both the High German and Icelandic, tells whence comes our shrill — one of the many English words into which r has found its way. The verb seem has here a sense unknown to Orrmin and Layamon, that of videri. At page 9 we read, ‘his teeð semden of swart irn.’ On reading at page 13 ‘þu fikest’ (tu fallis), we may perhaps derive from this verb our fib, even as geleaf turns to belief. Toggen (trahere) is seen, more akin in form to the Dutch tocken than to the Old English teogan. We have three corruptions of this verb, with three widely different meanings — to tug, to toy, and to tow.
From the Legend of St. Catherine, compiled not much later, we get the word clatter, found also in Dutch. In another piece, the Hali Meidenhad,[1] which dates from about the year 1220, we find one or two Norse words, such as cake and gealde (from geldr, that is, sterilis); there is also crupel (cripple), akin to the Dutch. The Old English ceówan has the sense of jaw, as in the Homilies of 1180. The maiden is told, in page 31, that the husband ‘chit te and cheoweð þe.’ A little lower down, she is further threatened; for he ‘beateð þe and busteð þe;’ this last verb is the Icelandic beysta, our baste (ferire). Hence also the French baston or bâton. The tiðing of the Essex Homilies now becomes tiding. Our scream is found for the first time, and seems to be a confusion between the Old English hream and the Welsh ysgarm, each meaning the same. The old word grœg has had a curious lot: the North and East of England kept the first letter of the diphthong, the South
- ↑ Early English Text Society.
