ne scalt þu næver halden
dale of mine lande;
ah mine dohtren
ich wille delen mine riche.
and þu scalt worðen warchen,
and wonien in wansiðe,
for navere ich ne wende
þat þu me woldes þus scanden,
þarfore þa scalt been dæd ic wene:
fliʓ ut of min eæh-sene,
þine sustren sculen habben mi kinelond,
and þis me is iqueme;
þe due of Cornwaile
seal habbe Gornoille,
and þe Scottene king
Regan þat scone;
and ic hem ʓeve all þa winne
þe ich æm waldinge over.
and al þe alde king dude
swa he hafvede idemed.[1]
The above lines are taken from Layamon's Brut, compiled, as it would seem, in Worcestershire about the year 1205. The proportion of Teutonic words, now obsolete, to the whole is the same as in the Ormulum. The poet has both hât and hôt for calidus; but the words lond, hond, are written instead of land, hand, just as we find in the oldest Worcester charters printed by Kemble, Codex Dip. I. page 100. And this is also done by our kinsmen in Friesland.
We sometimes find in Layamon þeo for the Old English hi; a token that he did not live to the South of
- ↑ Sir F. Madden's Layamon, i. 130. Layamon has added much of his own to the original in this story of King Lear; and the additions have been copied by later writers, Shakespere among them.
