nese ofte droppes his and² stynkes,² breath.
His sight waxes dym pat he has,
His bak waxes croked, stoupand he gas.
Fyngers and taes, fote and hande,
Alle his touches er tremblande:
His werkes forworthes bat he bygynnes,
His hairo moutes, his eghen³ rynnes:³ eyen, eyes.
His eres waxes deef, and hard to here,
His tung fayles, his speche is noght clere,
His mouthe slavers, his tethe rotes,
His wyttes fayles, and he ofte dotes;
He es lyghtly wrath, and waxes fraward,
Bot to turne hym fra wrethe, it es hard;
He souches and trowes sone a thyng,
Bot ful late he turnes fra þat trowyng;
He es covatous, and hard-haldand,
His chere es drery and his sembland;
He es swyft to spek on his manere,
And latsom and slaw for to here;
He prayses aid men and haldes bam wyse,
And yhung men list him oft despyse;
He loves men þat in aid tyme has bene,
He lakes þe men þat now er sene;
He es ofte seke and ay granand,
And ofte angerd, and ay pleynand;
All þir, thurgh kynd, to an aid man falles,
Þat clerkes propertes of eld calles.
Þe last ende of mans lyfe es harde
Þat es, when he drawes to ded-warde;
When he es seke, and bedreden lys,
And swa feble þat he may noght rys.

Dam Fortone and hir Whele.— 1. 1273.

Bot with the world comes dam fortone
Þat aythir hand may ohaunge[e] sone;
For sho turns about ay hir whele,
Up and doune, als many may fele;
When sho hir whele lates about ga,
Sho turnes sum doune fra wele to wa,
And, eft, agaynward, fra wa to wele;
Þus turnes sho oft obout hir whele,
Þe whilk thir clerkes noght elles calles
Bot happe or chaunce þat sodanli falles
And þat men haldes here noght elles,
Bot welthe and angre in whilk men duelles.
Þarfor worldly happe es ay in dout
Whilles dam fortune turnes hir whele about.

The broad and the narrow way.— 1. 1394.

Þis world es pe way and passage
Þurgh whilk lyes our pilgrymage
By þis way by-hoves us al gang,
Bot be we war we ga noght wrang;
For in pis world liggis twa ways
Als men may fynd þat þam assays
Þe tane es way of pe dede calde,
Þe tother es way of lyfe to halde
Þe way of dede semes large and eesy
And þat may lede us ouer-lightly,
Un-til þe grysly land of mirknes
par sorow and pyn ever-mare es.
pe way of lyfe semes narow and harde
pat ledes us til our contré-warde
pat es pe kyngdom of heven bright
Whare we sal won ay in Goddes sight
And Goddes awen sons þan be calde
If we þe way of lyfe here halde.

Here the orthography of the adjacent Midland English has caused the substitution of wh for quh, in most cases, although instances of the latter also occur, e.g. lines 1165, 1354,

He says þe world es na thyng elles
Bot ane hard exil in qwilk men duelles.

Þe quilk als says wyse men and witty
Onence God is bot folly.

This MS. also uses the more modern sh for the older sch, which occurs in other MSS. of the same work, and in the following, which is also in other respects more characteristically northern.

7.—Hampole's Prose Works.^[29]

"Of the vertus of the Haly name of Ihesu:" from a sermon of Richard the Hermit on Canticles i. 3. (page 4).

Allanely þay may joye in Ihesu þat lufes hym in þis lyfe, and þay þat fyles jam with vices and venemous delittes, na drede þat ne þay ere putt owte of joye. Also with all þat þe name of Ihesu es helefull fruytfull and glorious. Thare-fore wha sail haue hele þat lufes it noghte, or wha sal bere þe frwytt before Criste þat has noghte the floure, and joy sail he noghte see þat joyeande luffede noghte þe name of Ihesu. The wykkede sal be done awaye þat he see noghte þe joye of God. Sothely e ryghtwyse sekys þe joye and þe lufe and þay fynd it in Ihesu whaym þay luffede. I gede abowte be covatyse of reches and I fande noghte Ihesu. I rane þe wantonnes of flesche and I fand noght Ihesu. In all thir(e) I soghte Ihesu bot I fand hym noghte, ffor he lett me wyete by his grace þat he ne is funden in þe land of [þe] softly lyfand. . . . Sekyrly may he or scho chese to lyfe anely þat has chosene þe name of Ihesu to thaire specyalle, for thare may na wykked spyrite noye þare Ihesu es mekyll in mynde or is nevenyd in mouthe.

8.—Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, under James I. and James II.

Alsua it is seyn speidfull, þat all taxatouris þe tyme of þar extent, warne all maner of man þat of all þair gudis þat ar taxit bathe of bestis, corn, and vthir gudis, within xv dais nixt eftir following þe taxt, þe payment be redy in siluer and golde as is befor writyne. And gif at þe ende of þe saide xv dais, þe payment be nocht redy, þe officiaris of ilk schyrefdome sail tak of ilk man þat warnys payment a kow for v s̃ a ȝowe or a wedder for xij d. a gait a gymmer or a dynmont for viij d a wilde meire and hir folowar for x s̃, a colt of thre ȝere and mare of eild xiij s̃ iiij d. a boll of quhet xij d. a boll of ry, bere, or peiß viij d. a boll of aitis iij d. And gif þe schiref takis þar gudis, he sall ger þe lorde of þe lande, gif he may be gottin, pay þe taxt to þe king and deliuer þe gudis till him. And gif he will nocht, þe schiref sall ger sell þe gudis at þe nixt mercat day or sende þame to þe king on þe kingis costis quhar þe king or his deputis ordanys.—Acta Jacobi I., 1424.

"Item quhair Johne Irwine, callit lang Laird Hoddame, his brother and his spouse ar aocusit for airt and pairt of J?e thifteous, steilling, resett and away takin of seviD gaitt furth of Je lands of Broohtschall, at several tymes, perteining to Elizabeth Hardie, spous to umquhill David Dalrymple, betwixt Yull and Candlemas last; and for & cruell burning of ane barne full of come, beir, quheit, and ry, perteining to W m Bell in Holmheid, upon Jra tent day of Febrnar last by past. Clengit of the haill.

"Williame Scott of Burnefute upon the watter of Aill, actit him as cawtionar, and souertie for Geordie Jonsoune in Eschinsyd, that he sail compeir befoir his Maties saids Commissionaris the nixt Justice Court to be haldin be thame and underly his hienes lawis, under ]>e pane of fyve hundreth merkis.

"The persounis foirsaid fund guyltie and foull of certain crymis of thift and utheris contenit in fair particular dittayes, wer, be ]>e saidis Commissioners, decernit and condempnit, thay, and ilkane of Jem to be takin to ]>e place of execution, and there to be hangitt be ]>e heid, ay quhill thay wer deid, and all thair landis, guds and geir to be escheit and inbrooht to his hienes use, as was pronuncit in judgement be Jie mouth of e said Johne Junkisoune, dempstar of J>e said Court." — Annals of Hawick, pp. 215-305.

The language of the pulpit in the middle of the 17th century is exemplified by the following extract from a sermon preached by Mr. James Bow, sometime minister of Strowan, in St. Giles' Church, Edinburgh, on the occasion of the signing of the "Solemn League and Covenant," in 1638, which was long famous under the name of the " Pockmanty Preaching":—

"The Kirk of Scotland was a bony trotting Naig, but then she trotted sae hard, that never a man durst ryd her, but the Bishops; wha after they had gotten on her back, corce-langled her, and hopshaikled her, and when shee becam a bony paceing beast, they tooke great pleasure to ryde on her. But their cadgeing her up and downe from Edenbrugh to London, and it may be from Eome to, gave her sik a hett cott, that we have been these twall months by gane stirring her up and downe, to keep her frae foundrying.

"Yea, they made not only ane Horse, but ane Ass, of the Kirk of Scotland. Hou sae? ko ye. What meane ye by this? He tell you hou : they made Balaam's Ass of her. Ye ken well eneugh Balaam was ganging ane unluckie gate, and first the Angel mett him in a broad way, and then the Ass, bogled and startled, but Balaam gote by the Angel, and till her and battand her sufficiently ; that was when Episcopacy came in, and then they gave the Kirk of Scotland her paiks.

"AfterwardB Balaam mett the Angel in a narrow gate, and shee startled more than before; but Balaam till her againe, and whaked Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/87 Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/88 Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/89 Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/90 Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/91 Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/92

↑ Gradually; for the name Pictavia continued to be applied to the eastern part of the kingdom and its inhabitants to be called Picts for some centuries later.
↑ These are, of course, the English names: to Scotish equivalents of Scotland, Scottas, Englaland, Engle, were Alban, Albannaich, Sasunn, Sasunnaich, latinized Saxonia and Saxones. The Teutons called themselves Engle or Angles, the Celts knew them as Sasunnaich or Saxons; the Scots called themselves Albannaich, the Angles knew them as Scottas or Scots.
↑ And all þai þat wonnys beyhond Forth, as in Lothyane or in Galloway, or in ony oþir place, sall ansuer þe challangouris of Scotlande (calumpniatoribus de Scocia, i.e. the accusers from Scotland) at þe end of vj wolkis daye, at þe brig of Striveling throu þe forsayd assise. And all þai þat wonnys on þe north half of þe wattir of Forth, in Scotlande, sall ansuer to þam on south half Forth, at that ilke terme, and þat ilke stedde.—Assise Regis Willelmi, III. It is ordanit be þe kyng consail of his gret men at Striveling þat na man of Scotland aw to tak pund beȝond þe watter of Forth, but gif þat pund be first schawyn to þe schiref of Striveling. And quhen ony man takis a pund he aw til hald þat pund at Hadintoun be þe space of iii dayis for to se quha cumis to proffer a borgh for þat pund. Item, þai þat duellis beȝond Forth may with þe leff of þe schireff tak a pund in Scotland, and þat pund til hald iii dayis at Striveling—Ibid. xxvii. (These and the following extracts are taken from the 14th c. vernacular versions given along with the original Latin in the Acta Parl. Scot. Vol. I.)
↑ "It wes jugit of Gilepsy be al þe juhis als wele of Galowa as of Scotland."—Assis Alex andri II. III.

Galloway þe quhilk hes special lawys.—Ibid. xiv.
↑ But by the reign of Alexander II. the name of Scotland had been currently extended so as to include Lothian and Galloway, for in 1249 similar ordinances to those quoted above were made, no longer between Scotland and Lothian, but between Scotland and England. In that year it was arranged "gif ony misdoar duellis in Scotland þat has mysdone by rubry wythin þe kinrik of Ingland," or the converse, the east marches were to answer at Camysfurd, the middle marches at Reuedeneburne or Jedwart ouerburne, Coquetdale and Redesdale at Kenmylispeth (Gammelspath), and "þe scheris of Carlile and Drumfres sall ansuere at Sulway efter þe lawis and custumys betuix þe twa kinrikis vsit." A commission had been issued by Alexander II. and Henry III. to trace the marches in 1222, when the Border line practically coincided with that still in existence.
↑ But the old feeling of a distinction between Scotia proper and the country south of the "Scottis Se" did not at once die out. In a dim indefinite form it lingered in the reign of James II., nearly a century and a half after the War of Independence, when laws applicable to the entire "kingryk" still statet expressis verbis that they were valid for both sides of the Forth.

Acta Parl., James II., 1440. The samyn day it is ordanit at þe Justice on þe south side of þe Scottis se ? alsua on þe north side of þe Scottis see sett þare justice airis ? hald þaim twiss in þe ȝere as aulde use & custum is.

Ibid., 1449, it is ordained "at þe kingis liegis in all placis throu oute þe realme haf power to by and sell vitall at þare likyne bath on þe north half and south half of forth;" which probably finally repealed the old statues interfering with a man of Scotland having dealing south of Forth, and vice versâ.
↑ The above was written before the appearance of Mr. J. S. Glennie's valuable paper upon Arthurian localities, prefixed to the third part of the Early English Text Society's Merlin, 1869. While considering that there is room for wide difference of opinion as to the identification of special localities, as will be seen, I agree with him in thinking that all early authority points to the country south of the Forth as the historical scene of the Arthur Conflicts. Indeed, the whole passage in Nennius, relating to Arthur and the twelve battles—beginning with the departure of Ochtha to Kent, from the region near the northern wall where he had first landed, upon which Arthur fought against the enemy along with the British chiefs, he being himself commander-in-chief, and ending with the statement that while the Saxons were repeatedly defeated they continually sought fresh aid from Germany, whence also they received kings who led them, until Ida, the son of Eobba, reigned as first king of Bernicia—so manifestly refers to the struggle in the north, that it is difficult to see how any other meaning could suggest itself, except of those who came to the subject prepossessed with the legendary Arthur history of the Middle Ages.
↑ It is not probabale that Eadwin originated the name of Edinburgh. The fortress doubless existed before, under some such name as Eiddin, Casr-eidin, Dun-eiden, the "oppudium Eden" of the Pictish chronicler, which would be Anglicized Eden-burh (compare Rome-burh, Cantwara-burh), and probably confounded with Eadwines-burh, in memory of Edwins conquests.
↑ And eac Stræcled Weala cyning and ealle Stræcled Weallas.Chron. 924.
↑ Skene—Chionicles of the Picts, &c., Edin. 1867, p. 10.
↑ Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1031.
↑ Les Bardes Bretons.—Poemes du vi^e siecle, traduits pour la première fois, en Français, avec le texte en regard revu sur les manuscrits. Par le Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarque, Nouvelle Edition. Paris, 1860.
↑ "Reginaldi Monachi Dunelmensis Libellus de Admirandis Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus." Ed. Dr. Raine, Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. i.
↑ The ballad now connected with the air of "Tyribus" commemorates the laurels gained by the Hawick youth, at and after the disastrous battle, when, in the words of the writer,

Our sires roused by "Tyr ye Odin"
Marcbed and joined their king at Flodden.

Annually since that event the "Common-Riding" has been held, on which occasion a flag or "colour" captured from a party of the English has been with great ceremony borne by mounted riders round the bounds of the common land, granted after Flodden to the burgh; part of the ceremony consisting in a mock capture of the "colour;" and hot pursuit by a large party of horsemen accounted for the occasion. At the conclusion "Tyribus" is sung, with all the honours by the actors in the ceremony, from the roof of the oldest house in the burgh, the general populace filling the street below, and joining in the song with immense enthusiasm. The influence of modern ideas is gradually doing away with much of the parada and renown of the Common-Riding. But "Tyr-ibus ye Tyr ye Odin" reatains all its local power to fire the lieges, and the accredited method of arousing the burghers to any political or civic struggle is still to send rund the drums and fifes "to play Tyribus" through the twon, a summons analogous to that of the Fiery Cross in older times. Apart from the words of the Slogan, the air itself bears in its wild fire all the tokens of a remote origin. It will be found in the Appendix, accompanied by the first verse of the modern ballad.
↑ Upon consulting the map it will be seen that Celctic names increase in number as we travel west. East Lothian is nearly as Teutonic as Berwickshire or Teviotdale; West Lothian or Linlithgow, which was on the Pictish frontier, has a very large Celtic element in its nomenclature; around Edinburgh the names are pretty well mixed.
↑ Wright—History of Scotland, p. 33
↑ A monumental cross at Friar's Carse, in Dumfriesshire, bears a short inscription, read as North-Anglian by Ralph Carr, Esq., of Hedgeley, Alnwick, who has devoted much attention to Anglo-Saxon inscriptions. See his paper, read before the Philological Societey, in November, 1869. Mr. Carr also considers many of the inscribed stones of the N.E. of Scotland to be Teutonic. See his "Sculptured Stones of Eastern Scotland," Edin., T. and T. Clark, 1867; and paper on the Inscribed Stones of Newton Insch and St. Vigean's, in the Transact. of Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. vii, pt. 1, 1866-7.
↑ I do not include the Psalter (M.S. Cotton, Vesp. A. 1), seeing na grounds on which to consider it Northumbrian. I altogether fail to see the "close agreement in the general structure of its language with the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels, and with the Durham Ritual," spoken of by the Surtees editor.
↑ The Charter of Ranulph, created Bishop of Durham 1099 (Hickes Thesaurus, vol. i. 149), contains some Southern forms as well as Northern. To the Rev. W. Greenwell, M.A., Canon of Durham, I am indebted for the following fresh transcript of the original, correcting the errors of Hickes's text:—

R[anulf] bisceop ᵹreteð wel alle his þeines ⁊ drenᵹes of Ealondscire ⁊ of Norhamscire. Wite ᵹe þat ice habbe ᵹe-tyðed Sċe Cuhtberht þat lond in Elredene, ⁊ all þat þær to be limpeð clæne ⁊ clacles. ⁊ Haliwareftelle ic habbe ᵹe-tyðed Sċe Cuhtberht his aᵹen into hiẛ cyrce. ⁊ hna sua b[e]ranes ðisses, b[e]rane Criẛt hine þisses liueẛ hele ⁊ heofne riceẛ mirde.

In the oldest Lowland Scotch or Northern English this would be:

Ranulf bischop gretis wel alle his þaynes and dryngis of Yland-schire and of Norham-schire, Wyt ᵹe þat Ik hafe tythyd to Sanct Cuthberht þe land in Ellerdene, and all þat þar-to belangis clene and clag-les; and Haliwarestele Ik hafe tythyd to Sanct Cuthberht, his awen in-to his kyrke. And quha sua bereuis [þame] of þis, Christ bereue hym of þis lyfis hele and hevyn-rikis myrd (or mirthe).

Hickes notices the words drenges (Dan. dreng, a lad, an attendant) and clac-les (Dan. klage, a complaint, charge) as Scandinavian, and wanting in the Southern Saxon, where the latter term would be sác-leas. Both are used by Scottish writers, dryng by Lyndesay, and clag as a law term, a charge or burden upon property. For Ik see Barbour: Cursor Mundi has ic. Belimpes might perhaps have been retained instead of belangis (the only verbal change); at least we find the simple limpus in the sense of falls to, pertains, in the "Anturs of Arthur at the Tarne Wathelan" (ab. 1300), edited by Mr. Robson, for the Camden Society, in 1842.
↑ Quoted by Prof. Cosmo Innes—Introduction to Barbour's Brus, in Spalding Club series.
↑ The Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J. J. A. Worsaae, Lond. 1852, p. 217. Elsewhere the author says : "Extremely few places with Scandinavian names are to be found in the Scottish Lowlands, and even these are confined almost without exception to the counties nearest the English border. Dumfriesshire, lying directly north of Cumberland and the Solway, forms the central point of such places. Northumberland and Durham, the two north-easternmost counties of England, contain but a scanty number of them, and consequently must have possessed, in early times at least, no very numerous Scandinavian population. Cumberland, on the contrary, was early remarkable for such a population; whence it will appear natural enough that the first Scandinavian colonists in the Scottish border-lands preferred to settle in the neighbourhood of that county. On the S.E. coast of Scotland they would not only have been separated from their kinsmen in the East of England by two intervening counties, but also divided by a broad sea from their kinsmen in Denmark and Norway. Such a situation would have been much more exposed and dangerous for them than the opposite coast, where they had in their neighbourhood the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, inhabited by the Northmen, as well as their colonies in Ireland and the Isle of Man..... The Scandinavian population in Dumfriesshire evidently appears to have emigrated from Cumberland over the Liddle and Esk, into the plains which spread westward of these rivers; at least the names of places there have the very same character as in Cumberland," p. 202-3. Mr. Worsaae then instances the names of fell (fjeld) and rigg (ryg) applied to hills, and the local names Thornythwaite, Treethwaites, Robiethwaite, Murraythwaite, Helbeck, Greenbeck, Bodsbeck, Torbeck, Stonybeck, Waterbeck, Hartsgarth, Tundergarth, Applegarth, Lockerby, Alby, Middleby, Dunnabie.Wyseby, Percebie, Denbie, Newby, Milby, Sorbie, Canoby, and the words pock-net (Isl. pokanet) and leister (Isl. ljóster, Danish lyster), fishing implements also well known in the Tweed and Teviot, and adds: "In the Lowlands the number of Scandinavian names of places is quite insignificant when compared with the original Celtic or even with the Anglo-Saxon names." I may add that the dialect spoken in the S.E. corner of Dumfriesshire and the adjacent corner of Roxburghshire, or Canobie and Liddesdale, is still quite distinct from that of the rest of these counties, and is rather that of Cumberland than of Lowland Scotland.
↑ The definite article de, den, has also been contracted into e, æ, in South Jutland, as e By, e Barn, e Bynder, e hele Hus, the town, the bairn, the farmers, the whole house (Det Danske Folksprog in Sonderjylland ved J. Kok, quoted in Introduction to Cleveland Glossary, p. xxiii.) At an earlier time the Norse at and en themselves were doubtless from the þat and þen (dat, denn) of the first Germanic occupants of the Scandinavian peninsulas, and perhaps by similar contact with a preexistent language.
↑ A Glossary (with some Pieces of Verse) of the Old Dialect of the English Colony of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland. Collected by Jacob Poole. Edited by W. Barnes, B.D. London: J. B. Smith, 1867.
↑
Among the earliest connected specimens must be placed the fragments of Scottish songs relating to the siege of Berwick, 1296, and the battle of Bannockburn, 1314, preserved by the English chronicler Fabyan, which, although they have suffered somewhat in orthography, retain the characteristically Northern grammatical inflexions.

What wenys kynge Edwarde, with his lange shankys,
To have wonne Berwyk all our vnthankys?
Gaas pykes hym
And when he had it
Gaas dykes hym.
Maydins of England sore may ye morne,
For your lemmans ye haue loste at Bannockysborne,
Wyth heue a lowe,
What wenyt the kynge of England
So soone to have wonne Scotlande,
Wyth rumbylow.

To these may be added the well-known fragment, contrasting the peace and plenty of the reign of Alexander III. with the calamities of the interregnum and war with England, which followed his death, thus introduced by Wyntown into his Cronykil (Royal MS. 17 D. xx., leaf 1904, new numbering-Bk. VII., chap, x., 1. 521 of Macpherson's edition):—

A boll off bere, for awcht or ten,
In comowne pryse sawld wes þen;
ffor Sextene a boll off qwhete,
Or fore twenty, þe derth wes grete.
Þis falyhyd fra he deyd suddanly;
Þis sang wes made off hym for-þi:—
"Quhen^{[f 1]} Alysander oure kyng wes dede,
pat Scotland led in luwe and le,
Away wes sons off ale and brede,
Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle ;
Oure gold was changyd in to lede,
Cryst borne in to virgynyte,
Succoure Scotland, and remede
Þat stad in his perplexyté."

As a specimen of the language, however, these lines cannot, with certainty, be placed earlier than the date of the Cronykil (1430). Indeed every MS. of Wyntown gives us a different version of them, the variations being instructive as to the fate of poems handed down by popular tradition. Thus the Harleian MS. 6909 has :—

Sen Alexander our king wes deid,
Away wes sones of aill & bread,
That Scotland left of lust & le,
Of wyne and wax, of gamyr & gle.
The gold wes changeit all in leid,
The fruit failȝeit on evir ilk tre;
Ihūm succour and send remeid,
That stad is in perplexitie.
1. ↑ Pronounce A'lsander or E'lshander, in three syllables, as still used in some parts of Scotland. Sons, fullness, abundance, the root of sonsy.
It is to be regretted that Macpherson, in his printed edition of Wyntown—implicitly copied, apparently, by all subsequent writers—instead of following the contemporary Royal MS., altered the last line after this garbled copy, reading:—

Succour Scotland, and remede,
That stad is in perplexyte,

which is simply nonsense, although Dr. Jamieson makes stad a past participle, meaning placed. The meaning of the two lines is evidently "Succour Scotland, and remedy that state (or stead?) in its perplexity."
↑ For the distinguishing characteristics of the three great English dialects of the 13th and 14th centuries, the reader is referred to Mr. R. Morris's "Specimens of Early English," and his numerous contributions to English philology in the proceedings of the Philological, and publications of the Early English Text Society.
↑ From Mr. Skeat's edition of the Brus for the Early Eng. Text Soc. The thorn (þ), which was by this time confounded in writing with y, and so printed in old books, Mr. Skeat prints th italic. It is here printed þ, the letter intended by the MSS.
↑ Ratis Raving, and other Moral and Religious Pieces, in Prose and Verse. Ed., from Camb. Univ. MS. KK. 1, 5, by J. Rawson Lumby, M.A. Early Eng. Text Soc., 1870.
↑ The Pricke of Conscience: A Northumbrian Poem, by Richard Rolle de Hampole. Edited by Richard Morris (from MS. Cotton-Galba E. ix.), published by A. Asher and Co., Berlin, 1863.
↑ English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole (who died A.D. 1349), Edited from Robert Thornton's MS. (cir. 1440 A.D.) in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral, by George G. Perry, M.A., London. Early English Text Society. No. 20.

[1] Gradually; for the name Pictavia continued to be applied to the eastern part of the kingdom and its inhabitants to be called Picts for some centuries later.

[2] These are, of course, the English names: to Scotish equivalents of Scotland, Scottas, Englaland, Engle, were Alban, Albannaich, Sasunn, Sasunnaich, latinized Saxonia and Saxones. The Teutons called themselves Engle or Angles, the Celts knew them as Sasunnaich or Saxons; the Scots called themselves Albannaich, the Angles knew them as Scottas or Scots.

[p._2-3] And all þai þat wonnys beyhond Forth, as in Lothyane or in Galloway, or in ony oþir place, sall ansuer þe challangouris of Scotlande (calumpniatoribus de Scocia, i.e. the accusers from Scotland) at þe end of vj wolkis daye, at þe brig of Striveling throu þe forsayd assise. And all þai þat wonnys on þe north half of þe wattir of Forth, in Scotlande, sall ansuer to þam on south half Forth, at that ilke terme, and þat ilke stedde.—Assise Regis Willelmi, III. It is ordanit be þe kyng consail of his gret men at Striveling þat na man of Scotland aw to tak pund beȝond þe watter of Forth, but gif þat pund be first schawyn to þe schiref of Striveling. And quhen ony man takis a pund he aw til hald þat pund at Hadintoun be þe space of iii dayis for to se quha cumis to proffer a borgh for þat pund. Item, þai þat duellis beȝond Forth may with þe leff of þe schireff tak a pund in Scotland, and þat pund til hald iii dayis at Striveling—Ibid. xxvii. (These and the following extracts are taken from the 14th c. vernacular versions given along with the original Latin in the Acta Parl. Scot. Vol. I.)

[4] "It wes jugit of Gilepsy be al þe juhis als wele of Galowa as of Scotland."—Assis Alex andri II. III.

Galloway þe quhilk hes special lawys.—Ibid. xiv.

[5] But by the reign of Alexander II. the name of Scotland had been currently extended so as to include Lothian and Galloway, for in 1249 similar ordinances to those quoted above were made, no longer between Scotland and Lothian, but between Scotland and England. In that year it was arranged "gif ony misdoar duellis in Scotland þat has mysdone by rubry wythin þe kinrik of Ingland," or the converse, the east marches were to answer at Camysfurd, the middle marches at Reuedeneburne or Jedwart ouerburne, Coquetdale and Redesdale at Kenmylispeth (Gammelspath), and "þe scheris of Carlile and Drumfres sall ansuere at Sulway efter þe lawis and custumys betuix þe twa kinrikis vsit." A commission had been issued by Alexander II. and Henry III. to trace the marches in 1222, when the Border line practically coincided with that still in existence.

[6] But the old feeling of a distinction between Scotia proper and the country south of the "Scottis Se" did not at once die out. In a dim indefinite form it lingered in the reign of James II., nearly a century and a half after the War of Independence, when laws applicable to the entire "kingryk" still statet expressis verbis that they were valid for both sides of the Forth.

Acta Parl., James II., 1440. The samyn day it is ordanit at þe Justice on þe south side of þe Scottis se ? alsua on þe north side of þe Scottis see sett þare justice airis ? hald þaim twiss in þe ȝere as aulde use & custum is.

Ibid., 1449, it is ordained "at þe kingis liegis in all placis throu oute þe realme haf power to by and sell vitall at þare likyne bath on þe north half and south half of forth;" which probably finally repealed the old statues interfering with a man of Scotland having dealing south of Forth, and vice versâ.

[7] The above was written before the appearance of Mr. J. S. Glennie's valuable paper upon Arthurian localities, prefixed to the third part of the Early English Text Society's Merlin, 1869. While considering that there is room for wide difference of opinion as to the identification of special localities, as will be seen, I agree with him in thinking that all early authority points to the country south of the Forth as the historical scene of the Arthur Conflicts. Indeed, the whole passage in Nennius, relating to Arthur and the twelve battles—beginning with the departure of Ochtha to Kent, from the region near the northern wall where he had first landed, upon which Arthur fought against the enemy along with the British chiefs, he being himself commander-in-chief, and ending with the statement that while the Saxons were repeatedly defeated they continually sought fresh aid from Germany, whence also they received kings who led them, until Ida, the son of Eobba, reigned as first king of Bernicia—so manifestly refers to the struggle in the north, that it is difficult to see how any other meaning could suggest itself, except of those who came to the subject prepossessed with the legendary Arthur history of the Middle Ages.

[8] It is not probabale that Eadwin originated the name of Edinburgh. The fortress doubless existed before, under some such name as Eiddin, Casr-eidin, Dun-eiden, the "oppudium Eden" of the Pictish chronicler, which would be Anglicized Eden-burh (compare Rome-burh, Cantwara-burh), and probably confounded with Eadwines-burh, in memory of Edwins conquests.

[9] And eac Stræcled Weala cyning and ealle Stræcled Weallas.Chron. 924.

[10] Skene—Chionicles of the Picts, &c., Edin. 1867, p. 10.

[11] Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1031.

[12] Les Bardes Bretons.—Poemes du vi^e siecle, traduits pour la première fois, en Français, avec le texte en regard revu sur les manuscrits. Par le Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarque, Nouvelle Edition. Paris, 1860.

[13] "Reginaldi Monachi Dunelmensis Libellus de Admirandis Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus." Ed. Dr. Raine, Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. i.

[14] The ballad now connected with the air of "Tyribus" commemorates the laurels gained by the Hawick youth, at and after the disastrous battle, when, in the words of the writer,

Our sires roused by "Tyr ye Odin"
Marcbed and joined their king at Flodden.

Annually since that event the "Common-Riding" has been held, on which occasion a flag or "colour" captured from a party of the English has been with great ceremony borne by mounted riders round the bounds of the common land, granted after Flodden to the burgh; part of the ceremony consisting in a mock capture of the "colour;" and hot pursuit by a large party of horsemen accounted for the occasion. At the conclusion "Tyribus" is sung, with all the honours by the actors in the ceremony, from the roof of the oldest house in the burgh, the general populace filling the street below, and joining in the song with immense enthusiasm. The influence of modern ideas is gradually doing away with much of the parada and renown of the Common-Riding. But "Tyr-ibus ye Tyr ye Odin" reatains all its local power to fire the lieges, and the accredited method of arousing the burghers to any political or civic struggle is still to send rund the drums and fifes "to play Tyribus" through the twon, a summons analogous to that of the Fiery Cross in older times. Apart from the words of the Slogan, the air itself bears in its wild fire all the tokens of a remote origin. It will be found in the Appendix, accompanied by the first verse of the modern ballad.

[15] Upon consulting the map it will be seen that Celctic names increase in number as we travel west. East Lothian is nearly as Teutonic as Berwickshire or Teviotdale; West Lothian or Linlithgow, which was on the Pictish frontier, has a very large Celtic element in its nomenclature; around Edinburgh the names are pretty well mixed.

[16] Wright—History of Scotland, p. 33

[17] A monumental cross at Friar's Carse, in Dumfriesshire, bears a short inscription, read as North-Anglian by Ralph Carr, Esq., of Hedgeley, Alnwick, who has devoted much attention to Anglo-Saxon inscriptions. See his paper, read before the Philological Societey, in November, 1869. Mr. Carr also considers many of the inscribed stones of the N.E. of Scotland to be Teutonic. See his "Sculptured Stones of Eastern Scotland," Edin., T. and T. Clark, 1867; and paper on the Inscribed Stones of Newton Insch and St. Vigean's, in the Transact. of Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. vii, pt. 1, 1866-7.

[18] I do not include the Psalter (M.S. Cotton, Vesp. A. 1), seeing na grounds on which to consider it Northumbrian. I altogether fail to see the "close agreement in the general structure of its language with the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels, and with the Durham Ritual," spoken of by the Surtees editor.

[19] The Charter of Ranulph, created Bishop of Durham 1099 (Hickes Thesaurus, vol. i. 149), contains some Southern forms as well as Northern. To the Rev. W. Greenwell, M.A., Canon of Durham, I am indebted for the following fresh transcript of the original, correcting the errors of Hickes's text:—

R[anulf] bisceop ᵹreteð wel alle his þeines ⁊ drenᵹes of Ealondscire ⁊ of Norhamscire. Wite ᵹe þat ice habbe ᵹe-tyðed Sċe Cuhtberht þat lond in Elredene, ⁊ all þat þær to be limpeð clæne ⁊ clacles. ⁊ Haliwareftelle ic habbe ᵹe-tyðed Sċe Cuhtberht his aᵹen into hiẛ cyrce. ⁊ hna sua b[e]ranes ðisses, b[e]rane Criẛt hine þisses liueẛ hele ⁊ heofne riceẛ mirde.

In the oldest Lowland Scotch or Northern English this would be:

Ranulf bischop gretis wel alle his þaynes and dryngis of Yland-schire and of Norham-schire, Wyt ᵹe þat Ik hafe tythyd to Sanct Cuthberht þe land in Ellerdene, and all þat þar-to belangis clene and clag-les; and Haliwarestele Ik hafe tythyd to Sanct Cuthberht, his awen in-to his kyrke. And quha sua bereuis [þame] of þis, Christ bereue hym of þis lyfis hele and hevyn-rikis myrd (or mirthe).

Hickes notices the words drenges (Dan. dreng, a lad, an attendant) and clac-les (Dan. klage, a complaint, charge) as Scandinavian, and wanting in the Southern Saxon, where the latter term would be sác-leas. Both are used by Scottish writers, dryng by Lyndesay, and clag as a law term, a charge or burden upon property. For Ik see Barbour: Cursor Mundi has ic. Belimpes might perhaps have been retained instead of belangis (the only verbal change); at least we find the simple limpus in the sense of falls to, pertains, in the "Anturs of Arthur at the Tarne Wathelan" (ab. 1300), edited by Mr. Robson, for the Camden Society, in 1842.

[20] Quoted by Prof. Cosmo Innes—Introduction to Barbour's Brus, in Spalding Club series.

[21] The Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J. J. A. Worsaae, Lond. 1852, p. 217. Elsewhere the author says : "Extremely few places with Scandinavian names are to be found in the Scottish Lowlands, and even these are confined almost without exception to the counties nearest the English border. Dumfriesshire, lying directly north of Cumberland and the Solway, forms the central point of such places. Northumberland and Durham, the two north-easternmost counties of England, contain but a scanty number of them, and consequently must have possessed, in early times at least, no very numerous Scandinavian population. Cumberland, on the contrary, was early remarkable for such a population; whence it will appear natural enough that the first Scandinavian colonists in the Scottish border-lands preferred to settle in the neighbourhood of that county. On the S.E. coast of Scotland they would not only have been separated from their kinsmen in the East of England by two intervening counties, but also divided by a broad sea from their kinsmen in Denmark and Norway. Such a situation would have been much more exposed and dangerous for them than the opposite coast, where they had in their neighbourhood the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, inhabited by the Northmen, as well as their colonies in Ireland and the Isle of Man..... The Scandinavian population in Dumfriesshire evidently appears to have emigrated from Cumberland over the Liddle and Esk, into the plains which spread westward of these rivers; at least the names of places there have the very same character as in Cumberland," p. 202-3. Mr. Worsaae then instances the names of fell (fjeld) and rigg (ryg) applied to hills, and the local names Thornythwaite, Treethwaites, Robiethwaite, Murraythwaite, Helbeck, Greenbeck, Bodsbeck, Torbeck, Stonybeck, Waterbeck, Hartsgarth, Tundergarth, Applegarth, Lockerby, Alby, Middleby, Dunnabie.Wyseby, Percebie, Denbie, Newby, Milby, Sorbie, Canoby, and the words pock-net (Isl. pokanet) and leister (Isl. ljóster, Danish lyster), fishing implements also well known in the Tweed and Teviot, and adds: "In the Lowlands the number of Scandinavian names of places is quite insignificant when compared with the original Celtic or even with the Anglo-Saxon names." I may add that the dialect spoken in the S.E. corner of Dumfriesshire and the adjacent corner of Roxburghshire, or Canobie and Liddesdale, is still quite distinct from that of the rest of these counties, and is rather that of Cumberland than of Lowland Scotland.

[22] The definite article de, den, has also been contracted into e, æ, in South Jutland, as e By, e Barn, e Bynder, e hele Hus, the town, the bairn, the farmers, the whole house (Det Danske Folksprog in Sonderjylland ved J. Kok, quoted in Introduction to Cleveland Glossary, p. xxiii.) At an earlier time the Norse at and en themselves were doubtless from the þat and þen (dat, denn) of the first Germanic occupants of the Scandinavian peninsulas, and perhaps by similar contact with a preexistent language.

[23] A Glossary (with some Pieces of Verse) of the Old Dialect of the English Colony of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland. Collected by Jacob Poole. Edited by W. Barnes, B.D. London: J. B. Smith, 1867.

[p._28-25] Among the earliest connected specimens must be placed the fragments of Scottish songs relating to the siege of Berwick, 1296, and the battle of Bannockburn, 1314, preserved by the English chronicler Fabyan, which, although they have suffered somewhat in orthography, retain the characteristically Northern grammatical inflexions.

What wenys kynge Edwarde, with his lange shankys,
To have wonne Berwyk all our vnthankys?
Gaas pykes hym
And when he had it
Gaas dykes hym.
Maydins of England sore may ye morne,
For your lemmans ye haue loste at Bannockysborne,
Wyth heue a lowe,
What wenyt the kynge of England
So soone to have wonne Scotlande,
Wyth rumbylow.

To these may be added the well-known fragment, contrasting the peace and plenty of the reign of Alexander III. with the calamities of the interregnum and war with England, which followed his death, thus introduced by Wyntown into his Cronykil (Royal MS. 17 D. xx., leaf 1904, new numbering-Bk. VII., chap, x., 1. 521 of Macpherson's edition):—

A boll off bere, for awcht or ten,
In comowne pryse sawld wes þen;
ffor Sextene a boll off qwhete,
Or fore twenty, þe derth wes grete.
Þis falyhyd fra he deyd suddanly;
Þis sang wes made off hym for-þi:—
"Quhen^{[f 1]} Alysander oure kyng wes dede,
pat Scotland led in luwe and le,
Away wes sons off ale and brede,
Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle ;
Oure gold was changyd in to lede,
Cryst borne in to virgynyte,
Succoure Scotland, and remede
Þat stad in his perplexyté."

As a specimen of the language, however, these lines cannot, with certainty, be placed earlier than the date of the Cronykil (1430). Indeed every MS. of Wyntown gives us a different version of them, the variations being instructive as to the fate of poems handed down by popular tradition. Thus the Harleian MS. 6909 has :—

Sen Alexander our king wes deid,
Away wes sones of aill & bread,
That Scotland left of lust & le,
Of wyne and wax, of gamyr & gle.
The gold wes changeit all in leid,
The fruit failȝeit on evir ilk tre;
Ihūm succour and send remeid,
That stad is in perplexitie.

↑ Pronounce A'lsander or E'lshander, in three syllables, as still used in some parts of Scotland. Sons, fullness, abundance, the root of sonsy.

It is to be regretted that Macpherson, in his printed edition of Wyntown—implicitly copied, apparently, by all subsequent writers—instead of following the contemporary Royal MS., altered the last line after this garbled copy, reading:—

Succour Scotland, and remede,
That stad is in perplexyte,

which is simply nonsense, although Dr. Jamieson makes stad a past participle, meaning placed. The meaning of the two lines is evidently "Succour Scotland, and remedy that state (or stead?) in its perplexity."

[24] Pronounce A'lsander or E'lshander, in three syllables, as still used in some parts of Scotland. Sons, fullness, abundance, the root of sonsy.

[26] For the distinguishing characteristics of the three great English dialects of the 13th and 14th centuries, the reader is referred to Mr. R. Morris's "Specimens of Early English," and his numerous contributions to English philology in the proceedings of the Philological, and publications of the Early English Text Society.

[27] From Mr. Skeat's edition of the Brus for the Early Eng. Text Soc. The thorn (þ), which was by this time confounded in writing with y, and so printed in old books, Mr. Skeat prints th italic. It is here printed þ, the letter intended by the MSS.

[28] Ratis Raving, and other Moral and Religious Pieces, in Prose and Verse. Ed., from Camb. Univ. MS. KK. 1, 5, by J. Rawson Lumby, M.A. Early Eng. Text Soc., 1870.

[29] The Pricke of Conscience: A Northumbrian Poem, by Richard Rolle de Hampole. Edited by Richard Morris (from MS. Cotton-Galba E. ix.), published by A. Asher and Co., Berlin, 1863.

[30] English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole (who died A.D. 1349), Edited from Robert Thornton's MS. (cir. 1440 A.D.) in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral, by George G. Perry, M.A., London. Early English Text Society. No. 20.

[24] Pronounce A'lsander or E'lshander, in three syllables, as still used in some parts of Scotland. Sons, fullness, abundance, the root of sonsy.

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