they satisfactory. The ME. forms quite clearly indicate an OE. *byrde. Phonology would, then, be satisfied by OE. byrde, highborn; but this adjective, as is pointed out in N.E.D., is only recorded once in se byrdesta in Ælfred's Orosius. More serious, however, is the fact that there is nothing to show how or why this adjective survived as a noun, and became distinctively feminine. The manner in which alliterative verse of all periods developed its synonyms must be considered—especially, for the present purpose, the synonyms for "man" and "woman." One (common or distinctive) function was selected and used, more and more as the full force of the original etymological sense faded, simply as "man" or "woman" in all circumstances. The original meanings were already so far forgotten in the case of most of the OE. "man"- synonyms as to be more apparent to the modern Germanic philologist than to the Old English poet himself.
The following are some of the best known among them: secg, *follower; beorn, *bear (ON. björn, bear);; freca, *wolf (lit. greedy one, ON. freki, wolf—the sense "warrior" is probably from "wolf" rather than direct from frec, greedy); wiga, fighter. All these survived into ME. (segg, burn, freke, wiȝe), grown still more faded and pale and used merely as "one (male being)"; wiȝe (and other synonyms such as haþel) could be used of God. The convention function of "man" that they are all based on ultimately is his duty of being strong and fierce in battle.
The names for "woman" are fewer in number (fǣmne, ides, mēowle) and rarely if ever, curiously enough, survive into ME. The attribution, however, of one specific function to "woman" was common to the poetic conventions of both earlier and later Germanic times and to Romance—sewing, embroidery, weaving. This doubtless prompted the figure contained in OE. freoþowebbe, lady (peace-weaver). The lady at her room, the damsel in her bower at her embroidery, were doing the correct thing no less than the knight at his jousting, or on a mission to bring some other damsel back from the clutches of a giant or false knight to her home and her embroidery.
One could find passages in which either "damsel" or "embroideress" would fit as translations of burde. Notably Gawain and the Green Knight 609 ff.: enbrawden and bounden wyth þe best gemmeȝ on brode sylkyn borde, and bryddeȝ on semeȝ . . . tortors and trulofeȝ entayled so þyk as many burde þeraboute had ben seuen
