SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO MIDDLE-ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY
By J. R. R. Tolkien
In the compilation of the Middle English dictionaries that are so urgently needed the publication of scraps of lexicographical and etymological information and suggestion may ultimately prove a service worth performing. 'This is the only possible excuse for the following very minor notes.
I. (a) Long home. "To go to one's long home" = "to depart this life" is recorded first in N.E.D. from Robert Manning of Brunne, Handling Sin, 9195.
Mr. Sisam points out that it is really far older, descending from OE. verse: it appears in Fates of the Apostles, 92 (this passage is now recorded in Bosworth-Toller Suppl. s.v. Lang). There is one other occurrence in Old English not so recorded. The Vision of Leofric (ed. Napier, Phil. Soc. Trans. 1908, pp. 180–188) ends: he foresæde Þo<n>ne dæg Þe he sceolde cuman to Cofantreo to his langan hame, Þær he on restet. This instance is specially interesting in showing that the expression meant "grave," and not "the future life," or "heaven" (se ēca hām).
(b) burde, lady, damsel. This is an interesting word with a long history in English verse, especially in the alliterative tradition, and in the closely related tradition (as far as vocabulary goes) of the ballad. To the ballad, doubtless, is due the occasional use of the word by modern poets such as William Morris. Burde is first recorded in Layamon, where so many words first appear (usually with the air of having existed long before; leofmon, lemman, is a case), and where so many Old English words are used for the last time. So far it has no received etymology. This is an attempt to give it one.
Bird (in spite of modern slang), and bride are both rightly rejected by the N.E.D.; neither in meaning nor in phonology are
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