LIBRARY r CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO THE TAILL OF RAJJF OOILYEAR THE TAILL OF A SCOTTISH METRICAL ROMANCE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND GLOSSARIAL INDEX BY WILLIAM HAND BEOWNE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JOHN MURPHY COMPANY, PRINTERS, BALTIMORE. Ga, lytill Builc, and gif ane freind thow meit, May he ressaif the with benignitie, Althocht, for suith, thy worth may nocht be greit, Sa fer als I in the haif propertie. I haif bot socht to keip in memorie The taill ane no bill Makar, langayr deid, Wrait intill Inglis of the Northin Leid. INTRODUCTION. A BEIEF OUTLINE OF EARLY SCOTTISH POETRY. The extant poetical literature of Scotland dates no farther back than the fourteenth century. But we cannot doubt that much poetry of an earlier time has been lost, for we find in the most ancient work that has reached us a well-formed poetic style, correct, vigorous, and at times almost elegant versification, and a confidence and ease in handling the material that indicate a literature that has passed the tentative stage and arrived at a certain degree of maturity. We know from references in later writers, that many Scottish poets once wrote and were admired, of whom nought now remains but the names. But in this loss, while there may be much reason for regret, there is none for surprise. The foreign wars and intestine feuds and troubles which tormented and devastated Scotland, with but few intermissions, from the death of Alexander III. to that of Mary, and which destroyed so great a part of the ancient records and historical muniments of the kingdom, may well account for the disappearance of works preserved in manuscript copies by the very few who had at once the culture to care for literature, the leisure to enjoy it, and the means of procuring it. The very oldest piece of Scottish poetry that has come down to us, is a song deploring the death of Alexander III. (1285), cited by Wyntoun (vii. ad fin.). It runs : 3 4 The Taitt of Rauf CffUjear. Quhen Alysandyr cure Kyng wes dede, That Scotland led in luwe and le, Away wes sons off ale and brede, Off wyne and wax, off gamyu and gle : Oure gold wes changyd in to lede. Cryst, borne in to Vyrgynyte, Succoure Scotland and remede, That stad [is in] perplexyte. There seems no reason to doubt that these lines were originally written in the troubled period that followed Alex- ander's death. But it has apparently been modernised by Wyntoun, or some other, so that we cannot say that it is Scottish of the thirteenth century. This northern school of poetry, so far as we are able to judge, continued the ancient Anglian traditions, underwent changes, and, like the southern school, reconstructed itself on French models. In the fifteenth century it was greatly influenced by the genius of Chaucer, and after the death of that poet, produced the most original and vigorous poetry that the island could boast, for about a hundred years. Some writers divide extant Scottish Literature into Early and Middle, placing the dividing line about the middle of the fifteenth century ; but this distinction does not seem justified. It is quite true (as will be shown later) that the literary Scot- tish is a continuation of the ancient Northern or Northumbrian school of English, and, no doubt it went through stages of transformation, as did the English south of the Tweed. But of southern English we have an unbroken catena from the middle of the twelfth century ; and this tentative and transi- tional period, when the language was transforming itself from the English of ^Elfric to the English of Chaucer, we call Early English. Nothing corresponding to this is extant in The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. 5 Scottish. The monuments of the transitional period have been lost; and the earliest, texts show us a language and literary style already formed and settled. It will not do to assume lightly that during this period the Scottish and the Northumbrian south of the Tweed were identical. We do not know through what stadia of transformation the Early Scottish passed, nor shall we ever know, unless there should be a recovery of lost texts which we can hardly hope. For us, then, Scottish literature begins with Barbour, a contemporary of Chaucer. 1 JOHN BARBOUR was born in Aberdeenshire about 1320, six years after the victory of Bannockburn had secured the independence of Scotland. He entered the Church, and became Archdeacon of Aberdeen. Slight indications in the records show him to have been held in estimation by David II., and Robert II., and to have travelled in England and Prance. He died, it is believed, in 1395. Barbour's great work, The Bruce, is a poetical narrative of the struggle of Scotland for independence. After a preamble telling of the death of Alexander III., and the disputed succession, the narrative proper begins about 1306, immedi- ately after the death of Wallace, and comes down to the death of James of Douglas. Of course the work is occupied chiefly with the exploits of Robert Bruce and his brother Edward, James of Douglas, Walter the Stewart, and other heroes of that great struggle. It is the national epic of Scotland, and 1 It is almost superfluous to allude, even in a note, to the romance of Sir Tristrem, by some placed at the head of Scottish literature. The language is not, and could not have been, the Scottish of any period, being Midland with ma,ny Southern characteristics. Neither subject nor treat- ment is Scottish, and there is absolutely nothing in it to indicate a Scottish origin. 6 The TaiU of Rauf Coifyear. has the advantage over most epics that of Wallace included that it does not deal with fiction but with historic fact. Barbour lived so near the events that he narrates, that he had the opportunity, as he himself tells us, of obtaining his infor- mation from eye-witnesses and participants. The Bruce is written in a clear, rapid, and vivid style, without rhetorical adornment, and occasionally glowing with true poetic fire. Though an ardent patriot, Barbour is no fanatical partisan, and can prize chivalry and magnanimity in an enemy, as witness his graceful and glowing tribute to the gallant Gilles de Argentine. We have, unfortunately, no MS. of the Bruce earlier than 1487, 1 and as we know, by comparison with a large extract preserved by Wyntoun, that the later copyists have taken con- siderable liberties with the text, it is to be feared that it has suflPered much detriment at the hands of scribes. Some have ascribed to Barbour another work, the Brut, giving the tradi- tional genealogy of British kings from the Trojan Brutus, grandson of Aeneas; but no such work is known, and the ascription seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding of a passage in Wyntoun. Some have also attributed to him, on insufficient grounds, a collection of versified Legends of Saints, still extant. ANDROW OF WYNTOUN, a canon regular of St. Andrews, and prior of St. Serf's Inch in Loch Leven, wrote, toward the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth cen- tury, his Orygynale Cronyldl of Scotland. Starting with the creation of the angels, he runs rapidly down the history of the 1 There are only two extant MSS. ; the Cambridge MS., written by " J. de R. Capellanus" in 1487, and the Edinburgh MS. written by John Ramsay in 1489. The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 7 world, until he reaches the traditional beginning of the Keltic monarchy of Scotland, and then pursues the dun and mythical legends of that country, and the clearer historic periods, to his own times. The work is very discursive and garrulous, show- ing neither artistic sense, nor critical discrimination between the possible and the impossible, the significant and the irrele- vant. Anything pertaining to the time or the reign he is speaking of, whether recorded in the Bible or the Gesta Romanorum, is entitled to admission in his book. But the work has value as a repertory of anecdotes and traditions not found elsewhere. Here, for example, we have the first appearance of the three weird sisters it is Wyntoun who calls them so to Macbeth, who, however, sees them only in a dream, and they are not witches, but the three Fates of mythology. 1 As Wyntoun does not mention the return of James I. from captivity in \ 424, he is thought to have died not long before, hi advanced age. 1 As the passage has interest, it is subjoined : A nycht he thowcht, in hys dremyng, That syttand he was besyd the King At a sete in hwntyng, swa In till a leysh had grewhundys twa. He thowcht, quhile he was swa syttand, He sawe thre wemen by gangand, And thai wemen than thowcht he Thre werd Systrys mast lyk to be. The fyrst he hard say, gangand by, ' Lo ! yondyr the Thayne off Crwmbawchty ! ' The tothir woman sayd agayne, ' Off Morave yhondyre I se the Thayne.' The thryd than sayd ' I se the Kyng.' All this he herd in his dremyng : 8 The Taitt of Rauf Coifyear. About JAMES I., the royal poet, there hangs, of course, none of the obscurity that surrounds so many of the Scottish writers. He was born in 1394, the son of the unhappy Robert III., and the descendant, in the fourth generation, of Robert Bruce. The ambition of his unscrupulous uncle, the Duke of Albany, and the tragic and more than suspicious death of his elder brother, the Duke of Rothsay, caused the alarmed father to send the youthful James, then a boy of eleven, to France for security ; but the vessel carrying him was captured by an English ship (not without suspicion of treachery on Albany's part) and the young prince was delivered a prisoner to Henry IV. At first his confinement seems to have been somewhat rigorous, but afterwards he was held rather as a friendly hostage than as a prisoner, and was instructed in all knightly arts and accomplishments. Acknowl- edged as a king on his father's death, he accompanied Henry V. as an ally in his campaign in France, and is said to have dis- tinguished himself in the field. He had a taste for music and painting, and especially for literature, and was an enthusiastic student of the works of Gower and Chaucer, whom he calls his "Masters." Sone efftyre that, in his yhowthad, Off thyr Thayndomys he Thayne was made ; Syne neyst he thowcht to be Kyng, Fra Duncanys dayis had tane endyng. Wyntoun, vi, 1850. The first writer who mentions this meeting as an actual occurrence is Hector Boece, who wrote a hundred years after Wyntoun. Holinshed took the story from Boece, and Shakespeare from Holinshed. The idea that the three sisters, in their several announcements, tell Macbeth the past, the present, and the future, does not appear in Wyntoun, where all three relate to the future. The laiU of Rauf Caityar. 9 During his captivity he became enamoured of Lady Jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV., an attachment we may suppose, highly satisfactory to Henry V., who saw in the match the opportunity of binding the young and warlike king to the house of Lancaster by firm ties of alliance ; and a rare thing in royal marriages for once love and policy seem to have gone hand in hand. In ] 424, James's ransom having been paid, he married Lady Jane, and the royal pair returned amid great rejoicings to Scotland, where James was crowned, like all Scottish kings, at Scone, near Perth. He had learned much during his long residence in Eng- land, and especially the Lancastrian policy of centralisation and organisation, and of fortifying and augmenting the royal power by curbing the great barons and protecting the com- mon people ; and this policy he resolved to apply to Scotland, where the insolence, ambition and rapacity of the powerful nobles had been almost unchecked during the regency. But his reforms were too drastic, or at least too rapid, and James was too rashly courageous. A formidable conspiracy was organ- ised against him, and in 1437 he was assassinated at Perth, with tragic circumstances and a tragic sequel familiar to all. His great poem, the Kingis Quair, or King's Book, recites, partly in the guise of an allegory or vision, the story of bis love how he first saw his lady from the window of his prison, and fell into a passion which he could only suppose hopeless ; and how in a vision he was borne aloft to the empyrean and to the court of Venus, where he saw lovers of all degrees and conditions, and received counsel and encourage- ment from the goddess, from Minerva and Fortune, afterwards confirmed by a message brought him by a dove. We must not take the royal lover too literally : he was in no sense a 10 The Taill of Rauf Coil$ear. pining captive when he met Lady Jane, and had no obstacle to overcome, unless it were the coyness of the lady herself, which, we may presume, was not excessive. The poem is written in Chaucer's favorite stanza of seven lines, or " rime royal," and closely imitates parts of Chaucer's Knightes Tale and (in a lass degree) his Hous of Fame. In other parts there is a striking resemblance to the Court of Love, a poem once ascribed to Chaucer, but which seems to be an expanded treatment of a theme found in the Temple of Glas, a poem usually attributed to Lydgate. The King dedicates his poem to his "masters," Gower and Chaucer, although no imitation of Gower is perceptible ; a fact which suggests the possibility that James believed Gower to have been the author of the Temple of Glas. 1 James seems to have been the first to introduce Chaucer to Scotland, where his works exercised a great influence on the poets of the fifteenth century. But the Kingis Quair is more than a mere imitation. Though thrown into an artificial form which had become almost canonical for poetry of high seriousness, it is instinct with genuine feeling and true poetic elevation ; the descrip- tions are varied and bright, and the whole full of romantic grace, dignity, and tenderness. The language, while substan- tially Scottish, is greatly affected by Midland influences, and to some degree, assimilated to that of Chaucer. A short moral poem called Good Counsel has been also (on rather slight evidence) assigned to James. Earlier critics ascribed to him the clever farcical poems, Christis Kirk on the 1 As Gower was living when James was taken to England, and as his works must have been familiar at Court, this error if error it be is singular. The Taill of Eauf Coifyear. 11 Grene, and Peblis to the Play, but this ascription can hardly now be seriously maintained. If James I. is the first conscious artist whom we meet in the extant Scottish poetry, ROBERT HENRYSON is the first original artist. Of Henryson's personal history scarce any- thing is known. He is supposed to have been born about 1425, and to have been a schoolmaster in Dunfermline ; and as he is styled " Master," it is inferred that he had taken an academic degree. In the list of members of Glasgow Univer- sity in 1462, appears the name of " the Venerable Master Robert Henryson," who was probably the poet. That he died in Dunfermline we know from Dunbar. Henryson, like other Scottish poets after James I., was strongly influenced by Chaucer, and even ventured, we may say, to enter the lists with him. Chaucer's treatment of the Troilus story seemed to him to lack completeness and a moral lesson : Cresseid should have been punished for her faith- lessness and wantonness. So in his Testament of Cresseid he represents her as smitten with leprosy, a beggar and abhorred outcast, in which condition she is seen but not recognized by Troilus. Pierced by remorse and shame, she makes her testament of counsel and warning to her sex, and dies re- pentant. Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice, a singular allegorizing of the old fable, shows his classical and scholastic learning, while the pretty poem Robene and Malvyne, which has been styled the earliest pastoral in the English language, has a charming simplicity. Most interesting, however, are his Fables, founded chiefly upon subjects taken from those collections which bore the name of .ZEsop, but treated with an ease, fluency, brightness, and certainty of literary touch not unworthy of 12 The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. Chaucer. Each of the fables is a little drama of natural dia- logue, and his beasts are delightfully human. Henryson's other poems, chiefly of a moral and didactic character, show the same literary skill and mastery of versification under a more serious garb. It is thought that the fables were written about 1470 or 1480. Of his death we only know that it occurred before 1506, as Dunbar, in his Lament for the Makaris, written about that year, mentions him as having passed away. Some time in the latter half of the century was written the curious moral fable or allegory of the Howlat. The author tells us that his name was HOLLAND, and that he lived in Moray ; and some incline to identify him with one Sir Richard Holland, a priest and partisan of the house of Douglas, about whom almost nothing is known. The poem, which is in the same peculiar alliterative stanza as Rauf Coifyear, tells how the Owl, disgusted with his hideous form, went to the Peacock, the pope of the birds, to lodge a complaint against Nature as the author of his deformity. The Peacock assembles in oscumenical council the various dignitaries of the Church, and the secular powers, birds of peace and birds of prey, and the case is laid before them. In compliance with their joint petition Nature descends, and commands every bird to give the Howlat a feather, out of which she fashions him a gorgeous plumage, so that he surpasses all in splendour. But when thus exalted he became so insufferably arrogant and domineering that the birds beg to be relieved of him, and Nature obligingly reduces him to his former hideousness. A considerable part of the poem is taken up with a panegyric of the house of Douglas. Contemporary with Henryson was HENRY THE MINSTREL The Taill of Rauf Caityar. 13 (often referred to as Blind Harry). Almost the only thing known about him is the statement given by John Maior (one of the teachers of Buchanan) who says that Henry was living "in the time of my infancy" (or between 1450 and 1460), that he was blind from his birth, and that he composed the Book of William Wallace, and travelled about the country reciting his poetry to knights and nobles, who provided him with the means of subsistence "of which he was well worthy," Maior adds. Records show that gratuities were occasionally bestowed upon him from the royal treasury, the latest of these entries being in 1492. Henry may have undertaken this poem to supplement the omission of Barbour, the plan of whose work did not include that period of the struggle in which Wallace was the chief figure ; or it may have been that as a wandering minstrel he found that the exploits attributed to Wallace appealed more strongly to popular sentiment than those of Bruce. He says that he procured the material for his poem from a Latin history written by Master John Blair, Wallace's friend and chaplain, which is not impossible, though no such book is known to exist, nor is anything known of John Blair. If his statement be true, it is highly probable that he supple- mented Blair's narrative with many floating traditions, some of which are historically impossible, and most are grossly exaggerated. In two hundred years a popular myth had grown up about the great champion, and Henry's Wallace is a very different personage from the steadfast magnanimous Wallace of history. Henry's Wallace is a kind of gigantic patriotic ogre, of superhuman strength and ferocity, mowing down troops with his single arm, mutilating prisoners, and ever thirsting for " the byrnand Sothroun blude ; " and it is 14 The Taitt of Rauf Coifyar. to be regretted that the popular estimate of one of the most heroic figures in history has been so largely derived from this distorted conception. But as an outburst of intense patriot- ism, and a recital of stirring adventures, the poem has much merit, and has enjoyed unbroken popularity from the time of its composition. The authorship of this poem has been recently questioned on the grounds that a beggar, born blind, in Scotland in the fifteenth century could not have had that familiarity with the romancers and with Chaucer, which the Wallace shows, nor the knowledge of Latin which it implies. The poet's name is nowhere mentioned in the book, nor is there any allusion to his blindness. The question is still unsettled. Nor was the chivalry romance unrepresented in Scottish literature. Poems or fragments of poems dealing with themes from the legends of Alexander and Arthur have been pre- served ; and Wyntoun expressly praises a poet of the name of Huchown (rather hastily assumed to have been a Scot) as the author of romances of Arthur and Gawayn, and of the Pistill of Susan (the story of Susanna and the Elders). A poem in alliterative verse bearing this title is still extant. Some ascribe to Huchown the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and some the Awntyrs of Arthure and the fine metrical romance usually known as Gawayne and the Green Knight ; but the question is still unsettled. These poems, in the form in which we now have them, are not in the Scottish dialect, nor do they show any Scottish characteristics ; and the great differences in style and poetic power are scarcely consistent with identical author- ship. Dunbar also mentions a Clerk of Tranent, otherwise unknown, who wrote a Gawayn romance. Of the Charle- magne cycle the only poem discovered is that here repro- The Taitt of Rauf Cailjear. 15 duced ; and it will be seen that the poet's treatment of his subject is free from the extravagant invention and fantastic style which characterise most of these singular productions. We may complete this slight sketch of the most important poets of the Scottish literary period whose works are extant, by the names of Dunbar, Douglas, and Lyndsay, who bring us down to the Reformation. By this time the language had differentiated itself into two registers. The scholarly poets, not content with showing their learning by an affluence of classical allusions, had begun to enrich their speech by a lavish introduction of Latinisms; and such " aureate " terms as " celicall," " redymyte," " sempi- terne," " mellifluate," were thought to be the cachet of the scholar, and the proper vesture of lofty poesy. At the same time the vernacular speech of daily life was considered the fitting dress of light, satirical, or ludicrous pieces ; and in the latter were introduced an amazing number of quaint, facetious, or vituperative terms, in which the popular speech showed a fecundity and pungency perhaps unexampled. A master of both these forms, and perhaps the most versa- tile genius that Scotland has produced, was WILLIAM DUN- BAR. This poet, the scion of an ancient and illustrious Scottish house, whose head was the Earl of March, was born about 1460. He was destined for the Church, and was educated at the University of St. Andrews, where he took the Bachelor's and Master's degrees. After this he entered the Franciscan order, and travelled extensively in England and France as a wandering preacher, but did not take the final vows, and after- wards discarded the habit. Returning to Scotland, he was attached to the court of James IV., whose marriage with Margaret Tudor he has celebrated in his allegorical poem, The Thrissill and The Rois. 16 The Taitt of Rauf Coiljear. Dunbar took priest's orders, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain a benefice ; but this was never given him, while he saw, to his chagrin and indignation, unworthy persons exalted to high positions in the Church. James would not let him go, but testified his regard by gifts and pensions, not on a very liberal scale. After the death of James at Flodden we hear nothing further of Dunbar, and it is to be feared that he died in poverty and neglect. Dunbar possessed a highly sensitive nature, which is reflected in his poems. At times he is gay, full of fun and almost bois- terous merriment, and again plunged into the deepest melan- choly, oppressed by the thoughts of approaching old age and inevitable death. Setting aside the merely occasional pieces in which he throws into light but often graceful and ingenious verse some trifling incident or scandal of the court, Dunbar's poems may be divided into three classes, the allegorical, moral, and satirical. His principal allegoric poem is The Golden Terge, in which he represents himself as brought before the court of Cupid, where lovely ladies bend their bows at him, but Reason, with a golden targe, or shield, screens him from their shafts. In the Tht*lssill and the Rois, which is, strictly speaking, figura- tive rather than allegorical, Nature is shown summoning all beasts, birds, and plants before her. She crowns the Lion king of beasts, the Eagle king of birds, and selecting the Scottish Thistle with his formidable bush of spears to be the monarch of plants, crowns him with " radiant rubies," and gives him the peerless " Rose of two colours " (the blood of York and of Lancaster mingling in Margaret Tudor) to be his queen. There is nothing in these two poems of the starch pedantry which is the weakness of allegory : they are full of life, melody, and beauty. The Taill of Rauf Cviljear. 17 Dunbar's moral poems reflect the serious side of his charac- ter, and have an earnestness and sincerity which show that they sprang from real and deep feeling. In his satirical pieces, on the other hand, he gives a free rein to his wit and extraordinary and fantastic imagination. In his Fenjeit Frdr of Tungland he commemorates with great glee the misadven- ture of one John Damian, an Italian friar and arch-quack, who pretending to be an adept in alchymy, had ingratiated himself with the King, who gave him the rich abbey of Tungland. Damian made himself a pair of wings and under- took to fly from the battlements of Stirling Castle to the coast of France, but fell and broke his leg. Dunbar sketches, in fantastic style, his earlier career of imposture, and then nar- rates his adventures in the air. The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, performed before Satan in Hell, has the weird grotesqueness of a nightmare. In his Flyting, or jocular scolding-match with his friend Walter Kennedy, the two poets illustrate the extraordinary richness of the vernacular tongue in grotesque scurrility, and their own ingenuity in metrical construction. His slighter occasional pieces have all the same light and easy touch, surprising facility in handling difficult metres, and an almost unerring skill in phrasing. The poems of his later years show a more serious colouring. In his Lament for the MaJcaris he enumerates poets of time past, and those of his own time who have departed this life, and concludes with the solemn reflection that his own day is rapidly nearing its close. The range of Dunbar's genius must be still further extended if he be, as is generally supposed, the author of that admirable story in verse, The Freiris of Berwick. For vivacity, humour, neatness, and perfect literary skill, this poem will bear com- parison with Chaucer's best work hi the same style. 2 18 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. Of WALTER KENNEDY, Dunbar's antagonist in the Fly- ting previously mentioned, we know very little, though he had a high reputation hi his day. He was a scion of the powerful western family of the Kennedies of Carrick, and from allusions hi the poem, seems to have been a man of property. He is supposed to have been born about 1460. He was a Master of Arts of Glasgow University, and is highly spoken of by Dunbar, Douglas, and Lyndsay. He is mentioned as living by Douglas in 1501, and said by Dunbar in his Lament for the MaJcaris, written about 1506, to be then lying at the point of death. Beside his contributions to the Flyting, nothing from his pen remains but a few short poems of a moral and religious character. GAWIN DOUGLAS was the third son of the great Archibald, Earl of Angus, called " Bell the Cat," and was born about 1475. He was destined for the Church, and took the Mas- ter's degree at St. Andrews. His high lineage opened a rapid road to promotion. He early showed distinguished ability as a poet, and wrote hi 1501 his Police of Honour, afterwards followed by Kyng Hart, and a translation from Ovid. In 1512 he began his translation of Vergil's Aeneid, which he finished only two months before the great disaster of Flodden. This battle, in which his two elder brothers fell on the field, drew the poet from his studies and plunged him into the whirlpool of political affairs. The widowed queen Margaret, who had her brother's temperament, soon cast eyes of affection on the young Earl of Angus, the poet's nephew, and married him before the year was over. Gawin became now a power in the State, was entrusted with the Great Seal of the kingdom, and saw a bril- liant career opening before him. At the same tune he was The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. 19 nominated by the queen to the archbishopric of St. Andrews, the primacy of Scotland ; but there were other claimants who maintained their cause by force of arms, and Douglas, after an energetic contest, had to yield. In partial compensation he was made Bishop of Dunkeld ; but here also he met with opposition, and even suffered imprisonment before he could obtain possession of his bishopric. The queen soon tired of her husband, Angus, and trans- ferred her affections to the Regent, Albany, who deprived Douglas of his bishopric and other preferments. Douglas was then in London, whither he had gone in the hope of securing the support of Henry VIII. for Angus against Albany. In this he was unsuccessful, and to crown his mis- fortunes, Angus gave up the contest and submitted to the Regent. To return to Scotland was now impossible ; so the poet remained in London, solacing himself with the company of men of letters. Here he was stricken with the plague, and died in 1522. The Police of Honour and Kyng Hart are both allegori- cal works. The former is a panegyric of illustrious men of antiquity, and the latter an allegory or fable of human life. The former is rather overloaded with the display of classical reading ; and both, while showing undoubted talent and skill in the technique of versification, must be classed as academic compositions. The version of the JEneid is by far Douglas's most impor- tant work. As the first metrical translation of the great Latin poet into English, it would have a title to respect ; but it is in itself an admirable production, being not only correct, but graphic, fluent, and spirited, and altogether a remarkable performance for the time. To each of the books he appended 20 The Taill of Rauf CoU^ear. an original prologue of considerable length, which are perhaps the best of all his work. Especially the prologues to the seventh and twelfth books, one describing a Scottish winter, and the other a morning in May, have won the admiration of all critics for the truth, vividness, and beauty of the descriptions. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY was born in Fife or East Lothian about 1490, and studied at St. Andrews. While yet young he was attached to the court as the special guardian and companion of the infant prince, afterwards James V., and James ever after regarded him with confidence and aifection. During the regencies of Angus and Albany Lyndsay was removed from the court, and retiring to his estates devoted his tune to recording, in a poem called the Dreme, his reflec- tions on the leading men of the time and their misgovern- ment of the country. When James, by a bold stroke, seized the reins of government into his own hands, he recalled Lyndsay, whom he made a knight, and raised to the high dignity of Lyon King of Arms, or Chief Herald of Scotland. In 1530, Lyndsay, who was now in a position to give open expression to his thoughts, wrote the Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo. The King's favorite " papyngo " (popinjay or parrot) having accidentally received a mortal wound, sends her last messages and monitions to the King and leading personages. The poet boldly points out the abuses of the time, and does not even spare from his satire the clergy, their ambition, arrogance, and rapacity. Lyndsay was also employed on several diplomatic missions, one of which was to arrange for the marriage of James with a French princess. The bride of James's choice was Madeleine, daughter of Francis I. But this fragile daughter of the Lily The Taill of Rauf Coifywr. 21 died after a few weeks of wedded life, and Lyndsay deplored her untimely fate in a tender elegy. His next and most important work was Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, a dramatic poem or interlude performed at Linlithgow before the King and court at the feast of the Epiphany, 1539-40. It is of great length and took no less than nine hours for its representation, intervals being left at suitable points. This, the earliest specimen of the Scottish drama extant, is highly interesting from all points of view. The abuses of the time are clearly and vigorously set forth, and no classes are spared. Under " Rex Humanitas " James could easily recognize himself, and see his own frailties as in a mirror j and no doubt the public had no difficulty in detecting many others under the thin veil of allegory. The boldness and causticity with which he attacks the corruptions of the clergy, are surprising, and would probably have been ventured on by no man less strongly intrenched in the King's favour. Although he assails the abuses rather than the doctrines of the Church, we can feel the spirit of the Reformation just ready to burst forth. The drama is enlivened by various facetious episodes to amuse the spectators. In 1546 the first crisis in the Reformation which had been secretly maturing in men's minds, occurred in the burning for heresy of George Wishart, promptly avenged by the assassina- tion of the cruel and haughty Cardinal Beatoun. On this event Lyndsay wrote his Tragedie of the Cardinally in which his sympathy with the Reforming party is obvious. In 1550 Lyndsay wrote his Historie of Squyer Meldrum, reciting in verse the romantic adventures of a sort of knight- errant of his own time. In 1553 he finished his last work, The Monarche, a long poem in the form of a dialogue between Experience and a 22 The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. Courtier, " on the miserable state of the world." As the title indicates, it is in a vein of moral and philosophical reflection. Other shorter pieces of a satirical character were also written at various times. Lyndsay died in April 1 555. Although Lyndsay never, so far as we can see, formally attached himself to the party of the Reformers, his bold censure and biting satire rendered great service to the Refor- mation, and he enjoyed a wide and lasting popularity. THE TAILL OF EAUF COILYEAK. The humorous metrical romance of Rauf Coifyear seems to have enjoyed a high popularity in Scotland about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Dunbar, complaining to James IV. (about 1500) that he is persistently neglected, while his sovereign's favours are lavished on people of no birth or merit, but pushing and self-assertive, says "Quhen servit is all uthir man, Gentill and sempill off euery clan, Kyne of Rauf Coilsear, and Johne the Reif, Na thing I get, nor conqueis can." (To the King, 31-34) So Gawin Douglas, in his Police of Honour (1901) places Rauf Coil^ear with other famous personages of romance and tradition whom the poet sees in the glass of Venus : "I saw Raf Coi^ear with his thrawin brow, Crabbit Johne the Reif, and auld Cowkeywis sow." (I, 65) It is to be noted, however, that in neither of these passages is there direct reference to any particular poem or narrative ; and Rauf Coil^ear, like Robin Hood (also mentioned by Douglas) might have been the hero of various popular tradi- tions. But in the Complaynt of Scotland (about 1549) there is a direct allusion to an extant poem or tale bearing this name. Among the tales that the shepherds tell, "some in prose and some in verse," are mentioned, "the tayl of Syr 23 24 The Taill of Rauf Coityear. Euan, Arthours Knycht, Rauf Coll^ear .... Gauen and Oollogras .... Robene Hude and Lytil Johne." But, though long deservedly popular, this romance seems to have fallen into neglect. No manuscript of it is extant. It was included, it is true, in the Asloan MS. (written about 1515) as appears from the table of contents, but the leaves containing it are lost. At the revival of interest in the early Scottish literature, toward the close of the eighteenth century, these references seem to have been all that was known of it. In 1821 a single copy of the poem was discovered in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, and it still remains unique. It is a pamphlet of sixteen leaves, printed by Robert Lekpre- uik at St. Andrews, in 1572, and bears the title : "Heir beginnis the taill of Rauf Coiljear how he harbreit King Charlis," and ends with the colophon : "Imprentit at Sanctandrois be Robert Lekpreuik. Anno 1572." As this is at present the only authority for the text, it is fortunate that it is remarkably free from errors. Rauf Coifyear was included in Laing's Select Remains of Ancient Popular and Romance Poetry, published in 1822, and republished by John Small in 1885. It was edited by S. J. H. Herrtage for the Early English Text Society as Part VI. of the English Charlemagne Romances, issued in 1882. In 1892-97 it was included in a collection of Scottish Alliterative Poems, edited, with notes and glossary, by F. J. Amours, and published by the Scottish Text Society ; and in 1894 the text, with an introduction (in German) by Dr. M. Tonndorf appeared at Berlin. This poem, which seems to be the solitary English metrical The Taill of Rauf C&iljear. 25 romance of the Charlemagne cycle, holds an intermediate place between the chivalry-romance and the humorous folk- tale. Like the former it is told with great gravity, and in a careful and elaborate versification ; and like the latter it is simple, direct, and graphic in narration, and flavoured with a quiet humour which is unknown to the chivalry-romance. As in others of these metrical romances, the story comprises two adventures, which have a more artistic connection than is usually the case. The story, in brief, is as follows : Two days before the great Yule festival, the Emperor, Charles the Great, returning to Paris with a retinue of nobles and knights from a pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury, is overtaken by a violent storm. The company are scattered, and the King finds himself alone in the mountains, ignorant of the way, and night rapidly drawing near. In this strait he fortunately falls in with a countryman leading a horse, who, though somewhat suspicious of the King, whom he does not know, consents to guide him to his own house in the moun- tains and there to lodge him for the night, and tells him that he is called Rauf Coil^ear, or Ralph the charcoal-burner. Arriving at Rauf's house, the King finds not only warmth and shelter, but most hospitable, and indeed sumptuous enter- tainment from Rauf and his wife Gillian. But the collier, ignorant of his guest's rank, and punctilious on points of etiquette, undertakes to teach him good manners in rather violent fashion, to which the King very meekly submits. In the morning Charles departs early, first offering payment for his entertainment, which brings him another rebuke from the collier for his utter ignorance of good breeding. The King then who has already told Rauf that his name is Wymond, and that he is an officer of the court in the service 26 The Taill of Rauf CbU^ear. of the queen urges Rauf to come the next day to the court with his merchandise, and to be sure to ask for Wymond of the Wardrobe ; and this the collier, after some persuasion, promises to do. Eeturning to Paris, the King is met by Holland and Oliver who with a great company, have been hunting for him all night; and he is escorted with much rejoicing to Paris. Mindful of his agreement with Rauf, on Yule morning Charles sends Sir Holland to watch the ways, and to bring to him any man whom he may find travelling to the city before noon. Early the same morning, the collier, despite the warn- ings of his wife, who had a shrewd suspicion that Wymond was a more considerable person than he pretended, and feared that her hushand might get into trouble loads his horse with coal and takes the road to Paris. Emerging from the forest, Rauf is halted by Rolland, who bids him lay all other business aside and come at once to the King. The collier plumply refuses : he is going to the court to meet Wymond, but he will go at his own time and pleasure; and offers to fight Rolland then and there. Rolland counsels peace, and, after some debate, being convinced of Rauf's good faith, he lets him pass, but not until the two have agreed to meet at the same spot the next morning, to fight the quarrel out. Rauf goes to the court, is stopped by the porter at the gate, but let in by Holland's order, and pushes his way into the banqueting hall, where, to his alarm, he recognizes Wymond in the King. His apprehensions increase when Charles tells his adventure, and how he had been rebuked and buffeted by the collier. The lords cry out to hang Rauf; but the King says God forbid that such should be his gratitude to the man who saved his life : on the contrary, he shall be made a knight ; which is done on the spot. The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. 27 On the next morning Sir Rauf, in a gay suit of armour, sets out to keep his tryst with Holland. At the appointed place he meets a knight on a camel, whom, supposing him to be his adversary, he attacks fiercely. They fight for some time, when Holland himself appears and Rauf's unknown antagonist is discovered to be a Saracen, Magog by name, who is bringing the King a defiance from the Khan of Tartary. Magog offers to fight both the Christians at once, but is persuaded by Rolland to renounce his heathendom and become a Christian. Upon this happy conclusion the three return to the King : Magog is baptized by the name of Gawteir, and wedded to the duchess Jane of Anjou, and Sir Rauf, for his prowess, is made Marshal of France. He afterwards, in memory of his good fortune, founds, at the place where he met the King, a free hostelry for all travelers. The immediate source of the first adventure has not been pointed out, and it is probably the poet's own variation of an old theme. The adventures of a prince in disguise or unrecognized form the subject of many stories of English, continental, and oriental origin. The two tales in the Percy collection called The Miller of Mansfield, and John the Reeve, have the nearest resemblance to it. The incidents of the former are these : King Henry, after a day's hunting in Sherwood forest, loses his way in the woods. While wandering about, he meets a miller of whom he asks help. The miller suspects him to be an outlawed thief, but is at last persuaded to take him to his own house, where he entertains him with his best, including venison stolen from the King's forest. The next morning the nobles, who have been seeking the King, find him at the miller's. 28 The Taill of Rauf Cottjear. The miller is frightened on discovering the quality of his guest, but the King makes him a knight. In the second part the King sends for the miller and his son to come to the court at Westminster, where their rustic behaviour gives rise to much mirth. As this poem, in the form in which we now have it, is evidently, as language and versification show, not earlier than the seventeenth century, it could not have been the origin of Rauf Coil^ear. John the Reeve, a much older poem, is associated, as we have seen, with Rauf Coifyear by both Dunbar and Douglas, and the two traditional heroes seem to have enjoyed a simultaneous popularity. The incidents are as follows : King Edward I., accompanied by a bishop and an earl, while out hawking, loses his way. They fall in with a carl on horseback, who is with difficulty persuaded to give them assistance ; but at last takes them to his house, where they are welcomed by the carl's wife, and entertained first with poor fare, and afterwards sumptuously. On the King's return to Windsor he sends for John the Reeve (for so the carl was called) who comes, but is denied admission by the porter. The earl, however, espies him, and on his telling the King, John is admitted, and recognizes in the monarch his former guest. The King thanks him for his hospitality, makes him a knight, and assigns him a hundred pounds of yearly fee. On his return Sir John keeps ever after open house to all comers. The incidents, it will be seen, are nearer to those in our text than those of the Miller of Mansfield. The measure is a simple six-line stanza in rime couee, slightly alliterated. The language (as we have it in the Percy MS.) is midland, and much later than that of Rauf CoU^ear. If originally Scot- The Taill of Rauf Coifyar. 29 tish which is unlikely, for a Scottish poet would hardly have represented Edward I. in a gracious light it has been much changed by the scribes. Several other ballads in the Percy collection and elsewhere treat of the meeting of a King, disguised or unrecognized, with a churl or peasant, and the rude behaviour of the latter, such as " King Edward and the Hermit," " James I. and the Tinker," " William III. and the Forester," " King Edward and the Shepherd," " Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tarn- worth." Tonndorf also mentions, in German literature, Der hartgeschmiedete Landgraf } Landgraf Moritz von Hessen und der Soldat, Landgraf Philips und die Bauersfrau, Brot und SaJz segnet Gott ; all in the Deutsche Sagen of the Brothers Grimm. The tradition of Alfred in disguise in the herds- man's cottage, and rebuked by the good woman, is but another variation of this antique theme ; and one still more ancient is furnished by the returned Odysseus. The second adventure has also nothing new. In Malory's Marie Darthur, Sir Tristram overcomes the Saracen knight Sir Palomides, who volunteers to become a Christian ; and in Ferumbras Oliver vanquishes and converts the heathen hero. The nearest resemblance is in the romance of Otuel (about 1330) where Roland fights the Saracen Otuel, and the issue of the combat is still in doubt when Roland urges his brave adversary to embrace Christianity, and promises him the King's daughter Belecent in marriage, which offer Otuel accepts. The literary skill of our author is shown by the natural and artistic manner in which he connects the two adventures. In these junctures the old romancers were apt to be clumsy, as for instance in the Awntyrs of Arthure. 30 The Taill of Rauf Ooil^ear. The date of composition of the poem cannot be precisely determined. The language is that of the latter half of the fifteenth century. The passage from Dunbar already cited, if referring, as is probable, to this poem, shows it to have been popular as early as 1500. The German editor, Dr. Tonndorf, endeavours to fix the date by the following process of reason- ing. In lines 930-936 occur the words : "The gen till duches, Dame Jane, that clamis be her kin Angeos and vther landis, with mony riche toun .... In all France is nane sa fair Als scho is, appeirand air To twa douchereis." Tonndorf argues that as Anjou was erected into a duchy by John the Good in 1356, and reunited to the crown by Louis XI. in 1481, the time of composition must fall between these two dates, or shortly after the latter ; and he inclines to date it 1484-5. But no heiress Jane (even had Anjou not been a male fief) is discoverable in the ducal line. The succession runs in the direct male line from Louis I., the first duke, to his grandson Louis III., who, having no male issue, left the duchy to his brother Rene, titular King of Naples. Ren dying in 1480 without a male heir, bequeathed Anjou to his younger brother, Charles VIII. of Maine, with the provision that in case of his death without male issue, it should pass to his nephew the King of France. This was actually the case : Charles died without heirs in 1481, and Louis XI. reunited the duchy to the crown, as was said before. All this Dr. Tonndorf admits ; but he imagines that Jeanne de Laval, the childless widow of Ren6, may have put in some claim on the death of Charles, even if nothing of the sort appears in the records. But Jeanne, far from being " heir apparent," had The Taill of Eauf Coilyar. 31 not the shadow of a claim to the duchy ; for if a female could have inherited, Rene's heir would have been his eldest daughter Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine and Bar, who survived her father. Far from protesting against Rene's bequest of Anjou, Jeanne made oath to his will. Tonndorf's conjecture is therefore altogether unsubstantial. The fact is that it is idle to seek historical data from a poet who makes Charle- magne go on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas a Beket. The place of production cannot be certainly determined. Dr. Tonndorf assigns it to the south of Scotland, and in this he may well be right; but his criteria are by no means decisive. These are, (1) the use of into for in; (2) the rarity of the use of till for to; (3) the careful distinction between the pres. part, in -and and the verbal noun in -4ng. But all these criteria are found in the contemporary poet Holland, who wrote, as we know, in Moray in the far north. No clew to the authorship is known to exist. From the slight infusion of the religious element so intrusively promi- nent in some of these romances, as for instance the Awntyrs, one might incline to think it the composition of a layman. The somewhat ludicrous picture of the thirty convents of priests in full canonicals marching behind Bishop Turpine, all "preichand of prophecie in processioun," seems rather to indicate the lay mind. Tonndorf has taken much pains to prove, by a minute examination of language and versification, that the author of Rauf Coil^ear was not the author of either Golagros and Gawane, the Awntyrs of Arthure, or the Pistill of Susan. It was almost a work of supererogation, as vocabulary, phrasing, and construction are conspicuously different. But even without this evidence, it is easy to see that they are not 32 The Taitt of Rauf Coifyear. from the same hand. The author of Rauf CoU^ear has an ease and directness, a mastery of his materials, and an artistic sense, beside which the others seem stiff and mechanical. Whoever the author was, he was a man of no mean literary gifts. The narrative is vivid and dramatic, and told with ease, simplicity and fluency. He says all that is necessary for his effect, and no more, with neither the crowding tumultuous- ness of the alliterative Morte Arthure, nor the smooth and languid dilution of Clariodus. There are but few of those expletive phrases, " suthly to say," " in leid is nocht to layne," etc., with which the old romancers so often help out a halting line. The skilful construction of the story, and the simple gravity and good faith with which it is told, show the literary artist. Rauf himself is a character worthy of Scott, and far more real and lifelike than his Friar Tuck. In all the extant early Scottish poetry we find no piece of humorous narrative to equal it, except the Frdris of Berwick. If we consider English literature as a whole, we might say that this poem belongs to that movement of reaction in which popular themes and natural character began to take the place of the pompous, sometimes stiff, and always rather unreal poetry of the court and cloister. When the iron rigidity of feudalism had begun to soften and take more gracious shape ; when the ideal knight was no longer a ferocious wild beast, like William de Belesme or Thomas de Couci ; where the ideal of chivalry arose, adding to courage, the soldier's virtue, honour, or a noble regard for one's self, and courtesy, or a noble regard for others the canons of the new faith were recorded in the chivalry romances. Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, Charlemagne and his Paladins, and other legendary heroes, were depicted as ideal personages, of more The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. 33 than human strength, prowess, fortitude and magnanimity. In process of tune men began to weary of these phantoms, and to desire something more natural and human. But in dealing with Scottish literature as a thing apart, we must modify this statement. Scottish literature, from Barbour down, had planted itself on the realities of life, and made few excursions into the realm of fantasy, except in the didactic allegory. But little, so far as we can see, was produced in Scotland corresponding to those fanciful chivalry romances such as the alliterative Morte Arthure, Gawayne, etc., whose home seems to have been in Cumberland or Lancashire. For this difference we may assign two reasons. First, owing to the greater poverty of Scotland, chivalry was not surrounded with the pomp and fantastic magnificence that it assumed in England. Secondly, the sturdy practical character of the Lowland Scots was not favourable to dalliance in the enchanted lands of faery, with beings as unsubstantial as dreams. Again, the chivalry romances usually treat knights and nobles as a class apart, actuated by motives and contemplating ideals which the churl cannot comprehend. " The cherle has doon a cherles dede," says the contemptuous lady in the Sompnoures Tale, implying that Thomas had behaved accord- ing to the ethics and decencies of his order, and was therefore not censurable. But such a distinction was unknown in Scotland. There was little or no distinctly aristocratic litera- ture, such as were the chivalry romances. There was no proletariat. As a rule, every native Scot claimed kindred with some noble family or clan, and the claim was willingly allowed. Like the Catalan, every Johnstone or McDonald was " tan hidalgo como el rey, pero no tan rico." No 3 34 The Taill of Rauf Cottjear. insuperable barrier interposed to hinder the poorest Scot from rising to distinction through his merits or good fortune. Here Rauf, the hard-headed and hard-fisted collier, predominates over royalty and knighthood. He teaches Charlemagne a lesson in courtesy ; does not yield an inch to Holland, though he pays the due respect to his knightly rank ; bears his honours of knighthood well and worshipfully, and by his chivalrous conduct, quite as much as by his strength of arm, worthily attains high dignity, which we may be sure he will never disgrace. The Miller of Mansfield is, and remains, a churl, for he was knighted in mockery : Rauf receives the order " for his courtasie." While the first adventure is humorous, there is nothing ludicrous in the second. Rauf's combat with the Saracen is as serious, and his bearing as gallant as if he were Gawayn himself; and indeed had it been otherwise, the implied moral of the poem would have been lost the moral that courage and courtesy, not rank or fortune, make the true knight. For this reason the present editor thinks Brandl * in error when he treats the second adventure of the poem as a bur- lesque on the chivalry romances, as if it were another Sir Thopas (a burlesque of the form) or Turnament of Totenham (a burlesque of the substance). That critic's recollection of the poem, however, must have been confused, as he makes Rauf meet King Arthur at the Terne Wathelyne, instead of Charlemagne near Paris ; and speaks of his " boxing with the porter," and outshining Rolland at court, of all which there is no word in the text. 1 In Paul's Grundrissf. German. PhM., n. 714. The Taill of Eauf Cmfyear. 35 LANGUAGE. The Lowland Scottish language, though now degenerated into a number of local patois, capable, it is true, of much tenderness and pathos when handled by a master, but still rude, and essentially the dialect of peasants was once a noble and cultivated literary speech, fully equal in dignity, power, and grace to the language of the south, and with quite as good a right to call itself " English." Indeed, we may say with a better right, for "English'' meaning "the speech of the Angles," the early Scottish was more thoroughly Anglian than the dialects spoken south of the Humber, and was univer- sally and rightly called " Inglis " by its speakers and writers. Though Scotland, at the beginnings of recorded history, was occupied by Keltic races, yet the powerful Anglian people, at an early date after the invasion of Britain, extended their sway over the southern border, and at the beginning of the seventh century were occupying Lothian, or the territory south of the Forth, near which river then: King, Edwin of Northumbria, about 626, built the frontier stronghold Edin- burgh, " Edwin's town," which perpetuates his name. Lothian was then an integral part of Northumbria, and its people were Angles, with a considerable infusion of Norsemen. The later history of Lothian is of special importance, not only because it was a piece of England annexed to Scotland, but because, in the course of time, it virtually and politically became Scotland. The story, in brief, is this : About the middle of the ninth century the Keltic peoples of Scotland were united under one monarch who called him- self King of the Scots. About 970, Edgar, King of the 36 The TaUl of Rauf Cottjear. English, ceded Lothian to the Scottish King Kenneth III. (and a grant to Kenneth's successor extended the boundary to the Tweed), under certain conditions, one of which was that the people should retain their Englishry that is, their Anglian laws and language. So it was for some time a matter of dispute whether Lothian was an integral part of the Scottish kingdom, or a fief held under the English crown. William the Conqueror forced the Scottish King Malcolm Canmore to do homage for Lothian, and several of Malcolm's successors did the same, but reluctantly and under protest, until the war of independence, when the matter was settled by the treaty of Northampton in 1328. Thus though Scotland proper remained politically a Keltic monarchy, preserving its original laws, customs, and speech, the Lowlands were recognized as an English land, and retained their English laws and language. About the latter part of the eleventh century the Angle-speech of Northumbria began to supersede the Gaelic as the speech of the court and the laws. The principal cause of this change was the transfor- mation which the Scottish monarchy itself underwent. Mal- colm Canmore, son of King Duncan by a Northumbrian lady, was half an Angle by birth, and more than half by predilection. While a fugitive from the power of Macbeth, who had seized the throne, 1 he had found an asylum at the court of Edward the Confessor (or, at all events, in England) where he saw an order, dignity, and refinement unknown in his own semi-barbarous kingdom, and a land governed by fixed and written laws, instead of tribal customs and the 1 Some writers suppose that the rebellion of Macbeth, Maarmor, or Prince of Moray, was reactionary : a Pictish uprising against the Dalri- adic dynasty, and against the Anglicising tendency of the South. The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 37 arbitrary pleasure of savage chiefs. He saw great nobles supporting the kingship instead of banding against it, a free parliament (the Witenagemot) taking thought for the welfare of all, and a people who recognized themselves as an organized nation. Immediately after the Conquest, Malcolm, who had regained his crown by the death of Macbeth in 1057, sheltered, and then married, Margaret, granddaughter of Edmund Iron- side and sister of Edgar the JEtheling, the lineal heir to the English throne. The character and virtues of this princess were such as to lead to her canonization as a saint ; and her influence over her husband and the whole people must have been great. At the same time great numbers of the English of the north fled from the severity of William over the border into Scotland, where they were welcomed by Malcolm and his queen. The royal family was now so identified with the Anglian population, that we are justified in calling Malcolm and his successors English princes; so that when England seemed about to become Norman, Scotland became English. As if to emphasize the fact, Malcolm's children were named Edward, Edmund, Ethelred, Edgar, Alexander, and David, and from the time of his son Edgar, but one King of the Scots bore a Gaelic name. As was natural, the Gaelic portion of the population grew to look upon their kings as aliens with little or no claim to their loyalty or aifection, and the kings regarded their Gaelic subjects as turbulent malcontents. A quite remarkable contempt and abhorrence for the Gaels (or "Irish") as semi-savages of barbarous manners, uncouth appearance, and intolerable speech, grew up in the Lowlands, as the literature of more than three centuries abundantly witnesses. The speech of the Lowlands at this time was, no doubt, very similar to, if not identical with that of Northumbria. 38 The Taitt of Rauf Coil^ear. The numbers of Norsemen who, from an early period, settled in Northumbria, Lothian, and on the east coast of Scotland, must have added many Scandinavian words to both divisions of the northern speech, with a marked influence upon the grammar and phonology. It is plain that the Northern dia- lects, in regard to the levelling of vowels, dropping inflections and consonants, etc., took (whether by imitation or some internal law of change) the path which the Scandinavian tongues took, and that much earlier than did the Southern dialects. But the loss of records and literary monuments leaves us in the dark as to what transformations the Scottish language underwent until late in the fourteenth century, 1 when we find a regular and polished literary Scottish, differing not very greatly from the contemporary Northumbrian. This was now the national language of Scotland, the language of the court and diplomacy, of the parliament, the laws, and the literature. Its resources were developed by poets and prose writers of genius, taste, and culture for about two hundred years. But during this time it differentiated itself considerably from the English south of the Tweed, where the Midland 1 No manuscript in the Lowland Scottish has been discovered earlier than 1385. We have the same difficulty with the Northumbrian dialect, where the loss of documents prevents us from bridging the space between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries as we can in the case of the Southern dialects. Forms that we now mark as distinctly Scottish, may once have been common to both regions of the Northern speech. The verses on the Ruthwell Cross in Dumfriesshire prove nothing, as they are a transcript from a Northumbrian poem. General characteristics of the Northern dialect are : In the verb, -es in the pres. ind. pi. ; omission of -en from the infinitive ; no infinitives in -y or -ie; omission of the prefix y- or i-; -and as the ending of the pres. participle. In the noun, very few weak pis. in -en or -n ; very few muta- tion-plurals. The Taill of Rauf CoU^ear. 39 dialect gained the upper hand of the Northern. The hostility to England which was chronic in Scotland long after the war of independence, brought the Scots into close alliance with France. Most educated Scottish youth went to France to study ; many Scottish knights and soldiers spent years in the French service; there was a close friendship and constant intercommunication between the two peoples, and thus a multitude of French words, phrases, and constructions entered into the literary language, which became more and more separate from the vernacular or speech of daily life. The latter assimilated many words from the Scandinavian and Gaelic to which some writers add Pictish, though I am not aware that a Pictish word has been identified. 1 Toward the time of the Reformation, or the middle of the sixteenth century, when Scotland broke off her ancient alliance with France, and allied herself with England, the literary speech of Scotland begins to assimilate itself to the southern English ; and the accession of James VI. to the English throne, and the removal of the court to London, gave a mortal wound to the literary Scottish, which began to be looked upon as a rude and rustic dialect ; this tendency being greatly assisted by the universal use of the Genevan, or the Authorized Version of the Bible. The vernacular speech, however, survived in the mouths of men, especially of the peasantry, and in songs, ballads, and humorous poetry ; but having no standard, it split up into numerous dialects, and so survives to our own time, much affected by phonetic degra- dation. 1 For the reason mentioned in the previous note, it is possible that we may exaggerate the Scandinavian influence in the earlier period. Forms and words that we consider Scandinavian may have been originally Anglian, and the borrowing may have been the other way. 40 The Taill of Rauf C&ifyear. VOCABULARY. The words occurring in Rauf Coityear may be divided into three classes : 1. Those extant in modern southern English unchanged, as king, or with only the dialectic difference, as coillis. 2. Those which survive only in provincial or other special use, as fell (hill), myrk (dark), renk (lists, tilting-ground, whence " skating-rink "). 3. Those which have never existed or no longer exist in customary southern English. These are : I. Of Teutonic or Scandinavian origin : airt, anent, baft, bane, beird, beirn, beliue, bent, benwart, bet, bigging, birny, bland, blin, blonk, bodword, boun, braidit, braithlie, burelie, buskit, busteous, byrd, byre, cant, carll, carp, cleikit, coft, derf, ding, docht, dreichlie, drichtine, fand, fair, ferly, flan, foroutin, forrow, for^eild, foundis, frane, freik, freuch, gait, ganandest, gane, gar, gedlyng, gestning, girth, graid, graith, grassum, gyde, gyrd, haikit, hecht, hende, huif, hy, hynt, ilk, ithand, ken, kyith, lak, lane, leid, lemit, lent, lesing, liddernes, lyft, mer, neidlingis, onwart, pithis, quemly, raik, renkis, rid, rufe, ruse, schord, seigis, seir, selcouth, sib, speir, sprent, start, stound, sture, swyith, syne, teind, teir, tene, tent, tharth, thourtour, thra, thraly, thrawin, threip, thring, tit, tyne, tyte, vmbekest, vnkend, vnrufe, wane, wary- soun, wayudit, weir, wicht, will (astray), wy, wynning, wythest, ^aip, }air, }eid, ^eme. II. Of Romance origin are, aduertance, bancouris, bellisand, bene, cachit, capill, com- peir, cornellis, cussanis, dosouris, dourly, duchepeiris, dule, The Taill of Rauf Coityar. 41 durandlie, encheif, fewtir, fleichingis, fusioun, gal^art, gentrise, mait, mat, myster, pane, pauyot, prest, pulanis, rais, renk (course), reuall, reuest, rew, ronsy, saill, sen^eorabill, souer- ance, sperpellit, stour, succuderus, wassalage. VOWELS. The vowels differ to some extent from those in use to the south of the Tweed. The most conspicuous differences are these : a takes the place of Mod. Eng. o (OE. a) in words like hame (home) stane (stone). These words are also often written with ai, as raid (rode), laid (load). ai also sometimes replaces Mod. Eng. e (OE. sei) as in quhair (where), thair (there). d replaces e in weill (well), heir (here) ; ea in jdr (year) deid (dead), greit (great) ; ee in kneillit (kneeled), deidis (deeds), crdp (creep) ; i in gdf (give), Idf (live) ; o (OE. eo) in Ids (lose). o before a guttural often corresponds to Mod. Eng. ou, as bocht (bought) socht (sought), thocht (thought). ow has the sound of u (oo, ou). o (01) had often the sound of u (oo) as is shown by such interchangeable forms as roiff, rufe ; behovit, behufit ; rots, ruse ; as well as by the rimes. Whether this was a full u, as in Mod. Eng. do, move, or a narrow u, is uncertain. u frequently replaces Mod. Eng. oo (OE. 6) as in gude, mure. It is also written ui, as in bulk (book) suith (sooth), 42 The Taill of Rauf Cailjear. especially in the later texts. This narrow sound resem- bling French u, was probably due to Keltic influence ; but the i may have been originally inserted to indicate a long vowel, as in ai, ei, oi, and yi. y often corresponds to Mod. Eng. i, as fyre, pryde. It is sometimes written yi, as swyith, blyith, kyith, which is merely an indication of length. A silent i is sometimes inserted to lengthen a preceding o (analogous to a, ai) as coillis (coals), befoir (before), r&is (rose). The characters i and y } are constantly interchanged . v (in our text) is always initial, whether it represent a vowel or consonant, as vndo, vacant. So u is always medial, as rufe, conuert. The subjoined scheme, though imperfect, may be helpful to the student. VOWELS. (ORIGINALLY SHORT). Nth. a, W. S. a before nasals is represented by a, as blan, name, gang, wan (won), and before other consonants by a or ai, as mak, taill, fair (go). a -(- g becomes aw in dawis (days). as in the pi. of strong nouns (ME. es) has become -is, as stanis. Levelling has reduced other plurals to this form, as daittis, freiMs. Nth. a, W. S. o becomes u in durst. Nth. a (or > a), W. S. ea (breaking) is represented by a, as fall, hold, old, arme ; The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 43 or by au in auld, tauld (told in the rime). It becomes ei in weild. Nth. , W. S. *e becomes a or at, as bak, glaid (glad), and e in efter, hes. as -f g is represented by a or ay in agane, agayne, day. Nth. 6, W. S. 86 becomes ei in leird (taught). Nth. 83, W. S. a becomes a (with inorganic 1} in walkin (waken). Nth. SB (+ g) "W. S. e (+ g) becomes ay in playis. Nth. e, W. S. ea becomes ai in gaif, and e in jet. Nth. 83 (+h) W. S. ea(+h) becomes aw in saw. Nth. 83 (+ h) W. S. i ( + h) becomes ieh in knicht. Nth. 83, W. S. i (+ h) becomes ai in slais (W. S. slihft). Nth. e, e., W. S. e, e. remains for the most part unchanged, as bed, men, help, anent, tett, sett; but at the end of strong past participles it has become i, as chosin, haldin, knawn. 44 The Tattl of Eauf Gottjear. It becomes ei in speir (spear) weitt, feUd, meit (meat), and a in the second syllable of erand. The unstressed (or feminine) final e makes no syllable. Nth. elo eallum gecy)>an. Byrhtnoth. I I, I I And J?us serest saeide in Englene londe. La^amon. I 111 That they with the planet may rest and arise. Twsser. I.I I I And starting around me the echoes replied. Scott. Slight variations were allowable : a short syllable might be omitted, as Thocht thy body be braissit in that bricht hew ; or the position of the stress altered : / III Fairand ouir the feildis full few thair I fand and so forth, provided the design was not obscured. In the time of Edward I. a new metrical form was intro- duced into English poetry, which attained a wide popularity : the caudate verses as they were called, in which the couplets of the strophe were interrupted by a line or lines with inde- pendent rimes, or a group of these closed the stanza, as with a cauda, or tail a scheme borrowed from the Lathi hymns of the Church, and perhaps suggested by the responses. At The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 57 the north, this species grew greatly into favour, and old romances, such as King Horn (originally in short couplets) were re-written in the new form, and others composed in it or translated into it. While spirited, and pleasing in its inge- nuity, those who preferred the stately and flowing couplet thought this verse not much better than doggerel. Chaucer has caricatured it in his Sir Thopas, which draws from the exasperated Host the cry " Swiche a rym the devel I biteche ! This may wel be rym dogerel," quod he. Various experiments were made in combining the alliterative and rhythmical with the rimed and metrical verse. 1 Probably one of the earliest forms is that found in the romance of Gawayn. Here the unknown poet has simply cut up his poem, in the unrimed alliterative verse, into unequal blocks of from thirteen to thirty-seven lines, ending each block with a cauda consisting of a " bob," followed by four short, two- stressed, alternately riming lines. The caudate stanza became popular as a way of combining the two systems. Designs were invented of which the main body was in long alliterative freely rhythmical lines, with terminal rimes, to which was appended a cauda of short riming lines connected with the preceding with more or less ingenuity. Early in the fourteenth century we find a Midland poem on the Execution of Simon Eraser (cited by Schipper) of this design : 1 In point of fact, the two principles the indigenous, of free rhythm, and the exotic, of strict metre have contended in English poetry from the thirteenth to the present century ; and most of the apparent anomalies in our versification are due to this fact. 58 The TaiU of Rauf Cofyear. Lysteneh lordynges, a new songe ichulle bigynne Of t>e traytours of Scotland J>at take be)> wyl> gynne. Men )>at louej> falsnesse and nule neuer blynne, Sore may him drede J>e lyf t>at he is ynne. Ich vnderetonde, Selde wes he glad pat neuer wes asad Of nyt>e ant of onde. The York and Towneley Mysteries contain many experi- ments in various designs of alliterative riming stanzas. Of these, that of the Flagdlacio in the Towneley series comes nearest to our text. Here is a specimen : For no thyng in this warld dos me more grefe Then for to here of Crist and of his new lawes ; To trow that he is Godys son my hart wold all to-clefe, Though he be neuer so trew both in dedys and in sawes. Therfor shall he suffre mekill myschefe, And all the dyscypyls that vnto hym drawes : For ouer all solace to me is most lefe The shedyng of cristen bloode, and that all lury knawes. I say you, My knyghtys full swythe Thare strengthes will thay kyth And bryng hym be-lyfe : Lo, where thay com now. Here the ninth line has two stresses, and the thirteenth three. The play is probably older than Rauf Coifyear. This type of stanza found its way into Scotland, where it is met with in several poems. The metrical form of Rauf C&ifyear is a regular stanza of thirteen lines, the first eight four-stressed, alliterative, and riming alternately, then an independent ninth line of full length. These nine are followed by a cauda, or " wheel " of The Taill of Eauf Coifyar. 59 three short (typically two-stressed) lines carrying their own rime, after which a fourth short line gives the response to the ninth, completing the cauda and the stanza. The rime- scheme is abababab|cdddc. x The long lines are, in general design, the old alliterative line, modified however by the riming construction, which calls for a stress on the rime-syllable. As in the earlier form, the line is in two metrical sections, with, as a rule, two principal stresses in each, the stressed syllable carrying the alliteration. Using the letter a for the alliterating syllable, and x for the stressed syllable which does not alliterate, we may distinguish three types : A aa | ax or aa \ xa With ane capill and twa creillis | cuplit abufe He cachit fra the court | sic was his awin cast B ax | aa or xa \ aa Gangand with laidis | my gouerning to get To cum to this palice | he preissis to preif c aa \ aa Thay past vnto Paris I thay proudest in pane 1 The same form is found in Golagros, the Awntyrs of Arthure, the Howled, in Douglas's prologue to bk. viii of his Aeneid, in the Flytingol Polwarth and Montgomerie, and, with differences, in Dunbar's Kynd Kittok, the Pistill of Susan, the Gyre Carling, and one or two more. A specimen in the Southern dialect occurs in Rel. Ant. ii, 7. It lent itself readily to burlesque, as in the Turnament of Totenham, in which the long lines are reduced to four. King James, in his Reulis and Cautelis, cites a stanza as an example of what he calls "tumbling verse." Now we know from Chaucer, Wyntoun, and others that the free alliterative verse was called "cadence." James's "tumbling verse" is therefore the equivalent of versus cadentes. A favourite device with some of these poets was to link each stanza to the preceding by the repetition of some word or phrase. 60 The TaiU of Rauf Coifyear. Of these types A is most frequent, c next, and B is comparatively rare. There are also many lines irregularly alliterated, or entirely without alliteration. Great licence is allowed in the use of unstressed syllables. Compare the lines Baith tyde and tyme in all my travale Quhair etier thow fyndis me befoir the, thi harberie is tane. Notwithstanding the irregular appearance of this versification, the rhythm is well-marked and easily caught. RIMES. The rimes in this poem are remarkably accurate, most of them being perfect to both eye and ear. So scrupulous is the poet (or the copyist) that he sometimes alters the spelling when the sound is perfect without ; thus, trauale : hale ; trau- aitt : saitt. Occasionally he alters both spelling and sound to fit the rime; thus coil^ear : thair ; cottjeir : eheir ; fewaitt: saitt ; fewatt: sail. The digraph ea does not occur except in eoifyear. Self-rimes occur, but rarely. See 11. 70, 303, 454, 805, 831. Weak rimes, such as fry : quemely ; fattest : drest, are common. Double rimes occur at 11. 377, 709. The plural and verbal endings in -is do not make separate syllables. Taking into account the scrupulous accuracy of the riming, such rimes as me : be : pardie ; fee : be : cumpany ; se : hie : he; we : lie, etc. (which are frequent in Dunbar and other poets) point to an i (ee) sound in the final e of monosyllables. The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. 61 Rimes apparently defective are : bad : glaid (113); glaid : stad (601). Glaid (adj.) elsewhere rimes with maid : raid (75). So in other Sc. texts, showing that the vowel is long, wan : ken : man : than (765) ken rimes elsewhere with men, fen, etc. name : lane : plane : fane (311) ; tane : gane : nane : blame (156). start : hart : conuert (891). The pronunciation of -ert = -art is peculiar. We might suspect a Southern influence, but even Holland, who wrote in Moray, uses hert and hart interchangeably. In the Thornton MS. of AA. we have quarte : herte : starte, where Douce MS. has quert : hert : stert. haue : craue : gaif : saue (494). As gaif is here the infinitive (for gdf) it must be a case of exigency, suppar : coil^ear : bair : than* (181). We might correct suppar to suppair, as in 1. 221. haist : almaist : past : gaist (830). deme : sene : bene : clene (675). Dunbar has, in his Welcome to Queen Margaret, " Kejoysing from the sone beme, Welcum of Scotland to be Quene." A license like name : lane ; nane : blame, above, threip : meit : heip : leip (79). Of course a defective rime, richt : sicht : knicht : fecht (869) ; richt : knicht : dicht : hecht (792). The paucity of rimes in -echt probably compelled this. rid : bed : led : cled (259). wise : douchereis (929). 62 The Taitt of Rauf Coifyear. ruse : behuse : excuse : dois. See note on 1. 80. Dunbar rimes dois with russ (ruse) and refuss. nyse : Parys : clais : wise (428). This must be an imperfect rime, as ai was not a diphthong in M. Scottish, threttis : meit (657) must be a corruption in the text. KEFEKENCES. AA. The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne. Scottish Text Socy. E.E.T. The Early English Text Society's Publications. G. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. Early Eng. Text Socy. GG. The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane. Scot- tish Text Socy. H. The Buke of the Howlat. Scottish Text Socy. LS. Legends of the Saints. Scottish Text Socy. MA. Morte Arthure, the Alliterative Version. Early Eng. Text Socy. ST. The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear (in Scottish Alliterative Poems). Scottish Text Socy. W. Schir William Wallace. By Henry the Minstrel. Scottish Text Socy. Y.M. York Mystery Plays. Ed. L. Toulmin Smith. Oxford: 1885. Other works referred to are Avowynge of Arthur. Ed. J. Robson. Camden Socy. Barbour, John. The Bruce. Ed. W. W. Skeat. Early Eng. Text Socy. Clannesse. In Alliterative Poems. Ed. Morris. Early Eng. Text Socy. Clariodus. Ed. E. Piper. Maitland Club Pubs. 1830. Douglas. The Poetical Works of Gawin Douglas. Ed. J. Small. 1 874. 63 64 The Taill of Rauf Coifyear. Dunbar. Poems of William Dunbar. Ed. J. Small. Scottish Text Socy. English Metrical Homilies of the Fourteenth Century. Ed. J. Small. 1862. Geste of Eobin Hood. Eng. and Scotch Ballads. Ed. F. J. Child. 1882. Henryson. Poems of Robert Henryson. Ed. A. Laing. 1872. John the Reeve. Anc. and Popular Poems of Scotland. Ed. D. Laing. 1872. Lauder, William. Dewtie of Kingis. Ed. F. Hall. Early Eng. Text Socy. La3amon's Brut. Ed. F. Madden. 1847. Libeaus Desconus. Ed. M. Kaluza. 1890. Pistill, the, of Susan. Ed. F. J. Amours. Scottish Text Socy. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. Ed. T. Hearne. 1810. Sir Amadace. Three Early Eng. Metrical Romances. Ed. J. Robson. Camden Socy. Sir Degrevant. Ed. J. O. Halliwell. Camden Socy. Sir Ferumbras. Ed. S. J. Herrtage. Early Eng. Text Socy. Sir Gray Steill. In Laing's Early Popular Poetry. Ed. Hazlitt. 1895. Towneley Plays. Early Eng. Text Socy. Wyntoun, Andrew. Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland. Ed. D. Laing. 1872. Twain and Gawain. Anc. Eng. Metrical Romances. Ed. J. Ritson. 1802. BIBLIOGEAPHY Of the Scottish. Poets mentioned in Introduction. JOHN BAKBOUR. MSS. MS. in St. John's College, Cambridge, written in 1487. MS. in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, written in 1489. Printed Editions. Andro Hart, Edinburgh, 1616. Andrew Anderson, Edinburgh, 1670. Robert Pinkerton, London, 1790. John Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1820. Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1856. Rev. W. W. Skeat, London, 1870 (Early Eng. Text. Socy.). " " " " Edinburgh, 1891 (Scottish Text Socy.). The Legends of the Saints, attributed by some to Barbour, have been edited for the Scottish Text Socy. by W. M. Metcalfe (1888-) and by C. Horstman, Heilbronn, 1891-2. ANDROW WYNTOUN. MSS. Wemyss MS. in Wemyss Castle, 15th century. Cotton MS. Nero D, xi., British Museum, written about 1440. Royal MS. 17, D, xx. " " " " 1480. 5 65 66 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. MS. A, 71, Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, 15th century, and others of less importance. Printed Editions. D. Macpherson, London, 1795. D. Laing, Edinburgh, 1872 (reprint). KING JAMES I. MS. (unique) in Bodleian Library, Oxford, written about 1475. Printed Editions. W. Tytler, Edinburgh, 1783. G. Chalmers, London, 1824. E. Thomson, Ayr, 1824. C. Rogers, Edinburgh, 1875. J. Thomson, Glasgow, 1877. Rev. W. W. Skeat, Edinburgh, 1884 (Scottish Text Socy.). ROBERT HENRYSON. MSS. The poems of Henry son are scattered in several MS. collections, the most important of which are : The Asloan MS. written by John Asloan about 1515 ; in the library of Lord Talbot de Malahide. The Bannatyne MS. written by George Bannatyne about 1568; in Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. The Harleian MS. No. 3865, written about 1571 ; in British Museum. Printed Edition. B. Laing, Edinburgh, 1865. (A new edition is promised by the Scottish Text Socy.). The Taitt of Eauf Coiljear. 67 HOLLAND. MSS. Asloan MS., described above. Bannatyne MS., described above. Printed Editions. D. Laing, Edinburgh, 1823 (Bannatyne Club). F. J. Amours, Edinburgh, 1891 (Scottish Text Socy.). HENRY THE MINSTREL. MS. (unique) in Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, written in 1488 by John Ramsay. Printed editions are numerous ; the best are Chepman and Millar (earliest), 1508. J. Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1820. J. Moir, Edinburgh, 1885-9 (Scottish Text Socy.). WILLIAM DUNBAR. MSS. Dunbar's poems are scattered through the following MS. collections : Bannatyne MS., described above. Maitland MS. written about 1570 ; in Pepysian Library, Cambridge. Reidpeth MS. written in 1622 ; in Library of University of Cambridge. Printed Editions. D. Laing, Edinburgh, 1834. J. Schipper, Vienna, 1891. Part I. J. Small, Edinburgh, 1893 (Scottish Text Socy.). 68 The Taitt of Rauf CoUjear. WALTER KENNEDY. Some poems attributed to Kennedy are included in Laing's edition of Dunbar. GAWIN DOUGLAS. MSS. Aeneid, MS. in Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, written about 1525. Aeneid, Elphynstoun MS. in Library of University of Edin- burgh, about 1527. Aeneid, Ruthven MS. in Library of University of Edinburgh, about 1530. Aeneid, Lambeth MS. in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, about 1545. Aeneid, Bath MS. in the Library of the Marquis of Bath, about 1547. Kyng Hart. In Maitland MS. Printed Editions. Palice of Honour, W. Copland, London, 1553 (?). Aeneid, S. Ruddiman, Edinburgh, 1720. " Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1839. Whole works. John Small, Edinburgh, 1874. SIR DAVID LYNDSAY. Printed editions are numerous ; the best are R. Pinkerton, London, 1792. G. Chalmers, London, 1806. D. Laing, Edinburgh, 1871 (reprint). Part of his works are in Early Eng. Text Socy., 1865-71. THE TAILL OF EATJF COILYEAR Heir beginnis the taill of Kauf Coilyear how he harbreit King Charlis. ' In the cheiftyme of Charlis, that chosin chiftane, Thair fell ane ferlyfull flan within thay fellis wyde, Quhair Empreouris and Erlis and vther mony ane, Turnit fra Sanct Thomas befoir the 3ule tyde. Thay past vnto Paris, thay proudest in pane, With mony Prelatis and Princis, that was of mekle pryde ; All thay went with the King to his worthy wane, Ouir the feildis sa fair thay fure be his syde ; All the worthiest went in the morning, Baith Dukis and Duchepeiris, 10 Barrounis and Bacheleiris, Mony stout man steiris Of town with the King. And as that Ryall raid ouir the rude mure, Him betyde ane tempest that tyme, hard I tell ; is The wind blew out of the eist stiflie and sture, The deip durandlie draif in mony deip dell ; Sa feirslie fra the firmament, sa fellounlie it fure, Thair micht na folk hald na fute on the heich fell. In point thay war to parische, thay proudest men and pure, 20 In thay wickit wedderis thair wist nane to dwell. Amang thay myrk montanis sa madlie thay mer, 71 72 The TaiU of Rauf Coil^ear. Be it was pryme of the day, Sa wonder hard fure thay, That ilk ane tuik ane seir way, 25 And sperpellit fill fer. Ithand wedderis of the eist draif on sa fast, It all to-blaisterit and blew that thairin baid. Be thay dissetierit sindrie, midmorne was past, Thair wist na knicht of the Court quhat way the King raid. so He saw thair was na better bot God at the last, His steid aganis the storme staluartlie straid ; He cachit fra the Court, sic was his awin cast, Quhair na body was him about be fiue mylis braid. In thay montanis, i-wis, he wox all will, 35 In wickit wedderis and wicht, Amang thay montanis on hicht ; Be that it drew to the nicht, The King lykit ill. Euill lykand was the King it nichtit him sa lait, I had mekill mair nait sum freindschip to find : And gif thow can better than I, For the name of Sanct July, Thow bring me to sum harbery, And leif me not behind." a . "I wait na worthie harberie heir neir hand, For to serue sic ane man as me think the, Nane bot mine awin hous, maist in this land, Fer furth hi the forest, amang the fellis hie. With thy thow wald be payit of sic as thow fand, 70 Forsuith thow suld be wel-cum to pas hame with me, Or ony vther gude fallow that I heir fand Walkand will of his way, as me think the ; For the wedderis are sa fell, that fallis on the feild." The King was blyth, quhair he raid, 75 Of the grant that he had maid, Sayand, with hart glaid, " Schir, God ^ow for^eild." 74 The Taill of Rauf CaUjear. +\ " Na, thank me not ouir airlie, for dreid that we threip, For I have seruit the }it of lytill thing to ruse ; *' so For nouther hes thow had of me fyre, drink, nor meit, Nor nane vther eismentis for trauellouris behuse ; Bot, micht we bring this harberie this nicbt weill to heip, That we micht with ressoun baith thus excuse ; To-morne on the morning, quhen thow sail on leip,-r^ ss Pryse at the parting, how that thow dois ; For first to lofe and syne to lak, Peter ! it is schame." The King said : " In gude fay, Schir, it is suith that ^e say." Into sic talk fell thay *> Quhill thay war neir hame. & To the Coil^earis hous baith, or thay wald blin, The Carll had cunning weill quhair the gait lay : " Vndo the dure beliue ! Dame, art thow in ? Quhy Deuill makis thow na dale for this euill day ? as For my gaist and I baith cheueris with the chin Sa fell ane wedder feld I neuer, be my gude fay." The gude wyfe glaid with the gle to begin, For durst scho neuer sit summoundis that scho hard him say: The Carll was wantoun of word, and wox wonder wraith. 100 All abaisit for blame To the dure went our Dame, Scho said : " Schir, ^e ar welcome hame, And ^our gaist baith." ^ ' ^. " Dame, I haue deir coft all this dayis hyre, ws In wickit wedderis and weit walkand full will : Dame, kyith I am cummin hame, and kendill on ane fire, I trow our gaist be the gait hes fame als ill. The Taill of Rauf Coifyar. 75 Ane ryall rufe het fyre war my desyre, To fair the better for his saik, gif we micht win thair till, no Knap doun capounis of the best, but in the byre ; Heir is bot hamelie fair ; do beliue, Gill." Twa cant knaifis of his awin haistelie he bad : " The ane of ^ow my capill ta, The vther his coursour alswa, u To the sfobill swyith ^e ga." Than was the King glaid. I O . The Coihear, gudlie in feir, tuke him be the hand, i. ^ And put him befoir him, as ressoun had bene ; Quhen thay come to the dure, the King begouth to stand, 120 To put the Coil^ear in befoir, maid him to mene. He said : " Thow art vncourtes, that sail I warrand." He tyt the King be the nek, twa. part in tene ; " Gif thow at bidding suld be boun or obeysand, And gif thow of courtasie couth, thow hes forget it clene. 129 Now is anis," said the Coil^ear, " kynd aucht to creip, Sen ellis thow art vnknawin, To mak me lord of my awin : Sa mot I thriue, I am thrawin ; Begin we to threip." is> \ \ . Than benwart thay ^eidy^uhair brandis was bricht, To ane bricht byrnand fyre, as the Carll bad : He callit on Gyliane, his wyfe, thair supper to dicht. " Of the best that thair is, help that we had, Efter ane euill day to haue ane mirrie nicht, iss 76 The Taill of Rauf CoUjear. For sa troublit with stormis was I neuer stad ; Of ilk airt of the eist sa laithly it laid. ^it was I mekle willarj;han, Quhen I met with this man." Of sic taillis thay began, i*> Quhill the supper was graid. Sone was the supper dicht, and the fyre bet, And thay had weschin, i-wis, the worthiest was thair : " Tak my wyfe be the hand, in feir, withoutin let, And gang begin the buird," said the Coil^ear. i " That war vnsemand, forsuith, and thy self vnset." The King profferit him to gang, and maid ane strange fair. " Now is twyse," said the Carll, " me think thow hes forget." He leit gyrd to the King, withoutin ony mair, And hit him vnder the eir with his richt hand, i> Quhill he stakkerit thair with all Half the breid of the hall ; .** He faind neuer of ane fall, Quhill he the eird fand. i.* . He start vp stoutly agane, vneis micht he stand, iw For anger of that outray that he had thair tane. He callit on Gyliane his wyfe, " Ga, tak him be the hand, And gang agane to the buird, quhair ^e suld air haue gane. Schir, thow art vnskilfull, and that sail I warrand ; Thow byrd to haue nurtour aneuch, and thow hes nane. i Thow hes walkit, i-wis, in mony wyld land, The mair vertew thow suld haue, to keip the fra blame ; Thow suld be courtes of kynd, and ane cunnand courteir. The Taill of Eauf Coil^ear. 77 Thocht that I simpill be, Do as I bid the, iw The hous is myne, pardie, And all that is heir." The King said to him self : " This is an euill lyfe, ^it was I neuer in my lyfe thus gait leird ; And I haue oft tymes bene quhair gude hes bene ryfe, 170 That maist couth of courtasie in this Cristin eird. J. 4 .'. f Is nane sa gude as leif of, and mak na mair stryfe, For I am stonischit at this straik, that hes me thus steird." In feir fairlie he foundis, with the gude wyfe, Quhair the Coil^ear bad, sa braithlie he beird. 175 Quhen he had done his bidding, as him gude thocht, Doun he sat the King neir, And made him glaid and gude cheir, And said : " ^e ar welcum heir, Be him that me bocht." iso Quhen thay war seruit and set to the suppar, Gyll and the gentill King, Charlis of micht, Syne on the tother syde sat the Coil^ear ; Thus war thay marschellit but mair, and matchit that nicht. Thay brocht breid to the buird, and braun of ane bair, iss And the worthyest wyne went vpon hicht ; Thay beirnis, as I wene, thay had aneuch thair, Within that burelie bigging, byrnand full bricht ; Syne enteris thair daynteis on deis dicht dayntelie. Within that worthie wane 190 Forsuith wantit thay nane. With blyith cheir sayis Gyliane, " Schir, dois glaidlie." 78 The Taitt of Rauf CoU^ear. The Carll carpit to the King cumlie and cleir, " Schir, the forestaris, forsuith, of this forest, iw Thay haue me all at inuy for dreid of the deir ; Thay threip that I thring doun of the fattest : Thay say I sail to Paris, thair to compeir Befoir our cumlie King, in dule to be drest.' 1 * Sic manassing thay me mak, forsuith, ilk ^eir, 200 And ^it aneuch sail I haue for me and ane gest ; Thairfoir sic as thow seis, spend on and not spair." Thus said gentill Charlis the Mane To the Coil^ear agane : " The King him self hes bene fane '- " 205 Sum tyme of sic fair." > ' Of capounis and cunningis thay had plentie, With wyne at thair will and eik vennysoun ; Byrdis bakin in breid, the best that may be ; Thus full freschlie thay fiire into fusioun. v 210 The Carll with ane cleir voce carpit on he, Said, " Gyll, lat the cop raik for my bennysoun ; And gar our gaist begin, and syne drink thow to me ; Sen he is ane stranger, me think it ressoun." Thay drank dreichlie about, thay wosche, and thay rais. 215 The King with ane blyith cheir Thankit the Coil^eir, Syne all the thre into feir To the fyre gais. ^x x Quhen thay had maid thame eis, the Coil^ear tald Mony sindrie taillis efter suppair. Ane bricht byrnand fyre was byrnand full bald ; The Taill of Rauf Coityar. 79 The King held gude countenance and company bair, And euer to his asking ane answer he ^ald ; Quhill at the last he began to frane farther mair : 225 " In faith, freind, I wald wit, tell gif ^e wald, Quhair is thy maist wynning?" said the Coil^ear. " Out of weir," said the King, " I wayndit neuer to tell : With my Lady the Quene In office maist haue I bene, 230 All thir ^eiris fyftene, In the Court for to dwell." " Quhat kin office art thow in quhen thow art at hame, Gif thow dwellis with the Quene, proudest in.panej* " "Ane chyld of hir chalmer, Schir, be Sanct Jame, 235 And thocht my self it say, maist in wart of ane : For my dwelling to nicht I dreid me for blame." " Quhat sail I cal the," said the Coil^ear, " quhen thow art hyne gane ? " " Wymond of the Wardrop is my richt name ; Quhair euer thow findis me befoir the, thi harberie is feme. 240 And thow will cum to the Court, this I Thow sail haue, for thy fewaill, For my saik, the better saill, - And on wart to thy-trauaill. - ta^"i * Worth ane laid or twa." He said : " I haue na knawledge quhair the Court lyis, And I am wonder wa to cum quhair I am vnkend." ^ " And I sail say the the suith on ilk syde, i-wis, That thow sail wit weill aneuch or I fra the wend. Baith the King and the Quene meitis in Paris, 80 The Taitt of Rauf Cailjear. \ For to hald thair ^ule togidder, for scho is efter send. Thair may thow sell, be ressoun, als deir as thow will prys ; And ^it I sail help the gif I ocht may amend, For I am knawin with omciaris in cais thow cum thair. Haue gude thocht on my name, 2 And speir gif I be at hame, For I suppois, be Sanct Jame, Thow sail the better fair." *. * * " Me think it ressoun, be the Rude, that I do thy rid, In cais I cum to the Court and knaw bot the ane. ' 260 Is nane sa gude as drink, and gang to our bed, For als far as I wait, the nicht is furth gane." To ane preuie chalmer beliue thay him led, Quhair ane burely bed was wrocht in that wane, Closit with courtingis, and ctimlie cled : zw Of the worthiest wyne wantit thay nane. The Coil^ear and his wyfe baith with him thay ^eid, To serue him all at thay mocht, Till he was in bed brocht. Mair the King spak nocht, w> Bot thankit thame thair deid. 5L ^l . Vpon the morne airlie, quhen it was day, The King buskit him sone, with scant of squyary. Wachis and wardroparis all war away, That war wont for to walkin mony worthy. 275 Ane pauyot preuilie brocht him his palfray, The King thocht lang of this lyfe, and lap on in hy ; Than callit he on the Carll, anent quhair he lay, For to tak his leif, than spak he freindly ; Than walkinnit thay baith, and hard he was thair. The Taitl of Rauf Coifyear. 81. The Carll start vp sone, And prayit him to abyde none : " Quhill thir wickit wedderis be done, I rid nocht 26 fair." 0>/5."Sa mot I thriue," said the King, "me war laith to byde; 235 Is not the morne ^ule day, foremest of the ^eir ? Ane man that office suld beir be tyme at this tyde, He willjbe found in his fault that wantis, foroutin weir. I se the firmament fair vpon ather syde, I will returne to the Court quhill the wedder is cleir. 290 Call furth the gude wyfe, lat pay hir or we ryde, For the worthie harberie that I haue fundin heir." " Lat be, God forbid," the Coil^ear said, " And thow of Charlis cumpany, Cheif King of cheualry, 29*. That for ane nichtis barbery Pay suld be laid." 5^ W " 2,ea, sen it is sa that thow will haue na pay, Cum the morne to the Court and do my counsall ; Deliuer the and bring ane laid, and mak na delay j- J . n . Jl v 30 Thow may not scharne with thy craft, gif thow thriue sail. Gif I may help the ochtto sell, forsuith I sail assay, And als my self wald hauesum of the fewall." . " Peter ! " he said, " I sail Jreffijtne morne, gif I may, To bring coillis to the Court, to se gif thay sell sail." sos " Se that thow let nocht, I pray the," said the King. " In faith," said the Coil^ear, " Traist weill I salbe thair, For thow will neuer gif the mair T i i 'v- aX^jUUj^O't* lo mak ane lesmgC sio 6 82 The Taitt of Rauf C&iljear. * ' Bot tell me now, lelely, quhat is thy richt name ? I will forget the morne, and ony man me greif." " Wymond of the Wardrop, I bid not to lane ; Tak gude tent to my name, the Court gif thow will preif." " That I haue said I sail hald, and that I tell the plane ; sis Quhair ony coil^ear may enchaip, I trow till encheif." Quhen he had grantit him to cum, than was the King fane, And withoutin ony mair let, than he tuke his leif. Than the Coil^ear had greit thocht on the cunnand he had maid, Went to the charcoill in hy 320 To mak his chauffray reddy ; Agane the morne airly He ordanit him ane laid. f - ** The lyft lemit up beliue, and licht was the day ; The King had greit knawledge the countrie to ken. 325 Schir Holland and Oliuer come rydand the way, With thame ane thousand and ma of fensabill men War wanderand all the nicht ouir, and mony ma than thay, On ilk airt outwart war ordanit sic ten ; Gif thay micht heir of the King, or happin quhair he lay ; sso ' To Jesus Christ thay pray, that grace thame to len. Als sone as Schir Holland saw it was the King, He kneillit doun in the place, Thankand God ane greit space ; Thair was ane meting of grace sss At that gaddering. s Quhen his God to serue he suld haue him drest ; And syne, with ane blyith cheir, buskit that bald. Out of Paris proudly he preikit full prest Intill his harnes all haill his hechtis for to hald : He vmbekest the countrie outwith the toun ; < ^ v , vi-%_ i^ J; I sail hald that I haue hecht, bot I be hard set, To Wymond of the Wardrop, I wait full weill quhen." " Sa thriue I," said Holland, " it is mine intent, That nouther to Wymond nor Will o Thow sail hald nor hecht till, Quhill I haue brocht the to fulfill ^ The Kingis commandment." The Carll beheld to the knicht, as he stude than ; He bair, grauit in gold and gowlis in grene, Glitterand full gaylie quhen glemis began, Ane tyger ticht to ane tre, ane takin of tene. The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. . 87 Trewlie that tenefull was trimland than, Semelie schapin and schroud in that scheild schene ; Mekle worschip of^weir worthylie he wan *6o Befoir, into fechting with mony worthie sene. His basnet was bordourit and burneist bricht With stanis of beriall deir, Dyamottntis and sapheir, Riche rubeisjn feir, r * Reulit full richt. His plaitis properlie picht attour with precious stanis, And his pulanis full prest of that ilk peir Greit graipis of gold his greis for the nanis, And his cussanis cumlie schynand full cleir ; v^ < Bricht braissaris of steill about his arme banis, Blandit with beriallis and cristallis cleir ; \ Ticht ouir with thopas and trew lufe at anis ; The teind of his tewellis to tell war full teir. His sadill circulit and set richt sa on ilk syde ; M His brydill bellisand and gay, His steid stout on stray ; He was the ryallest of array On ronsy micht ryde. Of that ryall array that Holland in raid, Rauf rusit in his hart of that ryall thing : " He is the gayest in geir that euer on ground glaid, Haue he grace to the gre in ilk iornaying : War he ane manly man, as he is weill maid, He war foil michtie, with magre durst abyde his meting." He bad the Coil^ear in wraith swyth withoutin baid, Cast the creillis fra the capill, and gang to the King. 88 The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. " In faith, it war greit schame," said the Coil^ear : " I vndertuk thay suld be brocht This day, for ocht that be mocht ; Schir Knicht, that word is for nocht, That thow caris thair. Thow huifis on finFlioltis and haldis Quhill^half the haill day may the " Be Christ that was cristmnit, and his Mother cleir, -. * Thow sail qatchgt^ffie Court, that sail not be to era It micht be jremt preiudice, bot gif thow suld Qomfteir, To se quhat granting of grace the King waj^ the gaif.' " For na gold on this ground wald I, but ffieir. Be fundin fals to the King, sa Christ me saue." " To gar the cum and be knawin, as I am command I wait not quhat his willis be, -VT i_ - >a&tbi&B* f - it. JNor he^amit na mair the, Nor ane vther man to me, Bot quhome that I fand." " Thow fand me fechand nathing that followit to feid ; I war ane fule gif I fled, and fand nane affray ; Bot as ane lauchfull man my laidis to leid, That leifis with mekle lawtie and laubour, in fay. Be the Mother and the Maydin that maid vs remeid, And thow mat me ony mair, cum efter quhat sa may, Thow and I sail dyntis deill quhill ane of vs be deid, For the deidis thow hes me done vpon this deir day." Mekle merwell of that word had Schir Holland : He saw na wappinis thair, That the Coil^ear bair, Bot ane auld buklair, And ane roustie brand. sos o sis The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 89 " It is lyke," said Schir Rolland, and lichtly he leuch, " That sic ane stubill husband man wald stryke stoutly ; Thair is mony toun man to tuggill is full teuch, Thocht thair brandis be blak and vnburely : Oft fair foullis ar fundin faynt, and als freuch. I defend we fecht or fall in that foly. Lat se how we may disseuer with sobernes aneuch, sz& And catche crabitnes away, be Christ counsall I. Quhair winnis that Wymond thow hecht to meit to day ? " " With the Quene, tauld he me ; And thair I vndertuke to be, Into Paris, pardie, wo Withoutin delay." " And I am knawin with the Quene," said Schir Rolland, " And with mony byrdis in hir bowre, be buikis and bellis : The King is into Paris, that sail I warrand, And all his aduertance that in his Court dwellis. 535 Me tharth haue nane noy of myne erand, For me think thow will be thair, efter as thow tellis ; Bot gif I fand the, forrow now to keip my cunnand." " Schir Knicht," said the Coil^ear, " thow trowis me neuer ellis, Bot gif sum suddand let put it of delay ; MO For that I hecht of my will, And na man threit me thair till, That I am haldin to fulfill, And sail do quhill I may." " ^ea, sen thow will be thair, thy cunnandis to new, MS I neid nane airar myne erand nor none of the day." " Be thow traist," said the Coil^ear, " man, as I am trew, 90 The Taill of Rauf Cofyear. I will not haist me ane fute faster on the way ; Bot gif thow raik out of my renk, full raith sail thow rew, Or, be the Rude, I sail rais thy ryall array. MO Thocht thy body be braissit in that bricht hew, Thow salbe fundin als febil of thy bone fay." Schir Holland said to him self: " This is bot foly, To striue with him ocht mair : I se weill he will be thair." MS His leif at the Coil^ear He tuke lufesumly. " Be Christ," said the Coil^ear, " that war ane foull scorne, That thow suld chaip, bot I the knew, that is sa schynand ; For thow seis my weidis ar auld and all to-worne, sso Thow trowis nathing thir taillis that I am telland. Bring na beirnis vs by, bot as we war borne, And thir blonkis that vs beiris, thairto I mak ane bland, That I sail meit the heir vpon this mure to-morne, Gif I be haldin in heill, and thairto my hand, ses Sen that we haue na laiser at this tyme to ta." In ane thourtour way, Seir gaitis pas thay, Baith to Paris, in fay, Thus partit thay twa. 570 The gentill knicht, Schir Holland, come rydand full sone, And left the Coil^ear to cum, as he had vndertane ; And quhen he come to Paris, the hie mes was done, The King with mony cumly out of the kirk is gane. Of his harnes in hy he hynt withoutin hone, ws And in ane rob him arrayit richest of ane. In that worschipfull weid he went in at none, The Tatil of Rauf C&U^ear. 91 As he was wont, with the wy that weildit the wane, On fute, ferly in feir, formest of all. Richt weill payit was the King r - Hn Of Schir Rollandis dimming ; To speir of his tything Efter him gart call. ** The King in counsall him callit : " Cum bidder, Schir Knicht, Hes thow my bidding done, as I the command?". 86 " In faith," said Schir Holland, " I raid on full richt, To watche wyselie the wayis ; that I sail warrand. Thair wald na douchtie this day for iornay be dicht : Fairand ouir the feildis full few thair I fand ; Saif anerly ane man that semblit in my sicht, wo Thair was na leid on lyfe lent in this land." " Quhat kin a fallow was that ane, Schir, I the pray ? " " Ane man in husband weid, Buskit busteously on breid, Leidand coillis he ^eid w To Paris the way." " Quhy hes thow not that husband brocht as I the bad ? I dreid me, sa he dantit the, thow durst not with him deill." " In faith," said Schir Holland, " gif that he sa had, That war full hard to my hart, and I ane man in heill." wo He saw the King was engreuit, and gat furth glaid, To se gif the Coil^earis lawtie was leill. " I suld haue maid him in the stour to be full hard stad, And I had wittin that the carll wald away steill ; Bot I trowit not the day that he wald me beget." 92 The Tattl of Rauf Cmfyear. As he went outwart bayne, He met ane porter swayne, Cummand raith him agayne, Fast fra the ^et. " Quhair gangis thow, gedling, thir gaitis sa gane ? " o "Be God," said the grome, "ane gift heir I geif; I deuise at the ^et thair is ane allane, Bot he be lattin in beliue, him lykis not to leif ; With ane capill and twa creillis cassin on the plane, To cum to this palice he preissis to preif." v n& " Gif thow hes fundin that freik, in faith I am fane. Lat him in glaidly, it may not engreif. Bot askis he eirnestly efter ony man ? " Than said that gedling on ground : " ^e, forsuith, in this stound, 520 Efter ane Wymound, In all that he can." " Pas agane, porter, and lat him swyith in, Amang the proudest in preis, plesand in pane ; Say thow art not worthy to Wymond to win, 625 Bid him seik him his self, gif thair be sic ane." Again gangis Schir Holland, quhair gle suld begin, A'icl tlic ^aip ^eman to the ^et is gane ; Enbraissit the bandis beliue, or that he wald blin, Syne leit the wy at his will wend in the wane. " Gang seik him now thy self," he said vpon hicht, " My self hes na lasair Fra thir ^ettis to fair." " Be Chrkt," said the Coi^ear, " I set that bot licht. The Taill of Rauf Cviljear. 93 Gif thow will not seik him, my awin self sail, For I haue oft tymes swet in seruice full sair. Tak keip to my capill, that na man him call, Quhill I cum fra the Court/' said the Coil^ear. " My laid war I laith to lois, I leif the heir all : s*> Se that thow leis thame not, bot ^eme thame full }air." In that hardy in hy he haikit to that hall, For to wit gif Wymondis wyrming was thair. He arguit with the ischar ofter than auis : " Schir, can thow ocht say, MS Quhair is Wymond the day ? I pray the, bring him, gif thow may, Out of this wanis." He trowit that the wy had wittin of Wymond he wend, Bot to his raifand word he gaue na rewaird ; eso Thair was na man thairin that his name kend, Thay countit not the Coil^ear almaist at regaird. He saw thair was na meiknes nor mesure micht mend, He sped him in spedely, and nane of thame he spaird. Thair was na fyue of thay freikis that micht him furth fend, ess He socht in sa sadly, quhill sum of thame he saird. He thristit in throw thame thraly with threttis ; Quhen he come amang thame all, ^it was the King in the hall, And mony gude man with all, eea Vngane to the meit. Thocht he had socht sic ane sicht all this seuin ^eir, Sa solempnit ane semblie had he not sene ; The hall was properly apperrellit and paintit but peir, Dyamountis full dantely dentit betwene. 94 The Taitt of Rauf Coiljear. It was semely set on ilk syde seir, Gowlis glitterand full gay, glemand in grene, Flowris with flourdelycis formest in feir, With mony flamand ferly, ma than fyftene : The rufe reulit about in reuall of reid ; &o Rois reulit ryally, Columbyn and lely ; Their was ane hailsum harbery, Into riche steid. With dosouris to the duris dicht, quha sa wald deme, ws With all diuers danteis dicht dantely ; Circulit with siluer semely to sene, Selcouthly in seir he was set suttelly ; Blyth byrdis abufe, and bestiall full bene, Fyne foullis in fyrth, and fischis with fry ; eao The flure carpit and cled and couerit full clene ; Cummand fra the cornellis closand quemely, Bricht bancouris about browdin ouir all. Greit squechonis on hicht, Anamalit and weill dicht, ess Reulit at all richt Endlang the hall. " Heir is ryaltie," said Rauf, " aneuch for the nanis, With all nobilnes anournit, and that is na nay. Had I of Wymond ane word, I wald of thir wanis, ego Fra thir wyis, i-wis, to went on my way : Bot I mon ^it heir mair quhat worthis of hun anis, And eirnestly efter him haue myne e ay." He thristit in throw threttie all atanis, The Taitt of Rauf Coil^ear. 95 Quhair mony douchtie of deid war ioynit that day. For he was vnburely, on bak thay him hynt : As he gat ben throw, He gat mony greit schow, Bot he was stalwart, I trow, And laith for to stynt. He thristit in throw thame, and thraly can thring, Fast to the formest he foundit in feir ; Sone besyde him he gat ane sicht of the nobill King. " ^one is Wymond, I wait, it worthis na weir. I ken him weill, thocht he be cled in vther clething, In clais of clene gold, kythand ^one cleir. Quhen he harbreit with me, be half as he is heir. In faith, he is of mair stait than euer he me tald. Allace that I was bidder wylit ! I dreid me sair I be begylit." The King preuilie smylit, Quhen he saw that bald. Thair was seruit in that saill seigis semelie, Mony sen^eorabill syre on ilk syde seir ; With ane cairfull countenance the Coil^ear kest his e To the cumly Quene, courtes and cleir. " Dame, of thy glitterand gyde haue I na gle, Be the gracious God that bocht vs sa deir. To ken kingis courtasie, the deuill come to me, And sa I hope I may say or I chaip heir. Micht I chaip of this chance, that changis my cheir, 700 705 no 7:o 96 The TaiU of Rauf Coti$ear. Thair suld na man be sa wyse, To gar me cum to Parise, To luke quhair the King lyis, In faith this seuin ^eir ! " 725 Quhen worthie had weschin, and fra the buirdis went, Thay war for-wonderit, i-wis, of thair wyse lord. The King fell in carping, and tauld his intent, To mony gracious grome he maid his record ; How the busteous beirne met him on the bent, 730 And how the frostis war sa fell, and sa strait ford. Than the Coil^ear quoke as he had bene schent, Quhen he hard the suith say how he the King schord. " Greit God ! gif I war now, and thy self with all, Vpon the mure quhair we met, 735 Baith all suddandly set, Or any knicht that thow may get, Sa gude in thy hall ! " Thir lordis leuch vpon loft, and lystinit to the King, How he was ludgeit and led, and set at sa licht ; 7 It is my will thow conuert : This wickit warld is bot ane start ; And haue him halely in hart That maker is of all." " Schir Holland, I rek nocht of thy rauingis, we Thow dois bot reuerence to thame that rekkis it nocht : Thow slane hes oft, thy self, of my counsingis, 102 The Taill of Rauf CoUjear. Soudanis and sib men, that the with schame socht ; Now faindis to haue fauour with thy fleichingis. Now haue I ferlie, gif I fauour the ocht. oo We sail spuil^e ^ow dispittously at the nixt springis, Mak ^ow biggings full bair, bod word haue I brocht. Chace Charlis }our King fer out of France. Fra the Chane of Tartarie, At him this message wald I be, sos To tell him as I haue tauld the, Withoutin plesance." " Tyte tell me thy name, it seruis of nocht ; }e Sara^eins ar succuderus and self willit ay : Sail neuer of sa sour ane brand ane bricht fyre be brocht, 910 The Feynd is sa felloun als fer as he may." " Sa thriue I," said the Sara^ine, " to threip is my thocht ; Quha waitis the Cristin with cair, my cusingis ar thay. My name is Magog, in will, and I mocht, To ding thame doun dourly that euer war in my way : 915 For thy my warysoun is full gude at hame quhair I dwel." " In faith," said Schir Holland, " That is full euill wyn, land To haue quhill thow ar leuand, Sine at thine end hell. 920 Wald thow conuert the in hy, and couer the of sin, Thow suld- haue mair profite and mekle pardoun. Riche douchereis seir to be sesit in, During quhill day dawis, that neuer will gang doun. Wed ane worthie to wyfe, and weild hir with win, 925 Ane of the riche of our realme, be that ressoun ; The Taill of Eauf Caityar. 103 The gentill Duches, Dame lane, that clamis be hir kin Angeos and vther landis, with mony riche toun. Thus may thow, and thow will, wirk the best wise. I do the out of dispair, 930 In all France is nane sa fair Als scho is, appeirand air To twa douchereis." " I rek nocht of thy riches, Schir Holland the knicht," Said the rude Sara^ine in ryall array ; 935 " Thy gold nor thy grassum set I bot licht ; Bot gif thy God be sa gude as I heir the say, I will forsaik Mahoun and tak me to his micht, Euir mair perpetuallie, as he that mair may. Heir with hart and gude will my treuth I the plicht, *) That I sail lelely leif on thy Lord ay, And I beseik him of grace, and askis him mercy, And Christ his Sone full schene ; For I haue Cristin men sene, That in mony angeris hes bene, 945 Full oft on him cry." " I thank God," said Holland, " that word lykis me, And Christ his sweit Sone, that the that grace send." Thay swoir on thair swordis swyftlie all thre, And conseruit thame freindis to thair lyfis end, seo Euir in all trauell to leif and to die. Thay knichtis caryit to the Court, as Christ had thame kend. The King for thair cumming maid game and gle, With mony mirthfull man thair mirthis to mend. Digne bischoppis that day that doucntie gart bring, 955 104 The Taitt of Rauf Coiljear. And gaue him sacramentis seir, And callit him Schir Gawteir, And sine the Duohes cleir He weddit with ane ring. Than Schir Rauf gat rewaird to keip his knichtheid : Sic tythingis come to the King within thay nyne nicht, That the Marschell of France was newlingis deid : Richt thair, with the counsall of rnony kene knicht, He thocht him richt worthie to byde in his steid, For to weild that worschip worthie and wicht. His wyfe wald he nocht forget, for dout of Goddis feid. He send after that hende, to leif thame in richt ; Syne foundit ane fair place quhair he met the King, Euir mair perpetually, In the name of Sanct luly, That all that wantis harbery, Suld haue gestnmg. FINIS. Imprentit at Sanctandrois be Robert Lekpreuik. Anno 1572. NOTES. LIKE. 2. flan. Storm, tempest, ON. flan. The word does not seem to occur elsewhere in Early Scottish. 4. Sanct Thomas. Thomas & Beket, archbishop of Can- terbury, assassinated A. D. 1170. His tomb at Canterbury was much resorted to by pilgrims. The anachronism involved in making Charlemagne return from this pilgrimage, did not trouble our poet. 5. pane. Apparel, attire, fr. Lat. pannus. "He }af him robe of palle, And pane of riche skinne." Tristrem, 568. Analogous phrases frequent in the metrical romances are "prowdeste in palle," AA. 66, and " wlonkeste in wedys," AA. 9. The word was applied to gores of gay stuffs set into garments : "in a pair of paned slops," Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, iv. 1 ; and hence to the quarrels of glass set in windows. 10. duchepeiris. The douze pairs or paladins, Charlemagne's famous band of twelve great barons. The term was sometimes applied to any high nobles, as " Wyth duke} and dusperes of dyuers rewmes." MA. 66. Arthur rides " Withe dukes and with ducheperes." AA. 4. 11. bacheleii-is. Knights bachelors, the lowest grade of knighthood. 13. of toum. It is not quite clear whether this adventure befell before or after the King's return to Paris. 105 106 The Taitt of Rauf CaU$ear. LINE. 14. that ryaJl. That royal one. This substantive use of the adjective is common in the early Scottish poetry. " Quhen the pur present him had," i. e. " when the poor creature had presented himself/' H. 92. So in 11. 170, 458, 712 of our text we have "gude" = good men ; " that tenefull " = that wrathful one ; " " that bald " = that bold one. 17. deip. Apparently an error. Laing would amend to " drift ; " but " drift " does not occur in Early Scottish. 20. pure. Sometimes used for " noble," " eminent." " The pacock, preciouss and pure," H. 81. 22. mer. Wander, go astray. " It made them for to mer amiss," Douglas, Kyng Hart, 114. 23. pryme. The end of the first quarter of the day. If reckoned from sunrise, at Yule, about 10 a. m. 28. that. That which ; i. e. whatever (or whosoever). 33. cachit. Wandered, travelled, went. "Our land and see cachit with mekle pyne." Douglas, Aen. i. 1. 35. i-wis. Indeed, truly, from OE. gewiss. In the original it is uniformly printed " I-wis," as if a verb. 40. it niohtit him. It became night to him, i. e. night over- took him. " At ane ailhous ... it nyghttit thaim thair," Dunbar, Kynd Kittok, 15. 45. the rude lufe. An uninflected genitive. So we have "J?e pilgrame ansuer." Leg. de St. Andrea, 1068. In "husband weid," 1. 593, "waithman weid," Dunbar, Fen^eit Freir, we may regard the noun as used adjectively, as in modern " sailor talk," " soldier clothes." Our language still retains this freedom of combination, as " law business," " railroad interests." The Taill of Rauf Coifyar. 107 LINE. 46. Rauf. Ralph, or Radulphus. OE. hrced wulf, " swift wolf." 49. hine etc. Hence over seven miles, i. e. more than seven miles from here. 50. Iddis instead of leid. This form occurs when the verb is separated from the personal pronoun, as " I beseik .... and askis," 1. 942. Or when the relative intervenes, as, " How salle we fare that fowndis." AA. 261. 55. traist etc. The meaning seems to be : " Believe it or not, as you will : if I am not a good fellow, it will be partly your own fault." To which the King answers that it would be great folly on his part to do anything to breed unfriendliness. 60. fechtine for fechting. This phonetic degradation is very common in the late vernacular Scotch. "Comes hostin', hirplin' owre the field Wi' creepin' pace." Burns, Ep. to James Smith. 61. nait. Need, necessity. OE. nead, JSTth. ned. It also signifies use, purpose. " A wappin was neuir wrocht for sic a nate," Douglas, Aen. iv. 12. Cf. Towneley Plays, xxiii. 63. Sanct July. Saint Julian, the patron saint of travellers. His death is said to have occurred in A. D. 370. According to the life given in the Scottish Legends of Saints (14th century) Julian killed both his parents by an unhappy mistake, and in remorse devoted himself to a religious life. As a penance, he founded a hostelry for travellers on the bank of a dangerous river, and ferried over all who wished to cross. One winter night he was summoned by 108 The Tatil of Rauf Coityar. LINE. a sick and leprous child, whom, out of pity, he took to his house and cherished in his own bed. At daybreak the child revealed himself as an angel, told Julian that his penance had redeemed his sin, and promised him that thenceforth all who sought harbourage in his name, should find it. The opening of the legend is interesting : " Qwene J>at junge mane I was, I trawalyt oft in sere place . . . pe trawalouris )>ane custume had, pat al day jed ore rad, And for trawale ware wery, Quhene J>ai come til J>ar herbry, And namely fra J>ai mycht it se, Hat or hud tak of, ore clath, pe rycht fut of the sterape rath, And to sancte lulyane dewotly A pater noster say in hy, In hope bat al gud herbry suld haf, pat in sik wyse it suld crafe." L. S. u, 458. 67. me think. A confusion between " I think" (OJZ.pencari) and " me thinks " (OE. pincari) " it seems to me." So in 1. 60 we have "thow byrd," where strict grammar would require "the byrd." In 1. 176 we have the proper form with the dative : "him thocht." The usage is not uncommon ; e. g. : " me think it grete skill," GG. 147 ; " ful pouer me thine the." Eng. Met. Horn. p. 140 ; " me think $ow deif and dum." Lyndsay, Thrie Estaitis. In the Cuckoo and Nightingale (1. 117) we have the full form : " It thinketh me I singe as wel as thou." The Taitt of Ran/ Coifyar. 109 LINE. 80. ruse. The E. E. T. changes to rufe and behufe, but the rime forbids this. To ruse is to boast of, to admire (cf. 1/481). Rauf says that as yet the King has had nothing from him to boast of, or be thankful for. "And haif few vertewis for to russ." Dunbar, xvii, 37. " 111 men .... roysys thaim of thaire syn." Hampole, Psalter, xciii, 3. 82. eismentis. Comforts. " )?at night he had ful nobil rest, With alkins esment of ]?e best." Ywain, 3383. 82. behuse. Needs, behoofs. Contracted from behuiffis. We find behuifis and behuse riming with excuse in Clari- odus iv, 1356, 2506. The verb buse a further contraction of behuifis occurs in AA. 315: "me buse wende one my waye." See also Ywain, 1085, 1185. 83. help. Possibly an error for keip. We still use " keep the house" for "stay in-doors." To keep the harberie would then mean to be sheltered in it. 84. micht . . . excuse. Might with reason be excused for praising the lodging and entertainment after they had tried them. 86. pryse. A proverbial phrase. " Praise in departing." Tempest, iii, 3. 86. how that thow dois. According as thou farest (or hast fared). 87. lak. Blame, find fault with. "Nor na man will I lakkin or despyse." Douglas, Aen. i, Prol. " To loure on my neighbore and to lakke his chaffare." Piers Ploivman (B) v, 160. 87. Peter ! By Saint Peter. " }e, Peter ! quoth J>e porter." G. 813. "Peter! it am I." Chaucer, Shipmannes Tale, 214. 110 The Taitt of Rauf CW/jear. LINE. 96. ch.eueris with the chin. Shiver with the chin, have the teeth chattering with cold. " His teith chatterit and cheverit with the chin." Heuryson, Testament of Oriseide, 156. 98. glaid. Laiug and E. E. T. both insert " was," but it is the pret. of glyde, as in 1. 482. 98. gle. Usually mirth, entertainment. Here apparently equivalent to hospitable reception. 99. sit. Resist, withstand. "He durst not sit anys my summoudis." Dunbar, Two, Mariit Wemen, 319. " Pharaoh sits that process." Donne, Serm. cl. It is a contracted form of asit, OE. cetsittan. " Non his dent asit might." Arth. and Merlin, 8150. 108. fame. Fared. Strong p. part, of fair. 109. rufe. This word as an adjective does not seem to occur elsewhere. OE. rof, fierce, bold. 111. knap. Snatch, pluck, pull (from the perch). "Thow can knap doun caponis on the nicht." Henryson, The Wolf, the Fox, and the Cadgear, 17. 120. begouth. A Scottish form of "began," apparently by analogy with can, couth. 121. maid him to mene. Made himself to attempt, i. e., made an attempt. For mene cf. G. 1157. "per schulde no man mene to )>e male dere." 126. kynd aucht to creip. A proverbial phrase signifying " Nature (or breeding) ought to show itself." In the Towneley Mysteries (Pastores) we have " kynde will crepe where it may not go ; " i. e. nature will creep where it cannot walk. The phrase occurs also in Everyman, 316. Rauf says that this is an occasion on which the King's breeding, or natural sense of The Tcutt of Rauf CM^ear. Ill LUTE. propriety, ought to show itself, or otherwise he is ignorant (of good manners). C the Dutch proverb : " Blood will creep where it cannot walk." 127. vnknaurin. Ignorant, untaught. "Vnknawin .... quhat was best to doon." Kingis Quair, 45. We have knatcin "acquainted" hi 11. 254, 532. A similar misuse, though sanctioned by custom, occurs in the modern " he is mistaken," for " he mistakes." 128. lord of my avrin. Kauf is already lord of his own house, and it is for him, not the King, to do the honours of reception. So in GG. 147 Gawane will not venture to prescribe any rules of hospitality to the lord of the castle, saying, " To mak you lord of your avne, me think it grete skill." See 11. 166, 167. 133. Gryliane. Gillian, or Juliana. So " Saynt Gilyan " for Saint Julian, G 774. 135. Two lines wanting in original. 141. grcdd. Made ready, prepared. Contracted form of gratthit. 145. begin the buird. Take the highest place at table, and be seated first. " Bischop Baudewyn abof bi-gene^ |>e table," G. 112. " Then sayd thei all, at a word, That cokwolds schuld begyne the bord, And sytt hyest in the halle." Cokwolds Daunce, 199. "Sith thou hast taken this estate .... Thou must begin the bord." John the Reeve, iii, 268. "He mot bygynne J?at borde," P. Plowman* Crede, 557. "Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne." Chaucer, Prof. 52. 153. faind. A somewhat rare word, meaning to stop, halt. " They fayne never are they falle at ]?e flode merkes," 112 The Taitt of Rauf Cottyar. LINE. MA. 1147. "Fenyhe the nowcht to fulfille thi heycht," Wyntoun, CronykU, vii, 72. " Feyne }ow noghte feyntly." MA. 1734. " Quhen thai saw the nobill King Cum stoutly on forowtyn fencing." Barbour (E) ix, 255. The meaning in the text seems to be, he did not stop from a fall (did not recover himself from falling) until he found (himself on) the earth. Perhaps faynding has a similar meaning in Barbour, Bruce, iii, 289 : " quha tais purpos sekyrly, And folio wis it .... For-owt fayntice, or yheit faynding, He sail eschew it in party." That is : " whoever takes a firm purpose, and follows it without weakness or cessation, he shall achieve it [at least] in part." 156. anger. Pain, suffering, affliction, distress. "Thirangrys may I na mar drey." Barbour, Bruce, iii, 321. " In nane anger sal }e be." Ywain, 1529. "The angyr na the wrechit dome." Bruce, i, 235. " Angers and yuels may hym appayre." Hampole, P. C. 691. See 1. 945. 160. thmo byrd. See note to 1. 67. We find the more accu- rate form in earlier texts : " In hart b.af I sa mekil wa, pat my-self me byrd to sla." LS. ii, 468. " pe burde fyrst aske leue." Pearl, 316. 170. gude. Good men. See note to 1. 14. 174. foundis. Goes. " How salle we fare .... j>at fown- distofyghte?" AA. 261. 175. braithlie. Violently. "The wagande wynde .... brethly bessomes with byrre." (The rushing wind violently sweeps with noise) MA. 3661. "A ... The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 113 LINE. spere tille his hert brathely was borne." Quatrefoil of Love, 201. 175. beird. Stormed, vociferated. From beir, noise. "Land- brist rumland .... with sic beir." Douglas, Aen. vii, prol. 21. 184. but mair. Without more. No other company was present. 186. went upon hicht. Literally, "went on high." The meaning seems to be, " went joyously round." 188. byrnand. Here equal to "illuminated," "lit up," " blazing with light." 193. dois glaidlie. Be merry. " Sytt downe and do gladly." Wright's Chaste Wife, 24. " Do gladly, Sir Knight, sayde Robyn." Geste of Robyn Hood, 34. 209. baldn in breid. Baked in pastry. " Birdes bakene in brede." AA. 485. 210. fusioun. Abundance, plenty. " Of alle manere fusoun ynou^ |?ey hadde." Libeaus Desconus, 112. 212. raik. Pass, go round. " Lo, quhair thay raik on rawe." Henryson, Robene and Makyne. 215. dreichlie. Steadily, regularly. " Drawene dreghely the wyne and drynkyne thereaftyre." MA. 2028. " Dre^ly alle a longe day." Clannesse, 476. Dreghe, is endurance, continuance. "Thus they dreuene .... alle the dreghe of the daye." MA. 2915. OE. dreogan. 223. countenance. Demeanour, behaviour. "Be nocht in countenance ane skornar, nor by luke." Dunbar, To dwell in Court, 35. " The countenance and the maneres of alle the folk." Chaucer, R. R., 814. 227. maist wynning. Principal dwelling, chief abode. Cf. 8 114 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. "And where, quod I, is your most abydiug?" Assembly of Ladies, 264. 228. wayndit. Hesitated. "To cut his throit .... he wayndyt nocht." W. i, 198. I sail waynd for no wye to wirk as ^e will." H. 458. OE. wandian. 230. office maist. Highest office. 237. for my dwelling. On account of my dwelling with you (and consequent absence from the Court). 239. Wymond. OE. wigmund, "guardian of battle," or " protector of warriors." Wymond is the name of the third soldier in York Mysteries, xxxiv. 240. thi harberie is tane. Thy lodging is secured. 244. onwart. Part payment, advance, but here profit. 248. on ilk syde. The truth on each side, i. e. the whole truth. 249. that. Demonstrative. Thou shalt know that well enough. 259. rid. Here, and in 11. 284, 435, 888, Tonndorf alters to red. 262. furth gane. Advanced. 273. sguyary. Attendance or retinue of squires. "And profferit him a squyarie, To go with him in com- pany." Gray Steill, 1189. 276. pauyot. Not found elsewhere, but a servant of some kind. Jamieson (Scot. Diet.), conjectures pavisot, or shield-bearer, but gives no instance. Rauf did not need such an attendant to carry his " auld buklair " (1. 517). Moreover, a pa vise was not a shield, but a screen. 277. thocht lang. Grew weary or impatient. 278. anent. Near to, close by. " A wounde .... an-ende hys hart." Pearl, 1135. The Taill of Eauf Caityar. 115 LINE. 288. that wantis. That is lacking or missing. ^^ 309. gif the mair. Thou wilt nevermore undertake (give thyself) to tell a lie. Rauf means that Wymond will certainly not dare to lie to him after the correc- tion he has received. 313. bid nocht to layne. Offer not to conceal. " If ani man my name J?e frayne, On al manere luke J>ou yt layne." Ywain, 2195. "Why layne you your name from me?" Malory, Mart Darthur, xviii, 13. "Layne not ]>e so}>e," G. 1786. Icel. leyna. It sometimes means to refuse, as, " Late me in ; thar thou noghte layne." Quatrefoil of Love, 253. 316. enchaip. Another form of eschaip. Where any collier may come off safely, I trust to succeed. In the Bruce we find enohapin for eschaping (C MS. vii, 75). The Oxford Dictionary (following Donaldson's Sup- plement to Jamieson) supposes it a form of encheap, " trade," but gives no proof of the existence of such a word, nor any reference for enchaip but the present passage. This epenthesis of n was not uncommon. Cf. encheif, enchauf, encroche, from OF. achever, eschauffer, acrocher. 321. chauffray. Ware, merchandise. A more common form is chajfair. " Bot thow be war, thow tynys off thi chaffair." W. vi, 460. 327. ma. More (in number). The distinction between this word and mair more (in quantity) is carefully pre- served. So, in Southern English, the distinction between mo and more, is observed from Chaucer and Maundevile to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. 116 The Taitt of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. 328. war wanderand. Perhaps an ellipsis of the relative : " who were (or had been) wandering." 329. sic ten. Ten times as many were sent out toward each point of the compass. Cf. 1. 440. 340. withoutin. Without reckoning, exclusive of. 342. yule nicht. Yule eve. It is the second day before Yule that the King is lost in the mountains, and he spends that night with Rauf. The next morning he returns, after bidding Eauf come " to-morrow," or Yule day, to the Court. Rauf sets out early on Yule morning. 343. Bischop Turpine. Archbishop of Reims in the latter part of the eighth century. The romances represent him as the trusted councillor of Charlemagne. 344. reuest. Robed in their vestments. " Tisiphone .... in bludy caip reuestit." Douglas, Aen. vi, 9. 344. at ane sicht. At once ; all together. Lit. " at one sight." " Seuyne score of scheildis thai schew at ane sicht." GG. 483. 347. following. The Midland form. So cumming (1. 397) ; during (1. 924). 351. rew. Street, from Fr. rue. " We pas by secrete wentis and quiet rewis." Douglas, Aen. ii, xi. 352. Sanct Dyonys. The famous abbey of Saint Dionysius, or Denis, the patron saint of France. 356. wicht qualifies sone. 358. principall. Principal men, high nobles. 360. worthie began. Worthily begun. 363. dew. This verb, originally weak, has taken the strong forms dew and dawin (1. 383). 366. wandit. Apparently the addition of a weak suffix to a strong preterit. The Taill of Eauf Coiljear. 117 LINE. 367. bot jone man that ye knew. Unless you knew that man. 368. do ym in his gentrise. Trust yourself to his courtesy or good faith. " I do me in thi gen trice, be Drightin." GO. 1111. "To souer in thi gentrice but signete or sele." Ib. 1105. " In his gentrice richt weill I dar assure." King Hart, 397. 370. and he had bene attane. Gyliane means that her pres- ence restrained Wymond from violence. 371. for thy. Instrumental case of the pronoun. Therefore; on that account. 374. layd. A contraction for " lay it." So, " on thy awin perrell beid " (= be it), Freiris of Berwick, 541. " I stand ford " (= for it), Lyndsay, Satyre. 379. war. Subjunctive. I spoke not out of reason (i. e. my rebuke was just) to Wymond, if the truth were known. 391. thing. Used for man, or person, as in 1. 481. 392. set him on assay. Undertake any adventure. 396. boim. Proceed, go. "To souper sone thai bownd." W. 485. " Bischopis bovnis to the burd." H. 685. 409. all haill. Entire, complete. Also used adverbially. " He governit alhaill the abbacy." Freiris of Ber- wick, 127. " All haill thy harte for till haif myne." Henryson, Robene and Makyne, 85. 415. huit. Contracted form of huifit. Cf. 1. 493. 415. midmorne and mair. Mid-morn and past. " Be it wes mydmorne and mair." GG. 480. Cf. Barbour, Bruce, xiv, 206. 417. come. The preterit. The present is cum. 432. for to towsill. A loose construction. It might be freely 118 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. rendered : As for maltreating me, or laying violent hands upon me (if such be your purpose) before, ete. 434. do way. A form of dehortation, equivalent to " have done," "cease." " Do way ! qua)> he, it schal be so." Orfeo and Heurodis, 226. " The quite kny^te bede, do way ! " Sir Amadace, xxxviii, 5. " Do way, quoth pat derf man .... pat speche." G. 1492. 435. be att that we haue sworne. By our vows of knighthood. A form of adjuration used by one knight to another ; here somewhat facetiously addressed to Rauf. 439. suld haue went. Shouldst go. 442. myster. From Lat. ministerium, OF. mestier. It has two meanings : (1) craft, art, skill, occupation. " An engynour .... that sleast wes of that mister." Barbour, J5ruce, xvii, 434. "Husbandis and men of all mysteris." Ib. 542. " Tak me here Mi fundlyng for to lere Of pine mestere." Kyng Horn, 227. (2) need, necessity. "He maid succoure till his that myster had." Barbour, Bruce, xvii, 387. " Thai had gret myster of rest." Ib. 798. See note to 1. 748. Rauf means either that he is under no obligation to fight wandering knights, or that he has not the requisite skill, fighting not being his business. The former is probably the meaning here. 451. nor hecht. Perhaps we should read na hecht. 455. gowlis. Gules, the heraldic term for red, said to be derived from Persian gul, a rose. " He bure a lyon .... of gowlis full gay," H. 366, referring to the arms of the King of Scots : a red lion on a field of gold, within a double tressure. " Fayr wes the The Taitt of Rauf Coifyar. 119 LIKE. feild .... with gold and goulis in greyne." GO. 475. 458. trimland. This and the following lines refer to Sir Holland, whom we must conceive as trembling with excess of wrath or valour. 467. plaitis. Back and breast plates. Chaucer's Sir Thopas wears " a plate " over his hauberk. 468. pulanis. The projecting knee-pieces of plate-armour. " Polena, pars vestis militaris qua genua teguntur-" Du Cange, s. v. " Pullane greis he braissit on full fast." "W. viii, 1203. "Luflych greue^ with polay- ne$ piched ]?er-to." G. 576. 468. prest. Handsome, fine. " per weore pope-iayes prest." Pistill of Sman, 75. " Princes ]?at er proper and prest." Minot (Wright) Pol. Songs, i, 751. " More people more handsome and prest." Tusser, Ixiii, 7. " As prety and as prest." Skelton, Phyllyp Sparowe, 264. 468. peir. Perhaps we should construe this as " peir of that ilk : " matching in design his back and breast plates. Cf. " of ]?e same painture Was lingell and trappure." Libeaus Desconus, 1663. 469. graipis. Bosses? clasps? The word does not seem to occur elsewhere. The construction would seem to require " on his greis." 470. cmsanis. Armour for the thighs. OF. cuissot. The Oxf. Diet, derives from cuisson; but Littre" says that cuissau and cuissot are the only forms found in the old texts. Godefroy gives quesson. It occurs as guyssewes in G. 578. 471. braissaris. Armour for the arms. Fr. brassart. 120 The TaiU of Rauf C&U^ear. LINE. 473. trew lufe. Probably should be trew lufes. True-love- knots, or lacs d' amour, were an ornament frequently met with in heraldry. They occur in the collar of the order of the Garter. King Arthur's mantle was " trauerste wyth trewloues in trete." AA. 354. In AA. 510, the " trewluffes " with which the knight was decorated, seem to have been embroideries on his cote-armure. In G. 612 Gawane wears a ker- chief or veil over his aventayle, " enbrawden with tortors .... and trulofe^." The "tortors" are evidently torteaux, or circular plates of a red colour, so called in heraldry. 474. tewettis. Equipments, arms. "The toppe-castelles he stuffede with toyelys." MA. 3617. Previous edi- tors changed it to " iewellis." Cf. " Trwe tulkkes in toures teueled wyth-inne." Clannesse, 1189. 474. full tdr. Very tedious. A rather favourite formula. " It war full teir for to tell .... the seir courssis." GG. 213. " The order of thar armis, it war to tell teir." H. 578. To telle the dedis .... my tonge were to tere." AA. 121. Sometimes written tore. "That were to tor for to telle." G. 165. "Hit were to tore for to telle of |>e tenj^e dole." Ib. 719. 475. drculit. Surrounded, bordered. Dunbar says of the lion in the royal arms of Scotland, which is within a flowered tressure : " On feild of gold he stude full mychtely, With flour-de-lycis sirculit lustely." Thrissill and Rois, 97. 476. bettisand. Elegant, handsome. This word (not found elsewhere) seems to be from OFr. abettisant, agreeable, The Taitt of Rauf Coityar. 121 LINE. pleasing. " Couleurs abellisans." G. de Machault, (in Godefroy). 477. stout on stray. Apparently an error. On stray (= " astray," as on lyfe in 1. 591 is " alive ") signifies " aside," " sidewise." The phrase stert on stray is common, applied to the shying, sidewise prancing, or starting of a mettlesome horse or frightened animal. "His stedes startun on straye." AA. 532. " Mony sterne [riders] .... stertis on stray." GG. 19. The hunted fox "start on stray." G. 1716. Of. Syr Degrevant, 1640. We have also the phrase stryke on stray. " One a stirtande stede he strykes one straye." AA. 511. "The stedis stak- erit in the stour for streking on stray." GG. 916. It is probable that in the text we should read start instead of stout. 479. ronsy. Horse, Fr. roncin, from Lat. rodnus. "He rood upon a rouncy." Chaucer, Prol. 390. The original meaning seems to have been work-horse as distinguished from war-horse. " Plus que ne pevent porter quatre roncin." Garin le Loherain, iii. Du Cange defines rodnus as " equus minor." Cf. Don Quijote, I, i. "Rocinante, nombre .... signifi- cative de lo que habia sido cuando file" rocin." 481. rusit. Admired, praised. " This ilk Tewcer his enemyis of Troye Rusit and lovit." Douglas, Aen. i, 9. See note to 1. 80. 481. ryall thing. See note to 1. 391. 483. to the gre. To the [same] degree, i. e. corresponding to his appearance. 483. iornaying. Combat. " The journey was for the Kyng of England." Froissart (Berners), cli. 122 The Taill of Rauf Cottjear. LINE. 485. he war, etc. He would be (or must be) a full mighty man who durst meet him with hostile intent (magre). "I will sey more, with that thow conne me no magre." Merlin, ii. " And 36 kun me na mawgre." Ywain, 990. Fr. mal gre, maugre. 489. vndertuk. So in S. T. ; in original vndertak. 494. may the hicht haue. That is, until the sun has ascended to the meridian. 496. catehe. Go, proceed. " Kysse me .... and I schal each he}>en." G. 1794. See 1. 33. 496. that sail not be to craue. There will be no entreaty about that ; i. e., if you object, you shall be com- pelled to go. 498. gaif. For geif or gif, for the sake of the rime. 499. for na, etc. Tonndorf makes this and the following line part of Holland's speech. But Holland has intimated that Rauf's refusal to come might be interpreted to his prejudice as indicating contumacy or disloyalty to the King, and Rauf energetically repels the insinuation. 503. nor he namit, etc. Nor did he name thee more than any other man. 511. mat. Vex, molest, trouble, "pou mote^ me for to mate." Pearl, 612. The word has found its way into most European languages by the means of the game of chess, and is originally Arabic : shah mat, " the king is dead," giving our " checkmate." 513. this deir day. Compare "this blessed day "in modern vernacular. 520. stubitt. Stout, sturdy. " In stubbill array, throw rank- est gers and corne." Henryson, Uplandis Mous, 92. The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. 123 LINE. 521. toun man, as opposed to husband man, countryman. 533. buikis and bellis. A common oath. The books and bells are those used in the services of the Church. " That borne was in Burgoyne, by ))uke and by belle." AA. 30. " Scho blyssede his body with buke and with belle." Quatrefoil of Love, 33. 535. aduertance. Retinue. Originally attention, attendance, hence body of attendants. 538. gif If and the. If I try thee, i. e. put thy good faith to the test. 538. forrow. Apparently the only instance of this verb. Forrow is " before," " in advance," and here may mean " go forward " " proceed." Or it may be an imperative use of the adverb, as " On, Stanley, on ! " Or ga may have dropped out of the text. Cf. " ^he ga forrow vs." Barbour, Bruce, vii, 145. 540. hot gif .... delay. Unless some sudden (unlooked- for) hindrance delay it. 542. threit. Contracted form of threipit. To threip is to quarrel or fight ; here used in the sense of " com- pelled," "forced." 545. to new. To renew (or make good) thy covenants. 546. airar .... nor none. Holland was not obliged to produce Rauf until about noon. See 1. 400. 550. rais. Hack, slash, hew. "Thys knyght noght of hir [the serpent] myght rase." Rom. of Partenay, 5938. " With his swerde so mightely gan race Through the umber into Troylus face." Lydgate, Troy Book. We have the noun in G. 2076. " Ther }>e ruful race he schulde re-sayue." 124 The TaiU of Rauf Coifyear. LINE. 552. als febil .... bone fay. As weak in thy good faith (as thou art splendid in appearance). 562. as we war borne. Cf. Chaucer, K. T. 775 : " on his hors, allone as he was born." 563. blonkis. OE. blonca. The original meaning was prob- ably a light-coloured horse, but it is used in the earliest literature for "horse" simply. 563. bland. Probably an error for band, bond, covenant. 575. hone. Delay. A contracted verbal noun from hove, (huif) linger, tarry. "The turtour .... enterit but hone." H. 130. 590. semblit. Came, approached. The usual meaning of semble is meet, encounter. " Sex ware to symple to semble with hyme one." MA. 967. " Bot I sem- ble .... with San^enis." H. 484. 605. beget. This evidently means to deceive, trick, but instances are wanting. It is probably a variant of begeck, befool. " To begaik .... ther husbandis." Dunbar, Twa Mariit Wemen, 452 (Maitland MS.). A geek was a fool, laughing-stock. "The most notorious geek and gull." Twelfth Night, v, 1. 610. gedlyng. Fellow. OE. gcedeling. " This gladdez myne herte that ^one gedlynges are gone." MA. 2885. " Wat ! harlot gadelyng, saide sche." Sir Ferum- bras, 1234. "Stondith stille, thou gadiling." Gamelyn, 203. 611. ane gift .... I geif. I give a gift, i. e. I have news for you (?). 614. cassin. Placed, set. Contracted form of castin. The panniers were " set on the ground," apparently in expectation of custom. " Than had I cassin in cair The Taill of Rauf Coil^ear. 125 LINE. mony kene knight." GG. 1108. " Curches cassin thame abone," i. e. kerchiefs placed on their heads. Dunbar, Twa Mariit Wemen, 23. 615. preissis to preif. Insists on trying. 629. enbraissit. An error for vnbraissit, unfastened. The word with this meaning seems not to occur elsewhere. 635. set that bot licht. Care but little for that. " Of para- mours he sette not a kers." Chaucer, Mitt. T. 570. 648. this. Probably should be the regular plural thir, as in 1. 690. This for "these" occurs in 11. 662, 725 ; but in both cases with the uninflected plural, " this seuin ^eir." The pi. wanis is probably used on account of the rime. 649. He trowit. This seems superfluous, in both grammar and metre. 650. rewaird. Attention. " They will take rewarde to you .... because of elde." Y. M. xx, 235. " Havinge un-to myn honour .... no reward." Chaucer, Tr. v, 1736. 652. not .... almaist. Almost not, scarcely. They ac- counted the collier scarcely worth notice. 655. furth fend. Should probably be one word, furthfend, meaning restrain, keep back. " Forfende thi foot from the sties of hem." Wyclif, Prow, i, 15. 670. reuatt. Border, band, list, tressure (OFr. rieule). We are enabled to determine the meaning of this rare word by an interesting passage in the Wallace (ix, 106). We are told that, as Wallace was sailing to France, several ships hove in sight, on beholding which the skipper exhibited great alarm, and when Wallace inquired the cause, explained that the vessels 126 The Taitt of Rauf Coityar. LINK. were those of the Red Reiver, the most formidable and merciless of pirates. He knew him, he said, by his cote-armure, or heraldic cognisance, which bore a bar of blue and a bend of green, " and riwell ay off reid." This Reiver, it seems, was a historical person, named Thomas de Longueville. Wallace, we are told, overcame him, made him his friend and procured his pardon from the King of France. From this Thomas was descended the distinguished family of Charteris of Kinfauns, who bore as arms, argent, a fess azure (the " bar of blue ") in a double tressure gules (" riwell off reid ") ; the tressure or border being an honourable augmentation, borne also in the royal arms of Scotland. The well-known arms of Charteris were doubtless familiar to the poet of the Wallace, as also the history of the family. Thus we fix the meaning of " riwell of reid " as a red tressure, border, or list. It is also plain why our poet selected it as a decoration for the ceiling of Charlemagne's hall. Every Scot knew the royal arms of Scotland : or, a lion rampant gules, in a double tressure, flory, counterflory, also gules ; and knew also the ancient tradition that Charlemagne, grateful for services rendered him by Achaius, King of the Scots, and as a symbol of lasting friendship, added to his blazon the double tressure ornamented with fleurs-de-lis. Leslie, Historic of Scotland, v. Hence our poet, in describing the decorations of Charlemagne's hall, could not forget the "flour- delycis" (668) nor the tressure. 675. dosouris. Canopies. " Dorserium, umbraculum .... The Taill of Rauf Coifyar. 127 LINE. quod capiti sedentis superponitur." Du Cange, a. v. " Abofe the dece on doser to henge." G. 478. Cf. AA. 444. OFr. doussier. 678. he was set. We should probably read "it was set," referring to the hall, which the poet is describing. Cf. 1. 666. Rauf has not yet caught sight of the King. We may render " It was cunningly adorned in marvellous variety." 679. blyth byrdis. Embroidered in the hangings or tapestry. " Birdes braudene aboue in brend golde bri^te." AA. 444 (D). 679. bestiall. Animals collectively. "Wthir dantit gretar bestial." Douglas, Aen. vii. Prol. 79. " Ane re- vand wolf that levit .... on bestiall. Henry son, The Wolf, the Foxe, and the Cadgear, 3. 683. bancouris. Coverings to seats. " Benkis ourbeld with bancouris of gold." H. 672. " Dossours and qweschyns and bankowres full bryghte." AA. 444. OFr. banquier. 686. at all richt. Exactly right ; in their proper marshalling. 689. anournit. Adorned. " Wyth vertue^ ennourned." G. 634. 689. that is na nay. That is not to be denied. " Till accuss Natur, this is no nay." H. 113. "The briddes singe, it is no nay." Chaucer, Sir Thopas, 55. 690. wald of. Would go out of. The suppression of the verb of motion is common. Cf. "Thow mon to Paris," 1. 425. 692. worthis of him. What becomes (or has become) of him. 701. can thring. Pleonastic for thringis or throng. This use of can and couth is very common in Early Scottish. 128 The Taill of Rauf CoU^ear. LINE. " Till him he ran, and out a suerd can draw." W. i, 401. Cf. 1. 826. 704. worthis. Will be, can be. 706. A line is missing in the original, evidently to the effect that Wymond did not present so imposing an appear- ance before. 713. seigis. Men, lords. " Thus assemblit thir segis, syris sen^eourable." H. 655. "Baith thai segis .... stithly thai stude." GG. 575. OE. Secg. 717. gyde. Apparel, robe, gown. " A gyde of . . . grene." W. i, 214. " Hir gyte was gray." Henryson, Test. of Cresseid, 260. "She cam after in a gyte of , reed." Chaucer, R. T., 34. " Hir gyde was glory- ous and gaye, alle of gyrse grene." AA. 366. 719. come to me. Came to me, tempted me. 720. hope. Fear, apprehend. " He hopid j>at hys lord was hyrt." Ywain, 2465. " He hoped he was wode." Ib. 1675. " I haue slike pyne That I hope my hand to tyne." Holy Rood, 821. "Vs commes som bodeworde, I hope it be badde." Quatrefoil of Love, 250. 721. changis my cheir. To change the cheer was to make or become uneasy, to alarm, or distress (as indicated by change of countenance). "His cher ful oft con chaunge." G. 711. 727. for-wonderit. Surprised, amazed. "The wise of the weder for-wondred J>ey were." AA. (D) 334. "Al for-wondered wat^ J?e wy^e." G. 1660. 731. sd strait ford. So straight forward, i. e. everything in order as it had occurred. 732. quoke. This verb, originally weak, has taken a strong preterit. The Taill of Rauf Coifyar. 129 LINE. 733. schord. Threatened. " Schorand the citie to distroy." Douglas, Aen. xii, 12. " Yone sterne for to schore." GG. 276. We have also the noun : " Thi schore compt I noght ane caik." GG. 103. " He brukit not for all the busteous schor." W. vii, 1080. So Kyng Hart, 144, 376. 734. with all. Together. 740. set at sa licht. So lightly regarded. Cf. 1. 635. 742. be our sicht. By our judgment or opinion. 743. God forbot. A more usual form is " Goddis forbot," forbot being a noun. 745. him semis. For he semis. 748. myster. Need. "His horss .... he gaif To the ladyis that mystir had." Barbour, Bruce, iii, 356. " In hys almus he [Macbeth] sew syluer Till all pure folk that had myster." Wyntoun, Cronykil, vi, 18. " Mend, geue ony myster be." Lauder, Dewtie of Kingls, 489. The curlew could write "with his neb, for mistar" (with his bill at need). H. 207. See note to 1. 442. Fr. mestier. " Viegne qui d' avoine a mestier." Girard de Viane. 760. forfaltour. Forfeiture of a vassal's land for breach of feudal obligations. Lat. forisfactura. 760. fre waird. When a tenant in chief was a minor, the wardship fell to the King, who might bestow it upon any one whom he wished to reward. Chaucer was given the wardship of Edmond Staplegate in 1375. 765. schone. Shoes. "Thow salle wynne thi schone Ap- pone the sowdane." Sir Percival of Galles, 1595. " That day he taught hym so to done, That worthely he wanne his schone." Ipomydon, 977. Another 9 130 The Taill of Rauf CoUjear. LINE. phrase is "to win one's spurs," applied to a newly created knight's first feat of arms. 766. wythest. For wichtest. 772. bdaucht. Committed. The King ordered that a cham- ber with armour should be committed to a squire for Sir Rauf's use. 773. clois. The term was applied to the close-fitting plate- armour, as distinguished from the looser armour of interlocking rings or scales, such as the hauberk or jesserant. 774. of fee. His feudal vassals. We must understand that the yearly revenue of three hundred pounds was the rental of lands to be held by Rauf in capite. 782. gest. Jest, object of derision. 783. ganandest. Readiest, nearest. Ganand is " suitable," " fitting." " Heir is no meit that ganand is for ^ow." Freiris of Berwick, 254. 784. sail neuer, etc. Shall never a lord laugh aloud, while my life may last, that I for cowardice should leave off [draw back from fighting] and [I] living, more- over. That is, while I have life. 790. and docht. The carl, namely ; that is, Rauf himself. 791. runsy. See note to 1. 479. 799. neir tyme. Near the time of day of his former encounter. 809. renk. Lists, tilting-ground. "The dou^ty kny^thus .... throw the renkus gon thai ryde." Syr Degrevant, 1286. See next note. 809. fewtir (OF. f outre, feutre). A support of some kind attached either to the breast-plate or saddle, to steady the lance and add force to the thrust. The word is frequent in the Fr. and Eng. romances of the 13th, The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. 131 LINE. 14th and 15th centuries. "Lance sor fautre." Garin le Loherain. " Met la lance sor le fautre." Chev. de la Charette. " To him rides with his spere on feuter festened." W. of Palerne, 3593. Author- ities differ as to the form and attachment of the fewter; but if the same as the "arest," it was a metallic projection from the right side of the breast- plate. Attachment to the saddle seems irreconcilable with contemporary drawings. The knight placed his lance "in fewter" when about to charge, as Rauf does here when within the distance usual in the lists (rowme of ane renk). 810. fer fellonar. He supposes that it is Holland, but finds him more formidable or ferocious in appearance. 811. foundis. Attempts. We find this verb used in the sense of " make an attempt on," " attack," in AA. 262 : " That ofte foundis the folkes." 811. forcenes. Vigour, might. The adjective is common. " A fforsey mane and a ferse." MA. 3308. "Ferse and forssy in fight." GG. 487. " Of Grekis mast forcy Diomed." Douglas, Aen. i, 3. " He raisit up his forcie arme." Clariodus, i, 83. 811. se. Sir Rauf is anxious to see the face of his adversary (now covered by his visor) to determine if it be Rolland or another, and this he might do by un- helming him. 815. splenders. "Thair speris in splendris sprent." GG. 618. 821. vther. Each other. 822. baft. Beat, smote. " Beft him with buffettis." Dunbar, Fen^eit Freir, 78. " The wroth of the goddis has doun beft The cietie of Troye." Douglas, Aen. ii, 10. " Bysyn in baile beft." H. 959. 132 The Taitt of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. 825. dout of vincussing. Fear of conquest, i. e. of being conquered. 831. heit. The original has held, evidently an error for heit. See 1. 838. 832. mait. Exhausted. " At ]>e last he wat^ so mat he my^t no more renne." G. 1568. "Mate I lay down on )>e grownde." Ywain, 427. " pey bu]> so mate }>ay mowe no^t go." Sir Ferumbras, 2506. See note to 1. 511. 833. price. Honour, reputation. " The Pacoke of pryce." H. 90. 836. girth. Peace, truce. A metathesis of grith (OE. grift). " Thay gafe no gamene no grythe J?at one grownde growes." AA. 59. 837. jame efter ^eliding. Desire yielding ; ask quarter. 839. veseir. Visor. The movable front part of the helmet, pivoted so that it might be raised or lowered. Some- times the aventayle was divided into two sections, locking together ; the upper, or visor, might be lifted so as to uncover the eyes, while the lower, or bever, might be moved so as to allow the knight to drink. Both visor and bever (often spelled " beaver ") were frequently used for the whole aventayle, as in Ham- let, i, 2 ; and the aventayle for the bever, as in MA. 910. " Pysane, aventayle, and gorgere." Libeaus Desconus, 1708, where the pysane is the camail falling from the helmet and protecting the back of the neck, the aventayle protects the face, and the gorgere the throat. 845. bak heir. In original, bakheir. " Back " is a backer, supporter, second. " Without knowledge of any The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. 133 LINE. back .... to follow. Knox, Hist. Ref. i, 89 (Laing). " "Welcome, iny bully, my back ! " Con- greve, Old Bachelor, ii, 2. 850. Termagant. An evil spirit or demon, anciently sup- posed to be worshipped by Mohammedans and other heathen. The origin of the word is uncertain. In old romances it more frequently appears as Tervagan. " La loi y fut Mahon et Tervagan." Chanson de Holland, 611. " pe souefte hatte Teruagant, an heh god in ure land." La^amon, Brut, 13912. " That file geaunt |;at leved in Termagant." Libeaus DesGonus, 1391. 851. blenkit. To blenk is to beam, radiate. "The bemes blythest of ble fro the son blent." (blent = blenkit) H. 3. Cf. "ice-blink." Rauf "beamed with his face," i. e. his face lighted up when he discovered that his adversary was a Saracen. 852. thow sayis, etc. He had not said so, but Rauf infers it from his appeal to Mahoun. 854. ^sall neuer hine. See note to 1. 690. 856. succudrously. Haughtily, arrogantly. The noun is surquedry or suocudry. " Wher is now your sour- quydrye?" G.311. " Spekis na succeudry." GG. 278. "Of surquidrye and foul presumpcioun." Chaucer, Troilus, i, 213. 857. I haue, etc. I am not so fond of life (i. e. I have no such fear of death) as to let you depart amicably (without a combat). Rauf has just said that one of them must die. 861. rude braid. Rood-breadth. Cf. "pe frensche men ]>ai 134 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. made reculle wel an akers lengj>e." Sir Ferumbras, 971. 863. ptthis. Cf. Henryson. Foxe and Cadgear, 175. "My pith micht mocht beir it." 873. tyte. Quickly. "He bad ]>at I sold tel him tite." Ywain, 409. " Elene also tite .... gan her tire." Libeaus Desconus, 889. 880. soueranoe. Assurance of safety, truce. "Be-soghte hym of surrawns for sake of our Lorde." MA. 3182. Equivalent to " saiff-condyt." W. vi, 898. So souerit, assured of, safe from. Cf. W. viii, 870, and GG. 1105 (where it is misprinted soner hi S. T.). 882. breif. Probably an error for brey, frighten. " A serpent .... breyd thame all." Wyntoun, Cronykil, vi, 322. " Fra thay saw thair sembly, It culd thame bre." Douglas, King Hart, 187. 886. the tane, etc. One of us is able to overcome you. Per- haps we should read the presoun, i. e. thee a prisoner. Prison for prisoner is common, "pis ]?ing, sir, I ask of J?e, J>at al ]?is prisons may pas fre." Ywain, 3299. " Ledej> wij? hem J>e ryche prysouns ]>at |>ay habbe]> y-take." Sir Ferumbras, 1000. " As over- come and prisoun A knist me hider gan sende." Libeaus Desconus, 405. 887. wassalage. Knightly deed. " In armys syne did mony hie waslage." W. i, 158. He is cumen of hie parage, And wonder doghty of vasselage." Ywain, 1240. "Sa for to de, him thocht it no waslage." W. x, 415. The original meaning was the knightly service which the vassal owed his feudal lord. Here The Taill of Rauf Coityar. 135 LINE. the meaning is that it would be no knightly deed for two to attack the Saracen when one was fully his match. 892. start. Brief space, moment, "pou shal leve but a start." AA. 259. " Ane hour or twa thinkis bot ane stert." Good Wyfe, 188. 898. with schame. To their discomfiture and disgrace. 904. the Chane of Tartarie. " The Cham of Tartarie With fourtie thowsand Turkis was redie To enter in his land." Clariodus, iii, 7. 905. this message, etc. I would this message were [brought] to him. 907. wthoutin plesance. Without any softening of its harshness. 910. sour. Evil, vile. " Neuer se hym with sy^t for such sour tourney." Clannesse, 192. 911. als fer as he may. As far as he has power. Laing altered fer of the original to/ers (spoiling the sense) and the other editors follow. S. T. gives the origi- nal reading in the margin. 916. warysoun. A word of several meanings. 1. Protection, safeguard, safety. "Thai dred full sar for thair awn warysoun." W. viii, 869. Modern " garrison " is the same word. There is also a verb, warys or warisch, meaning to protect. Arthur prays God "to warys fra wo Wawane the wight." GG. 1006. God says to Lot, " Nov walle }>e a wonnyng J>at };e warisch my^t." Clannesse, 921. It also means relieve. " Warische ]mm out of J>aire wo." Altengl. Leg. N. F. p. 49, 1. 33. " Than were my brother warisshed of his wo." Chaucer, F. T. 434. Or 136 The Tatil of Rauf CoU^ear. LINE. to recover, be healed. "For to sojourn J>are a stovvnd, Til he wer warist of his wound." Ywain, 2653. " I am wathely woundide, waresche mone I neuer." MA. 2186. (Hence Fr. guerir). Or to refresh. " ^e arn not wel naryst, nau]?er of sost- naunce ne of slepe." G. 1094. 2. There is also another waryson, meaning reward. "Wel am I rewarded .... now have I my waryson." Malory, Mort Darthure, ix, 12. Fabricius sends the treach- erous physician to Pyrrhus " to get thi warisoune." Barbour, Bruce, xx, 544. King Edward promises " all Fyfe in warysoun " to the slayer of Bruce, Ib. ii, 206. " I sal hir gif to warisowne Ane of the foulest quisteroun." Ywain, 2399. See note to 1. 936. Here Magog's meaning may be that his valour is a sure protection to his fellow-believers in his own land, or that he is richly rewarded for his prowess. The former interpretation is preferable. 918. full euitt wyn. There should probably be a comma after wyn. " That is full evil prosperity, to have land while thou art living, and then hell at thine end." Tonndorf puts a comma after land, in which case the construction would be : " That is a full evil [thing] to win land," etc. The Saracen, however, has not threatened a conquest of territory, but only a foray of devastation, and he has intimated that he is a great lord in his own country. 924. during, etc. Lasting until the day dawns that never will set, i. e. the last day. To be seized of these duchies while the world lasts. The article may The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. 137 LINE. have dropped out before day. Durand would have been the regular form. 925. win. Happiness, prosperity. " By King Onotrius inha- beit first with wyne." Douglas, Aen. iii. 3. 927. Dame Jane. See Introduction. 930. I do the out of dispair. I put thee out of doubt. " The noblest prynce, without any dispayre, That tyme alyue." Hardynge, Chron. 144. " And earles both they were, without dispayre." Ib. 151. Holland assures the Saracen that he need not doubt him, and re-affirms the eligibility of the lady. 936. gold. In original, " god," and so in all the editions, but clearly an error for " gold." The Saracen despises the offer of wealth, but is willing to believe in the Christians' God. " Gold and garsomes " was a common phrase. 936. grassum. Treasure. (OE. gcersum). It occurs in the forms, garsome ; " Grettere J>an Gaynour of garso- mes and of golde." AA. 147 ; gersome : " weddid .... with gyftis and gersomes." 76.697; garson: " with giftes and garsons." Ib. 697 (D and I texts) ; From garson the transition was easy to garysoun. Ladies would rather have Gawayn's company " J>en much of ]?e garysoun oj?er golde J?at pay hauen." G. 1255. "And ^eue hem gret garysoun." Rob. Glouo. (H.) 409. This may explain the origin of the second warysoun, meaning "reward." "pou salt habbe garisome." La^amon (B) 14162 where A has gcersume. 939. that mair may. Who (sc. God) is of greater power. 942. askis. See note to 1. 50. 138 The Taill of Rauf Coiljear. LINE. 945. angeris. Afflictions, distresses. See note to 1. 156. 952. kend. Taught, directed. The poet considers the Saracen's conversion as happening by divine ap- pointment. 967. Idf thame. Perhaps reflexive : to pass their lives together, as was right. Or perhaps thame should be thair : to live there (on his new estates) rightly, sc. with his wedded wife. GLOSSAEY. ABBREVIATIONS. Dan, Danish ; F. French ; Gael. Gaelic ; led. Icelandic ; L. Latin ; M Du. Middle Dutch ; ME. Middle English ; Nth. Northumbrian ; OE. Old English, or West Saxon ; OF. Old French ; OFris. Old Frisian ; ON. Old Norse ; &w. Swedish. adj. adjective ; adv. adverb ; art. article ; conj. conjunction ; imp. imperative ; inf. infinitive ; int. interjection ; pp. past participle ; prep. preposition ; pres. present ; pres. part, present participle ; pret. preterit ; pron. pronoun ; sb. substantive ; subj. subjunctive. abalSit pp. abashed, 101. abufe adv. above, 43, 679, 816, 859. afoyde inf. await, remain until, 282, 485, 806. aduertance sb. retinue, 535. affray sb. alarm, cause of affright, 507. agane, agayne adv. and prep. again, 155, 158, 422, 862 ; against, towards, 322, 608. aganis prep, against, 32. air adv. ere, before, 158, 824. air sb. heir, 932. alrar adv. sooner, earlier, 546. airlic, airly adv. (Nth. serlice) early, soon, 79, 272, 322, 363, 778. airt sb. (Gael, aird) quarter, point of the compass, 137, 329. allace int. alas, 709. allane adj. alone, 370, 612. all haill adj. entire, complete, 409. all kin all kinds of, 358. almaist adv. almost, 652, 832. alS, alswa adv. (Nth. allswae) as, also, 108, 115, 252, 262, 303, 523, 758. amang prep, among, 22, 37, 69, 782. anamalit pp. enamelled, painted, 685. and conj. if, 56, 241, 312, 440, 511, 604. ane art., pron. and adj. (Nth. an) a, 2, 385 ; one, 3, 441 ; any, 236, 576 ; alone, 260. anent prep. (OE. on emn) opposite to, close by, 278. anerly adv. only, 590, 845. aneuch adj., adv. and sb. enough, (with singular) 160, 187, 201, 249, 525, 688. anew adj. enough, (with plural) 365. 139 140 Glossary. anger sb. (ON. angr) pain, afflic- tion, 156, 945. angerit pp. distressed, exhausted, 831. anis adv. once, 126, 644, 692. anournit pp. (OF. aourner) adorned, 689. appcllit pret. appeared, 350. appeirand air sb. heir apparent, 932. apperrellit pp. apparelled, decked, 6fi4. ar pres. are, art, 767, 919. argult pret. argued, 644. arrayiS pres. array, 351. arrayit pret. arrayed, 576. assaill inf. attack, 826. assay sb. trial of arms, combat, 392. at pron. (Nth. sed) that, 268. ataniS adv. at once, 473, 694. ather pron. each, either, 289, 826, 833. a tour, attour prep, (at over) over, above, 391, 467. aucht pres. ought, 126. auld adj. old, 517, 560. awin adj. (Nth. agen) own, 33, 68, 113, 128, 377. ay adv. (ON. ey) ever, always, 693, 909. bachelelris sb. bachelors, knights, 11. bad pret. bade, ordered, 113, 597. baft pret. (ON. *beafta) smote, 822. bald pret. (Nth. bad) remained, tarried, 28, 798. bald sb. delay, tarrying, 486. balr adj. plain, open, 798. balr adj. bare, stripped, despoiled, 902. balr pret. bore, 223, 455, 516. balr sb. boar, 185. baith adj. (ON. bafler) both, 10, 48, 58, 250, 569, 736, 817. bak sb. backer, second, 845. bak, on abv. aback, backward, 696. bakln pp. baked, 209. bald sb. bold one, 407, 712. bald, baldly adv. bravely, boldly, 222, 806, 883. bancouris sb. (OF. banquier) cov- erings for benches, 683. band pret. bound, tied, 797. bandis s6. fastenings, bars, 629. bane, bayne adj. and adv. (ON. beinn) ready, willing, 420 ; quick- ly, 606. banls sb. bones, 471. barrounls sb. barons, 11. basnet (OF. bacinet) steel cap, helm, 462, 822. battaill sb. battle, 828. batteris on imp. lay on, smite, 883. bayne (see bane}. be prep, by, 8, 34, 435, 611. be adv. by the time that, 23, 29, 383. befoir prep, and adv. before, 4, 119, 121, 400, 461. beget inf. beguile, deceive, 605 (see note). begOUth pret. began, 120. begyllt pp. beguiled, entrapped, 710. behaldand pres. part, beholding, 416. Glossary. 141 behOUit pret. behoved, 405. behufe sb. need, convenience, 41. behuse sb. (see note) 82. beir . bear, 287, 563. beird pret. (OFris. baere, noise) vociferated, stormed, 175. belrne sb. (OE. beam) man, war- rior, 187, 562, 730, 781, 822. beliue adv. (ME. bi life) quickly, 94, 112, 263, 324, 629. bellisand, adj. elegant, splendid, 476. ben adv. (Nth. binna) in, 697. bene pp. been, 119, 205, 8T4. bene adj. pleasant, beautiful, 679. bennysoun sb. blessing, 212. bent sb. grassy field, field, 730, 797, 812. benwart adv. in, to the inner room, 131. beriall sb. beryl, 463, 472. beseik pres. beseech, 769, 942. bestlall sb. animals, 679. bet pp. (OE. betan) kindled, 142. betakin inf. betoken, signify, 403. betaucht pp. (Nth. betaht) com- mitted, given in charge, 772. betuix prep, between, 342. betyde pret. bedded, befell, 15. be tyme adv. betimes, 287. bid pres. offer, 313. bigfging sb. (ON. byggja) house, dwelling, 188, 902. bimy sb. (OE. byrne) coat of mail, hauberk, 764, 806. bischop sb. bishop, 339, 343, 955. blak adj. black, 522. blan pret. (Nth. blinna) ceased, paused, 822. bland sb. agreement, engagement, 563. blandlt pp. blended, studded, 472. blaw sb. blow, 369. blenkit pret. beamed, 851. blin inf. (Nth. blinna) pause, stop, 92, 629. blonk sb. (OE. blonca) horse, steed, 563, 797, 807.' blyith, blyth adj. blithe, cheerful, glad, 75, 192, 216, 407, 679. bOCht pret. and pp. bought, 370, redeemed, 180, 718. bOdWOrd sb. message, 902. boist sb. brag, fuss, 369, 882. boistit pret. bullied, 781. bone fay sb. (F. bonne foy) good faith, 552. bordourit pp. bordered, 462. borne pp. born, 562. bot conj. but, 31, 553 ; unless, 367, 447. bot glf conj. unless, except, 497, 540, 549. boun inf. (ON. bua) make ready, 423 ; proceed, 396. boun adj. (ON. buinn) ready, prompt, 124, 882. boun (maid him) took his way, 793. bowre sb. (OE. bur) chamber, 533. braid adj. broad, 34 ; bulky, 807. braid, sb. breadth, space, 861. braid, sb. blow, 858. braidit pret. (Nth. brsegd) drew, 864. 142 Glossary. braissaris sb. brassarts, arm-pieces, 471. bralssit pp. braced, armed, 551. bralthlle adv. (ON. braSr) vio- lently, 175. brand sb. brand, burning log, 131, 910. brand sb. sword, 518, 522, 764, 806, 858. braun sb. brawn, 185. breid sb. breadth, 152. breid (on) adv. abroad, forth, 594. breid sb. bread, pastry, 185, 209. breif imp. (see note) 882. brest pret. burst, 859. bricht adj. bright, 131, 188, 222, 462, 551, 683. brocht pret. and pp. brought, 185, 269, 276, 489, 910. broun adj. brown, 797. browdin pp. (OE. broden) em- broidered, 683. brydill sb. bridle, 476. bulk sb. book, 353, 533. buird sb. board, table, 145, 158, 185, 726. buklair sb. buckler, 517. burelie, burely adj. handsome, 188, 264. burneiSt pp. burnished, 462. busk sb. (LL. boscum) bush, 797. buskit pret. (ON. buask) made ready, dressed, 273 ; set forth, proceeded, 407, 594. busteous adj. boisterous, violent, 730, 781. bUStCOUSly adv. boldly, swagger- ingly, 594. but adv. and prep, out, outside, 111, without, 184, 499. byde inf. remain, tarry, 285, 781, 964. byrd pres. (Nth. byre?) ought, behoves, 160. byrdlS sb. birds, 209, 679. byrdlS sb. (ME. burde) ladies, damsels, 533. byre sb. (OE. byre) stable, out- house, 111. byrnand pres. part, burning, 132, 188, 222. CEChlt pret. (OF. cacher) travelled, wandered, 33. cair sb. care, sorrow, 913. cairfull adj. anxious, uneasy, 715. cais sb. case, 254, 260. cal inf. call, 238. call subj. drive, drive off, 638. CalliS pres. call, 46. callit pret. called, 133. cameill sb. camel, 804. can pres. know, 62. cant adj. (O.Dan, kantar, ON. katr) brisk, active, 42, 113. cantlle, cantly adv. briskly, bold- ly, 386, 804. capill sb. (L. caballus) horse, pack- horse, 43, 114, 365, 382, 418, 487, 638. capounis sb. capons, 111, 207. carll sb. (ON. karl) fellow, man, peasant, 42, 44, 93, 100, 746, 788. carping sb. (ON. karpa) talk, con- versation, 728. carpis pres. speakest, 492. Glossary. 143 carpit pret. spoke, said, 44, 194, 211. carpit pp. carpeted, 681. caryit pret. (ON. keyra?) proceed- ed, returned, 952. COSSin pp. placed, set, 614. cast sb. fortune, hap, 33. catchand pres. part, going, travel- ling, 386. catche inf. (OF. cacher) go, 496 ; drive, 526. catchlt pret. went, wandered, 382. caucht pret. went, proceeded, 838. caucht pret. cast, put, 382. Chachand pres. part, travelling, 42. chaip inf. (OF. eschaper) escape, get away, 559, 720, 721. Chalmer sb. chamber, 235, 263, 771. Chane si. khan, 904. chauffray sb. (OE. *ceapfaru) ware, merchandise, 321. Cheiftyme sb. reign, 1. Cheir sb. cheer, countenance, mood, 178, 192, 216, 348, 721, 840. cheualrie, cheualry sb. chivalry, 295, 341. CheualTOUS adj. chivalrous, 840. chcueris pres. [Icel. kippa] shiv- er, chatter, 96. chiftane sb. prince, lord, 1. chyld sb. servant, attendant, 235. Circulit pp. surrounded, bordered, 475, 677. ClalS sb. clothes, 432, 706. ClamiS pres. claims, 927. Cled pp. clad, covered, 265, 681, 705. Clelklt pret. ( OE. gelseccan ) pulled, drew, 820. Cleir adj. and adv. clear, loud, bright, 194, 211, 495, 706, 716, 958. Clene adj. pure, 706. Clene adv. clean, entirely, 125. clething sb. clothing, 705. Clois adj. close, close-fitting, 773. ClOSand pres. part. closing, join- ing, 682. Closit pp. inclosed, 265. coft pp. (MDu.coft) bought, 105. COilis, COillis sb. coals, charcoal, 50, 305, 365. COil^ear sb. collier, charcoal-bur- ner, passim. columbyn sb. columbine, 672. come pret. came, 42, 417, 571, 658. command pret. and pp. command- ed, 501, 585. commounis sb. common people, 340, 429. compeir (L. comparere) appear, 198, 497. COnserult pret. preserved, kept, 950. COnuent sb. convents, 344. COnuert pres. and inf. convert, be converted, 891, 921. COP sb. cup, 212. COrnelliS sb. (LL. cornale) cor- ners, 682. COUCr inf. reform, 921. couerit pp. covered, 681. COUnsall sb. counsel, advice, 299, 367, 963 ; council, 584. counsall pres. counsel, advise, 526. 144 Glossary. counsingis 86. cousins, 897. countenance sb. bearing, 223, 805 ; countenance, 715. COUnteriS pres. encounterest, at- tackest, 872. countit pret. accounted, considered, 652. COUrseir sb. courser, horse, 115. COUrtasie sb. courtesy, good man- ners, 125, 171, 423, 429, 746. courteir sb. courtier, 163. COUrteS adj. courteous, 163, 716. COUrtesly adv. courteously, 421. COurtingiS sb. curtains, 265. COUth pret. (Nth. cu'Se) knewest, knew, 125, 171. crabitnes sb. ill-temper, surliness, 526. craue inf. ask, 496. creillis sb. baskets, panniers, 43, 365, 382, 418, 487, 614. creip inf. creep, 126 (see note). criStalliS sb. crystals, 472. cristin adj. and sb. Christian, 171, 747, 872, 890, 913. CUle inf. cool, 838. Cum subj. and inf. come, 254, 572. cumlie adj. and adv. comely, hand- some, 194, 199, 470, 716; hand- somely, 265. cumly sb. handsome (men), 574. cummand prea. part, coming, 343, 801, 841. cummin pp. come, 107, 786. CummiS pres. comes, 430, 760. cumpany sb. retinue, 776. cunnand adj. (ON. kunnandi) skilful, accomplished, 163. cunning sb. knowledge, 93. cunnlngls sb. conies, rabbits, 207. cuplit pp. coupled, joined, 43. CUragiOUS adj. courageous, 741, 767, 805. CUSinglS sb. cousins, kinsmen, 913. CUSSaniS sb. (OF. quessons) cuis- sarts, thigh-armour, 470. daillis sb. dales, 383, 414, 795. dantelS sb. dainty things, orna- ments, 676. dantely adv. daintily, beautifully, 665, 676. dantit pret. and pp. daunted, in- timidated, 433, 598. dar pres. dare, 374. dawin pp. dawned, 383. dawiS pres. dawns, 924. day (the) to-day, 401, 646. dayntels sb. dainties, 189. dayntelie adv. daintily, handsome- ly, 189. debalt sb. discussion, hesitation, 44. defend pres. (F. de"fendre) forbid, 60,524. deid' adj. dead, 512, 814, 818, 962. deid sb. deed, 271, 513, 695. deill inf. deal, 512, 598. deip adj. deep, 17. deip sb. (see note) 17. delr adj. and adv. dear,;513 ; dear- ly, 105, 252, 370, 718. deir sb. deer, 196. dels s6. dais, table, 189. deliuer the haste thyself, hasten, 300. Glossary. 145 deme inf. judge, 675. dentil pp. set, 665. derf adj. (ON. diarfr) bold, strong, 383. deuill sb. devil, 95, 719. deuisc pres. report, declare, 612. dew pret. dawned, 363. dicht inf. (OE. dihtan) prepare, 133. dicht pp. prepared, arranged, ready, 142, 189, 588, 676. digue adj. (F. digne) worthy, noble, venerable, 352, 753, 955. ding inf. (ON. dengja) strike, 915. discouerand pres. part, reconnoit- ring, surveying, 795. dispair, sb. doubt, 930. diSpittOUSly adv. pitilessly, with- out mercy, 901. disseuer inf. separate, part, 525. disseuerit pret. separated, parted, 29. do pres. put, 368, 930. docht pret. (OE. dohte) was able, 790. dois pres. dost, 86, 896. dOiS glaidlie be merry, 193. dOSOUriS sb. (OF. doussier) cano- pies, 675. douchereis sb. duchies, 923, 933. dOUChtie sb. doughty one, warrior, 588, 695, 796, 955. doun adv. down, 111, 177, 197, 333, 915. doun sb. down, hill, 414, 795. dourly adv. (L. durus) violent- ly, strongly, 915. dOUt sb. fear, 825, 966. 10 do way (see note) 434. draif pret. drove, 17, 27. dreichlie adv. (OE. dreogan) stead- ily, regularly, 215. dreid sb. fear, 79, 196, 376. dreid pres. fear, 237, 598, 710. drest pp. placed, put, 199. drest (him) pp. addressed him- self, 406. drichtine sb. (Nth. drihten) the Lord, 853. dubbit pret. (F. adouber) dubbed, 752. dUChepeiris sb. peers, paladins, 10. dukis sb. dukes, 10, 753. dule sb. (OF. doel) mourning, trouble, 95, 199. durandlie adv. continuously, stead- ily, 17. dure sb. door, 94, 102, 120, 675. during pres. part, enduring, con- tinuing, 924. dyamountis s6. diamonds, 464, 665. dyntis 6. blows, 512. e sb. eye, 693, 715. efter prep, after, 135, 251, 346. efter adv. according, 537. elk conj. eke, also, 208. eir 6. ear, 150. eird sb. (OE. eorfle) earth, 154. eird sb. (OE. card) land, country,. 171. eirnestly adv. earnestly, pressing- ly, 618 ; attentively, 693. eiS sb. ease, 220. eismentis sb. easements, comforts, 82. 146 Glossary. eist sb. east, 16, 27, 137. ellis adv. else, otherwise, 127, 539. enbraissit pp. unfastened, 629 (see note). enchaip inf. (see note) 316. encheif inf. (F. achever) succeed, prosper, 316. endlang prep, along, 687. engreif inf. (OF. engrever) give offence, do harm, 617. engreuit pp. displeased, 601. enteris pres. enter, come in, 189. erand sb. errand, 536, 546. erlis sb. earls, 3. euer adv. ever, 224, 240, 361. euill adj. and adv. evil, bad, 95, 168, 918 ; badly, 40, 835. euln adv. straightway, 793. faille pres. (F. faillir) faint, 832. faind pret. (see note) 153. falndiS pres. (OE. fandian) at- temptest, 899. fair sb. fare, provision, 112, 206 ; load (?) 417. fair sb. (OE. fser) behaviour, 147. fair inf. fare, 110, 258 ; go, 284, 633. fairand pres. part, going, proceed- ing, 443, 589. fairlie adv. fairly, handsomely, 174. fais sb. foes, 751. fallow sb. fellow, 54, 72 ; adver- sary, 876. fand pres. (OE. fandian) try, 538. fand pret. found, 70, 72, 505, 810. fane adj. glad, pleased, 205, 317, 418, 616. farne pp. fared, 108. fauour sb. favour, 899. fay sb. (OF. fei) faith, 88, 97, 509, 552, 569, 889. faynt adj. faint-hearted, cowardly, 523. febil adj. weak, frail, 552. fechand pres. part, bringing, 506. fecht pres. and inf. fight, 524, 751. fecht sb. fight, 875. fechtine, fechting s6. fighting, combat, 60, 461, 874. fee (Of) sb. in his service, 774. feid sb. (OE. faj-Su) hostility, anger, 506, 966. feild sb. field, land, 8, 74, 413, 443, 589. feind sb. fiend, 889. feir (in, into) (OE. gefera) in com- pany, together, 118, 144, 174, 218, 347, 413, 465, 579, 668, 702. feirslie adv. fiercely, 18. feit sb. feet, 444. feld pret. felt, 97. fell sb. (ON. fjall) hill, rocky hill, 2, 19, 69. fell adj. (OF. fel) fierce, cruel, severe, 74, 97, 731, 874. fellonar adj. more formidable, 810. felloun adj. (OF. felon) wicked, 911. fellounlie adv. fiercely, violently, 18. fen sb. mire, 444. fend (furth) inf. restrain, keep back, 655. fensabill adj. warlike, 327. fer adj. far, 26, 69, 346, 412, 810 911. Glossary. 147 ferlie, ferly &b. (Nth. feerlic) wonder, marvel, 402, 669, 900. ferly adv. fairly, courteously, 579. ferly full adj. marvellous, terrible, 2. fet inf. fetch, carry, 443. fewalll, fewall, fewell sb. fuel, 242, 303, 443. fewtir sb. (OF. fautre) rest or socket for a spear, 809. feynd sb. fiend, 911. flue adj. five, 34. flamand pres. part, blazing, re- splendent, 669. flan sb. (ON. flan) storm, tem- pest, 2. fleichingis sb. (F. flechir) flat- teries, cajolery, 899. flourdelyce sb. fleur-de-lys, 668. flure sb. floor, 681. fOllOWit pret. pertained, 506. foly sb. folly, 524, 553. forbot imp. ? forbid, 743. forceness, forcynes sb. vigour, might, 811, 817. ford adv. forward, forth, 731. forestalls sb. foresters, 195. forfaltour sb. (OF. forfaicture) forfeiture, 760. formest adj. first, principal, 286, 579, 668, 702. foroutin weir without doubt, 288. forrow (see note) 538. forsulth adv. forsooth, truly, 55, 71, 146, 191, 200. for thy adv. therefore, 371, 916. for-WOnderit adj. surprised, amazed, 727. forwrocht pp. (Nth. forworht) outwearied, exhausted, 835. for^eild pres. (Nth. forgelda) re- quite, reward, 78. forget inf. forget, 312, 966. forget pp. forgotten, 125, 148. fOUlllS sb. fowls, birds, 523, 680. foundls pres. (OE. fundian) goes, proceeds, 174. foundls pres. attempts, tries, 811. foundlt pret. went, advanced, 702. foundlt pret. founded, 968. fra prep. (ON. fra) from, 4, 162, 371, 609. frane inf. (Nth. fregna) ask, 225. freik sb. (OE. freca) man, 616, 655. freindly adv. friendly, 279. frelndSChlp sb. friendship, 61. freschlle adv. cheerfully, gaily, 210. freuch adj. (ME. frough, brittle ; OHG. fro) frail, weak, 523. fre waird (see note) 760. fule sb. fool, 507. fundin pp. found, 292, 500, 523 r 552, 616, 763. fure pret. fared, 24, 210; went, came, 8, 18. furth adv. and prep, onward, 69 ;. on, along, 397. furth fend inf. restrain, keep back, 655. furth gane pp. advanced, 262. fusloun sb. (L. fusionem) plenty, abundance, 210. fute sb. foot, 548, 817 ; footing, 1ft fyftene adj. fifteen, 231, 669. 148 Glossary. tylit pp. defiled, 444. fyne adj. fine, 54, 680. fyre sb. fire, 81, 109, 132, 142, 222, 910. fyrth (OE. friiS) woodland, grove, 680. fyue adj. five, 655. ga imp. and inf. go, 116, 157, 423, 750. laddering sb. assembling, 336. gaif inf. give, 498 (see note). gaif pret. gave, 390 ; gavest, 369 ; gave up, 836. gals pres. go, 219. gaist s6. guest, 96, 104, 108, 213. gaist sb. ghost, 836. gait sb. (OX. gata) road, way, 42, 93, 108, 568, 610, 783. gal^art adj. (OF. gaillart) gal- lant, gay, 782. ganandest adj. (ON. gegna) most convenient, readiest, 783. gane adv. (ON. gegn) hastily, 610. gane pp. gone, 158, 238, 349. gang inf. and imp. go, 145, 147, 158, 261, 381, 487. gangis pres. goest, 610. gangand pres. part, going, 445. gar imp. and inf. (Icel. gora) make, cause, 213, 396, 501, 723. gart pret. caused, made, 583, 771, 861, 955. gat (furth) pret. got forth, went out (?) 601. gat pret. got, 697, 777. gawin sb. (Dan. gavn) gain, ad- vantage, 381. gay sb. gay one, 783. gedllng sb. (OE. gsedeling) fel- low, 610, 619. geif pres. give, 611. gelr sb. array, armour, 482, 770. gentill adj. noble, 182, 203, 337, 343, 571, 927. gentrise sb. courtesy, mercy, 368. gest sb. guest, 201. gest sb. jest, laughing-stock, 782. gestnlng sb. lodging, entertain- ment, 972. gif, gyf cmj. if, 62, 110, 234, 253, 397. gif pres. and inf. give, 309, 761, 770. girth sb. (OE. gri) peace, 836. glaid adj. glad, 77, 117, 178, 601. glaid pret. glided, moved, went, 98, 482. glaidlie adv. (see note) 193. glaidly adv. gladly, willingly, 617. gle sb. pleasure, entertainment, 627, 717, 953. gle sb. (see note) 98. glemand pres. part. gleaming, shining, 667. glemiS sb. gleams, lights, 456. glitterand pres. part. glittering, 456, 667, 717, 770. gouerning sb. living, livelihood, 445. gowlis sb. gules, red, 455, 667. graid pp. (contr. of graithit) pre- pared, ready, 141. graipis sb. bosses, studs (?) 469. graith adj. (ON. grsei'Sr) speedy, prompt, 389. Glossary. 149 grant sb. promise, agreement, 76, 389. grantit pp. agreed, consented, 317. grassum sb. (OE. gsersum) treas- ure, wealth, 936. grauit pp. engraved, emblazoned, 455. gre sb. degree, 483. greif pres. molest, 312. greif sb. grief, misfortune, 381. greis sb. greaves, leg-armour, 469. greit adj. great, 319, 325, 334, 338. grene sb. green, 455, 667. grome sb. man, gentleman, 611, 729, 782. gude adj and sb. good, 72, 88, 97, 261, 291 ; good fortune, 786 ; good men, 170. gudlie adv. handsomely, 118. gyde sb. (ME. gyte) garb, ap- parel, 717. gyf conj. if, 397. gyrd (leit) (OE. gyrd?) let drive, struck, 149. haikit pret. (OE. hlgian?) went, proceeded, 642. haill adj. whole, complete, 409, 494. hailsum adj. pleasant, delightful, 673. hair adj. hoar, gray, 419. haiSt sb. haste, 830. halstelie, haistely adv. hastily, quickly, 113, 399, 419, 823. hald inf. and imp. hold, 19, 251, 315, 371, 380, 409, 780, 798. haldin pp. held, bound, 543; kept, preserved, 565. haldis pres. boldest, keepest, 493. hale adj. whole, entire, 52. halely adv. entirely, 893. name sb. and adv. home, 71, 91, 103, 107, 233. hamelie adj. homely, plain, 112. hapnis pres. happens, occurs, 759. harberie, barbery sb. lodging, 41, 64, 66, 83, 292, 296, 673, 971. harbreit pret. lodged, 707. hard adj. strong, bold, 830. hard pret. and pp. heard, 15, 99, 280, 437. hardy sb. bold one, 642. harnes sb. harness, armour, 393, 409, 575. harnest adj. armed, 830. hart sb. heart, 77, 402, 481, 600, 893. hartfully adv. heartily, sincerely, 888. haue pres. and inf. have, 105, 162 ; take, 255, 741. he (on) adv. aloud (on high) 211. hecht sb. promise, 409, 451. hecht pret. and pp. promised, 380, 447, 527, 541, 780, 798. heich adj. high, 19. heill s6. health, 565, 600. help (see note) 83. heir adv. here, 66, 112, 564, 707. heir pres. and inf. hear, 330, 375, 762, 847. heit sb. heat, 831. hende sb. (OE. gehende) amiable one, 967. heritabilly adv. heritably, 761. hes pres. hast, has, have, 81, 108, 160, 170, 205, 441, 585. 150 Glossary. het adj. hot, 109. hew sb. hue, colour, 551. hewit pp. hewed, smote, 823, 830. hicht *l>. height, 494. hicht (on, vpon) adv. on high, 37, 684 ; aloud, 631. bidder adv. hither, 584, 709. hie adj. high, 69, 384, 416, 807. nine adv. (Nth. heona) hence, 49, 854. hing inf. hang, 741. hOltiS sb. (OE. holt) woodlands, woody country, 419, 493. hone sb. delay, tarrying, 575. hope pres. fear, apprehend, 720. hors sb. horse, 58, 393; horses, 814, 818. houerit pret. hovered, waited, 415. huifis pres. (MDu. hoven) waitest, watchest, 493. hult pret. waited, 415. hundreth adj. hundred, 757. husband sb. peasant, yeoman, 520, 597. husband weid sb. peasant's dress, 593. hy sb. (OE. higian) haste, 277, 320, 575, 642, 762, 862, 921. hyne adv. (Nth. heona) hence, 238. hynt pret. (OE. hentan) pulled, 575, 696. hyre sb. hire, earnings, 105. ilk adj. (Nth. ilca) same, 468; each, every, 137, 200, 329, 351, 404. ilk ane pron. each one, 25. in feir in company, together, 144, 174, 347, 413, 465, 579, 668. intill prep, in, 409. into prep, in, 210, 350. into feir in company, together, 218. inuy sb. (L. invidia) hostility, spite, 196. inwart adj. intimate, confidential, 236. iornay, iornaying sb. combat, 483, 588, 796. ioynit pp. joined, assembled, 695. iSChar si. (F. . huissier) usher, 644. ithand adj. (ON. rSinn) constant, incessant, 27. iwis adv. (OE. gewiss) indeed, surely, in truth, 35, 143, 161, 248, 691, 727. keip sb. heed, care, 638, 755. keip inf. keep, 162, 538 ; main- tain, 960. keipeir sb. keeper, *772. ken inf. and pres. (OE. cunnan) know, 325, 446, 705, 719, 767; tell, direct, 436. kend pret. knew, 651. kend pp. taught, directed, 952. kendill imp. kindle, 107. kene adj. bold, 842, 860. kest pret. cast, threw, 365, 839 ; cast about, reflected, 402 ; placed, 809. kest thame addressed themselves, 821. knaifis sb. servants, 113. knap imp. pull, pluck, 111. Glossary. 151 knaw pres. know, 260. knawledge sb. knowledge, 246, 325. knawln adj. and pp. acquainted, 254, 532 ; known, 379, 501. kne sb. knee, 337. kneilit, kneilllt pret. knelt, 333, 337, 421. knicht sb. knight (passim). knyfe sb. knife, dagger, 864, 866. kyith imp. (Nth. cyfta) make known, 107. kynd sb. nature, 126, 163. kythand pres. part, showing, ap- pearing, 706. laid sb. load, 245, 300, 323, 445, 508, 640. laid" pret. laid on, beat, drove, 137. laid pp. laid down, offered, 297. laiser sb. leisure, 566. lait adv. late, 40. laith adj. loth, 285, 640, 700, 823, 833. laithly adv. terribly, horribly, 137. lak inf. (ODan. lak) blame, find fault, 87. lane inf. (ON. leyna) conceal, 313. lang adj. long, 828. lang (thOCht) grew weary, 277. lap on pret. mounted, 277. lasair sb. leisure, 632. lat inf. let, 833. lat imp. let, 212, 377, 617, 623 ; let me, 291 ; let us, 525. lat be imp. leave it alone, 293. lat the inf. let thee go, 857. lattln pp. let, 613. laubour sb. labour, 509. lauch inf. laugh, 784. lauchfull adj. law-abiding, peace- able, 508. lawtie sb. loyalty, good faith, 509, 602. layd inf. lay, wager, 374 (see note). led pp. guided (?) treated (?) 740. leid pres. lead, 47. leid inf. lead, carry, 508. leid sb. (OE. leod) man, person, 395, 591. leidand pres. part, bringing, car- rying, 595. leidis pres. carry, 50. leif inf. live, 951, 967 (?) leif ivf. believe, 941. leif pres. inf. imp. leave, 65, 423, 640: depart, 613: desist, 785, 823. leif sb. leave, 279, 318, 556. leif Of inf. leave off, desist, 172. leifis pres. live, 509. leill adj. faithful, true, 602. leip (On) inf. mount, 85. leird pp. (OE. lran) taught, 169. leis pres. lose, 641. leit pret. let, allowed, 630. leit gyrd pret. let drive, struck, 149. lelely adv. honestly, truly, 311, 941. lely sb. lily, 672. lemit pret. (OE. leoma) flamed, brightened, 324. len inf. grant, give, 331. 152 Glossary. lent prei. (OE. lendan) went, travelled, 591 ; travelling, 395. tenth sb. length, distance, 861. lesing tb. (OE. leasung) lie, false- hood, 310. lest inf. last, endure, 784. let subj. delay, 306. let sb. delay, 144, 318; hind- rance, 540. letting sb delaying, 424. leuand pres. part, living, 785, 919. leuch pret. laughed, 519, 739. licht adj. light, bright, 324. licht adv. lightly, alightly, 635, 740, 936. liddernes sb. (OE. lySre) base- ness, cowardice, 785. ling sb. moor, heath, 395. ling sb. line, straight course, 426. lOfe inf. (Nth. lof) praise, 87. loft (vpon) adv. aloud, 739, 784. loiS inf. lose, 640. lorne pp. lost, 433. loud (on) adv. aloud, 847. ludgeit pp. lodged, 740. lufe sb. love, 45, 857. lufesumly adv. amicably, 557. luke inf. look, see, 724. lukit pret. looked, 800. lyfe sb. life, 168, 376, 433, 857, 950. lyft sb. (Nth. lyft) sky, 324. lyis prcs. lies, is situated, 246 : dwells, 724. lykand adj. pleased, 40. lyke adj. likely, 519. lykis pres. it pleases, pleases, 613, 947. lyklt pret. was pleased, 39. lystinit pret. listened, 739. lytill adj. little, 57, 80, 800. ma adj. more (in number) 327, 328, 427, 748. mad lie adv. madly, wildly, 22. magre sb. (OF. malgre) ill will, hostility, 485. maid pret. and pp. made, 76, 147, 510, 832. mair adj. more (in quantity) 61, 149, 162, 415, 511. maist adj. and adv. most, largest, 68, 171, 236, 391, 802, 885 ; prin- cipal, chief, 227, 230. maisterfull adj. masterful, over- bearing, 442. malt adj. (OF. mat) exhausted, 832. mak pres. pret. and inf. make, 128, 172, 200. makls pres. makest, 95. manassing sb. threatening, 200. mantene inf. maintain, 850. marschellit pp. marshalled, ar- ranged, 184. mat subj. (OF. mater) trouble, molest, 511. matchit pp. matched, paired, 184. meiknes sb. meekness, humility, 653. melt sb. meat, food, meal, 81, 661, melt inf. meet, 527, 564. meitis pres. meet, 250 ; meetest, 395. mekill, mekle adj. and adv. (OE. mycel) much, great, 6, 47, 61, 138, 338. Glossary. 153 mend inf. help, improve, 653, 954. mene inf. (OE. nuenan) attempt, 121. menstrallls b. minstrels, 355. mer pres. wander, stray, 22. merwell sb. marvel, 514. mes sb. mass, 573. mesure sb. moderation, modesty, 653. meting s6. meeting, 335, 485. mettalll sb. metal, 827. micht pret. might, 19, 83, 653, 811. micht sb. might, 182, 338, 850, 938. michtie adj. mighty, 485. michtis sb. might (mights) 885. midmorne sb. mid-morn, 29, 415. mirrle adj. pleasant, merry, 135. mocht pret. might, could, 268, 490. mon pres. (OE. munian) must, 425, 692. montane sb. mountain, 22, 35, 37, 793. mony adj. many, 3, 6, 12, 444, 446, 945. morne sb. morning, 431. morne (the) sb. to-morrow, the morrow, 272, 286, 299, 304, 312, 322, 363. mot pres. (Nth. mota) may, 53, 129, 285. mure s6. moor, heath, 14, 564, 735. mylis sb. miles, 34, 49. myrk adj. dark, 22. myster sb. (OF. mester) need, 442, 748. na adj. and adv. no, 19, 30, 66, 246, 298 : nay, 79. nalt sb. (Nth. ned) need, 61. namit pret. named, 503. nane adj. pron. and adv. no, none, 21, 53, 68, 160, 266, 376, 536, 546, nane sb. nothing, 172, 191, 261. nanis (for the) for the nonce, 469, 688. nathingf sb. nothing, 506, 561. nay (see note) 689. neid pres. need, need do, 546. neidlingis adv. of necessity, 405. neir adj. and adv. near, 66, 91, 177, 346, 412, 799. nek sb. neck, 123. neuer adv. never, 97, 309, 392, 784, 879. new inf. renew, perform, 545. newlingls adv. newly, recently, 962. nicht sb. night, 38, 83, 135, 328, 342, 961. nichtlt pret. became night, 40. nlxt adj. next, 758, 901. nobill adj. noble, 54, 703. nocht adv. not, 56, 270, 284, 306, 767. nocht sb. nought, 491. none sb. noon, 282, 342, 400, 546, 577. nor conj. than, 504, 546. nouther cmj. neither, 81, 412, 431, 450. noy sb. hindrance, molestation, 536. 11 154 Glossary. nurtour sb. nurture, good breed- ing, 160. nyse adj. foolish, 428. obeysand adj. obedient, 124. OCht pron. aught, any, 253, 302, 371, 554. OCht adv. at all, 645. Of adv. and prep, off, 172 ; from, out of, 13 ; of (passim). officiaris sb. officers, 254. onwart sb. addition, profit, 244. ony adj. any, 60, 72, 149, 312, 395, 511. or adv. ere, before, 92, 291, 629, 720. ordanit pp. and pret. prepared, 323 ; appointed, 329. OUlr adv. and prep, over, 8, 14, 79, 383, 807 ; through, 328. OUtray sb. outrage, 156, 877. OUtrayd pret. outraged, 372. OUtwlth prep, without, outside of, 410. paintit pp. painted, 664. palfray sb. palfrey, horse, 276. palice, palys sb. palace, 354, 615. pane sb. (L. pannus) apparel, 5, 234, 624. pardle int. par Dieu, 166, 530. pardoun sb. pardon, 922. pariSChe inf. perish, 20. pas inf. and imp. go, 71, 341, 568, 623. pauyot s6. (see note) 276. payit pp. pleased, contented, 70, 580. pdr tb. equal, 468, 664. picht pp. set, studded, 467. pithlS pi. (OE. pia?) strength, 863. plaitis sb. back and breast plates, 467. plane adj. and adv. clear, plain, 416 ; plainly, clearly, 315. plane sb. plain, 614. plesance sb. pleasure, pleasant- ness, 358, 907. plesand adj. pleasing, handsome, 624. pllcht pres. plight, pledge, 940. preichand pres. part, preaching, 345. preif inf. prove, try, attempt, 304, 314, 615. preiflt pp. reckoned, accounted, 497. preikit pret. pricked, spurred, 408. preis sb. press, crowd, throng, 624. preiS pres. press, 863. preissis pres. presses, 615. prelstts sb. priests, 344. presoun sb. (see note) 886. prest adv. fast, 408. prest adj. handsome, 468. preuie adj. private, 263. preullie adv. secretly, 276, 711. price sb. praise, honour, reputa- tion, 833. principall sb. chief men, nobles, 358. profferit pret. offered, 147. pnife inf. prove, 863. pryme sb. (see note) 23. Glossary. 155 prys inf. value, put a price on, 252. pryse imp. praise, 86. pulanis sb. (LL. polena) knee- pieces, 468. pund sb. pounds, 757. quemely adv. (Nth. cwoeme) be- comingly, handsomely, 682. quha pron. who, 913. quhair adv. where, 3, 264, 330, 417, 610, 735. quhat pron. what, which, 30, 692. quhat kin what kind of, 233, 592. quhat SUmeuer pron. whatsoever, 398. quhen adv. when, 55, 85, 233, 404. quhldder conj. whether, 381. quhill adv. while, 290, 544 ; until, 91, 141, 415, 512. quhlp sb. whip, 385. quhome pron. whom, 505. quhy adv. why, 95, 597. quoke pret. (OE. cwacian) quaked, trembled, 732. raid pret. rode, 14, 30, 75, 480, 586. raifand pres. part, raving, voci- ferous, 650. ralk inf. and pres. (ON. rseika) move, pass, 212, 549. rals pret. rose, 215. rais inf. hack, hew, 550. raith adv. (Nth. hraSe) hastily, quickly, 549, 608, 819. rauingis si. ravings, mad words, 895. record sb. recital, report, 729. reddy adj. ready, 58, 321, 763. reddyit pret. made ready, 779, 808. regaird sb. notice, 652. reid sb. red, 670. rek pres. reck, regard, 895, 934. rekkls pres. regard, 896. remcid sb. remedy, redemption, 510. remufe inf. remove, give way, 861. renk sb. (OF. renc) way, course, 549 ; lists, 809, 834. renkis sb. (OE. rinc) men, war- riors, 819. rent pp. torn, wounded, 835. repreif pres. reprove, rebuke, 843. resoun, ressoun sb. reason, right, 84, 119, 214, 252, 259, 378, 884. ressonabill adj. reasonable, 758. reuall sb. (OF. reule?) (see note) 670. reuest pp. clad in their vestments, 344. reulit pp. arranged, 466, 671, 686 ; bordered, striped, 670. rew inf. rue, repent, 549. rew sb. (F. rue) street, 351.' rewalrd sb. attention, 650. rewalrd sb. reward, donation, 960. riches sb. splendour, 351 ; riches, 934. richt sb. right, 758, 844, 967. ticht adj. and adv. right, 45, 771 ; straight, 586, 792, 869. richt (at) properly, 686. rid sb. counsel, advice, 259. rid pres. advise, 284, 435, 888. 156 Glossary. rob sb. robe, 576. roiS sb. rose, 671. ronsy sb. (L. rocinus) horse, 479. roustic adj. rusty, 518. rowme sb. space, distance, 809. rubeis sb. rubies, 465. rude sb. rood, cross, 45, 259, 550, 843. rude braid sb. rood-breadtb, 861. rufe sb. roof, ceiling, 670. rufe adj. fierce, strong, 109. runsy sb. horse, 791, 870. ruschit pret. hastened, rushed, 791, 819, 862 ; sprang, 870. ruse inf. (ON. hrosa) praise, boast of, 80. rusit pret. admired, wondered, 481. ryall adj. and sb. royal, 109, 480, 481, 550 ; royal one, 14. ryallie adv. royally, splendidly, 351, 671. ryaltie sb. royalty, magnificence, 688. rydand pres. part, riding, 326, 571, 808. ryde pres. and inf. ride, 291, 479, 779. rydis'pres. rides, 792. ryfe adj. abundant, 170. sa adv. so, 8, 137, 298, 417. Sa pret. saw, 801. sadill sb. saddle, 475. sadly adv. resolutely, 656. saif prep, save, except, 590. saik sb. sake, 110, 243. sail! sb. sale, 243. saill sb. (F. salle) hall, 713. salr adj. sore, hard, 637. salrd pret. hurt, 656. salbe ful. shall be, 56, 308, 433 : shalt be, 552. sail pres. shall, shalt, 85, 122, 159, 301, 305. salUSt pret. saluted, 422. sanct sb. saint, 63, 257, 970. sapheir sb. sapphire, 464. sara^ine si. Saracen, 847, 852, 856, 871, 878, 912, 935. saue inf. save, 500. say and pres. part, saying, 77. sayis pi'es. says, 46 ; sayest, 852 SChame sb. shame, 87, 488, 898. SChame inf. be ashamed, 301. SChapin pp. shaped, formed, 459. SCheild sb. shield, 459. SChene adj. bright, glorious, 459, 943. SChent pp. confounded, brought to shame, 732. SChlll adj. cold, chill, 59. schir sb. sir (passim). SCb.0 pron. she, 99, 103, 251, 932. SChone sb. shoes, 765. SChord pret. (ON. skara) threat- ened, bullied, 733. SChort adj. short, 864. SChOW sb. shove, push, 698. SChTOUd pp. (OE. scrud) clad, adorned, 459. SChynand pres. part, shining, 470, 559. SC pres. and inf. see, 289, 375, 811, 871. seigls sb. (OE. secg) men, lords, 713. Glossary. 157 SCik inf. and imp. seek, 626, 631, 637. seimit pret. seemed, 810. Self adj. (Icel. ser) separate, divers, 25, 568, 666, 714, 923. seir (in) adv. variously? 678. SCiS pres. seest, 202, 397, 560. selCOUthly adv. (OE. seld cu) wonderfully, admirably, 678. semblay, semblie sb. assembly, 357, 663. semblit pret. approached, 590. semelie, semely adj. and adv. handsome, 459, 677, 713 ; hand- somely, 666. semis pres. seems, 745 ; seemest, 54, 754. semit pret. seemed, 806. sen adv. and conj. since, 51, 127, 214, 298, 361, 566. send pp. and pret. sent, 251, 948, 967. sene pp. seen, 357, 461. sen^eorabill adj. lordly, seig- norial, 714. seme inf. serve, 67, 268, 406. setTliS pres. serves, 908. seruit pp. served, 80, 181, 713; deserved, 742. sesit pp. invested, enfeoffed, 923. Set pres. and pp. account, regard, 635, 936 ; regarded, 740. set pp. beset, 447. set pp. arrayed, ornamented, 475, 666, 678. seuin adj. seven, 49, 662, 725. sextie adj. sixty, 774. Sib men sb. kinsmen, 898. Sic adj, and pron. such, 33, 67, 70, 202, 206, 329, 440. Sicht sb. sight, 344, 590, 662; judgment, 742. simpill adj. simple, of low de- gree, 164, 373, 768. Sindrie adj. and adv. sundry, var- ious, 221 ; asunder, 29. Sine adv. then, afterwards, 920, 958. Sit inf. resist, disobey, 99. skaith sb. (OE. sceafta) harm, injury, 821. Skill sb. (ON. skil) sense, rea- son, 57. SlaiS pres. slays, 747. smylit pret. smiled, 711. SOCht pret. and pp. sought, looked for, 662, 898 ; took his way, went, 388, 656. SOlempnit adj. solemn, stately, 404, 663. SOne adv. soon, 142, 273, 281, 332, 571. SOne sb. son, 356, 943. SOUdanis sb. sultans, 898. SOUerance sb. (OF. asseurance) truce, quarter, 880. SOUr adj. bad, evil, 910. spair imp. spare, 202. spaird pret. spared, 654. spak pret. spoke, 270, 279, 378. spedely adv. speedily, hastily, 654. speid imp. speed, hasten, 426. speir pres., imp. and inf. (OE. spyrian) ask, 53, 256, 582. spciris pres. askest, 51. SpeiriS sb. spears, 815. 158 Glossary. sperpellit (OF. esparpeiller) scat- tered, 26. splenders .-/>. splinters, 815. sprcnt prei. dashed forward, sprang, 812, 816. springis sb. spring (season) 901. spuil^e inf. despoil, ravage, 901. spurris sb. spurs, 812. squechonis sb. (OF. escusson) escutcheons, coats-of-arms, 684. squyar sb. squire, 772, 774. squyary sb. attendance or retinue of squires, 273. Stabill si. stable, 116. Stad pp. bested, beset, 136, 603. Stalt sb. estate, dignity, 708. stakkerit pret. (ON. stakra) stag- gered, 151, 860. Staluartlie adv. stoutly, stalwartly, 32. Starts sb. stones, gems, 463, 467. Start pret. started, 155, 281. Start sb. brief space, moment, 892. Steid sb. steed, horse, 32, 477, 812. Steid sb. place, 674, 860, 964. SteiU sb. steel, 471, 773. Steill inf. steal, 604. Steir (On) adv. astir, in motion, 411. Steird stirred, shaken, 173. Stiflie, Sttfly adv. strongly, firmly, 16, 865. stonischit pp. astonished, stunned, 173. Stound sb. (OE. stund) moment, 620. Stour sb (OF. estour) combat, 603, 865. Stout (see note) 477. Strald pret. strode, 32. straik sb. stroke, 173, 818. Straik pret. struck, 812. Strait adv. straight, continuously, 731. Stray sb. (see note) 477. strikin pp. stricken, 818. Striue inf. strive, contend, 554. Stryke inf. strike, 520. Stryking sb. striking, fighting, 745. Stubill adj. sturdy, 520. Stude pret. stood, 454. Sture adj. and adv. (OE. stor) strong, strongly, 16, 818. Sturdy adv. strongly, violently, 860. Stynt inf. cease, give up, 700. succourit pret. succoured, 744. succuderus adj. (OF. surqui- derie) haughty, arrogant, 909. SUCCUdrously adv. haughtily, 856. SUddand adj. sudden, 540. SUddandly adv. suddenly, 736. SUith sb. (Nth. so) truth, 52, 89, 248, 733. SUld pret. should, 489, 972 ; shouldst, 163, 370, 559. sum adj. some, 56, 59, 61, 887. SUmmoundiS sb. orders, com- mands, 99. suppois pres. suppose, 257. Suppois conj. although, even if, 767. SUttelly adv. craftily, artistically, 678. SWa adv. so, 56. Glossary. 159 SWayne sb. fellow, servant, 607. SWCit adj. sweet, 948. SWCt pp. sweated, 637. SWOir pret. swore, 949. swyith, swyth adv. (Nth. sw?5e) at once, quickly, 116, 486, 623. syne adv. then, afterwards, 87, 183, 189, 354, 407. syre sb. lord, nobleman, 714. ta imp. and inf. take, 114, 566. taillis sb. tales, stories, 140, 221, 561. tak imp. take, 144, 157, 393. tak me betake me, commit myself, 938. takin sb. token, symbol, 457. takis pres. takest, shalt take, 877. tald pret. told, 220, 403, 708. tane pp. received, 156 ; secured, 240. tane (the) pron. one, the one, 886. tauld pret. told, 528, 728, 906. teind sb. (ON. tiund) tithe, tenth part, 474. telr adj. (OE. tor) tedious, 474. telland pres. part, telling, 561. tene sb. (OE. teona) anger, 123, 457. teneftlll sb. angry one, 458. tent sb. (OF. entente?) heed, notice, 314. teuch adj. tough, 521. tewellis sb. equipments, arms, 474. tha pron. (OE. J>a) those, 749, 802. thair adv. there, 2, 19, 280, 308, 492, 515, 545, 555. thairin adv. therein, 28, 651. thair till adv. thereto, to it, 110, 542. thairtO adv. thereto, 563, 566, 846. thairun adv. thereon, on that, 374. than adv. then, 117, 131, 138, 280, 341. thankand pres. part. thanking, 334. tharth (me) pres. (Nth. SorfeS) it behoves me, 536. thay pron. (OE. J>a) those, they, 21, 24, 187, 350. the pron. thee, 51, 248, 306, 906. thing sb. person, man, 391, 481. thir, this pron. (ON. J>eir) these, 231, 561, 563, 648, 690, 766, 819. thocht sb. thought, memory, 255, 319, 364, 389 ; intention, 912. thocht conj. though, 164, 236, 522. thocht lang grew weary or impa- tient, 277. thopas sb. topaz, 473. thourtOUr way sb. cross-roads, 567. thOW pron. thou, 51 (and passim). thra sb. haste, 801. thraly adv. (ON. )>raliga) hastily, violently, 657, 701. thrawin adj. angry, 129. thre adj. three, 218, 339, 757. threip in/, andpres. (OE. J>reopian) quarrel, 79, 130, 912; charge, 197. threit pret. forced, bullied, 542. threttie adj. thirty, 844, 694. threttis sb. threats, 657. 160 Glossary. thrife, thriue inf. (ON. thrive, 53, 129, 285, 301. thrill^ inf. and pres. push, 701 ; strike, 197. thristlt pret. thrust, pushed, 657, 694, 701. throw adv. and prep, through, 657, 694, 697, 701, 811. thus gait adv. in this manner, 169. thyne pron. thine, 56. ticht pp. fastened, 457 ; set, 473. till prep. (ON. til) to, 316, 390. tit inf. pull, lay hold of, 432. to-blaisterit pret. blew about, buffeted, 28. togidder, toglddir adv. together, 251, 820, 823. tO-morne adv. to-morrow, 85, 564. tother adj. other, 183. toun sb. town, 349, 410, 521, 928. tO-WOrne adj. worn out, 560. tOWSlll inf. tussle, maltreat, 432. tralSt imp. (ON. treysta) trust, 55, 308. . traiSt adj. assured, 547. traistit pret. trusted, 391. trauaill, trauale, trauell sb. toil, labour, 48, 244, 951. trauelland pres. part, travelling, 873. trauellouris sb. travellers, 82. tre sb. tree, 457. trew adj. true, 547. trew lufe sb. (see note) 473. trimland pres. part. trembling, shaking, 458. trow pres. and inf. trust, believe, 56, 108, 877, 885. trowis pres. believest, 561. trystit pp. appointed, 794. tugglll inf. tackle, strive with, 521. tulk, hike pret. took, 25, 118, 846. turnit 'pret. turned, returned, 4. twa adj. two, 43, 113, 123, 570. twyse adv. twice, 148. tyde s6. time, tide, 4, 48, 287. tyne inf. (ON. tyna) lose, 824; perish, 58. tyt pret. seized, took, 123. tyte adv. (ON. titt) quickly, 873, 908. ty thing sb. (ON. tiSindi) tidings, 582, 961. vacant sb. vacancy, vacant office, 758. vennysoun sb. venison, 208. veseir sb. visor, 839. vincussing sb. vanquishing, de- feat, 825. vmbekest pret. surveyed, recon- noitred, 410. vnburely adj. unhandsome, 522, 696, 807. vncourtes adj. discourteous, ill- bred, 122. vndeid adj. alive (undead) 855. vnder prep, under, 150. vnderta pres. undertake, promise, 241. vndertane pp. undertaken, prom- ised, 364, 572. vndertuk, vndertuke pret. under- took, promised, 489, 529. vndo imp. undo, open, 94. Glossary. 161 vneis adv. hardly, scarcely, 155. vngane pp. not (yet) gone, 661. vnkend arlj. unknown, 247. vukuawin adj. unacquainted, ig- norant, 127. vnrufe sb. trouble, disquiet, 47. vnsemand adj. unseemly, unbe- coming, 146. vnset adj. not seated, 146. vnskllftlll adj. ignorant, 159. vntO prep, unto, 5. vp adv. up, 155, 281, 839. Vpon prep, upon, on, 186, 272, 288, 564. VS pron. us, 512, 562. Vther adj. other, 3, 72, 82, 340, 391, 826. wa adj. loth* 247. wachlS sb. watchmen, guards, 274. wait pres. ( Nth. wat) know, knows, 46, 66, 262, 43^1, 502. waitis pres. lie in wait for, watch for, 913. wald sb. wold, open country, 405. wald pret. would, wouldst, 70, 92, 226, 303, 499; would go, 690. walkand pres. part, travelling, wandering, 73, 106. walkln inf. awaken, 275. walklnnit pret. awoke, 280. wan pret. won, 460, 824 ; shouldst win, 765. wanderand pres. part, wandering, 328. wandit pret. wound, bound, 366. wane sb. (OE. wunian) dwelling, 7, 190, 264, 366, 578, 630. 12 wantis pres. is wanting, is absent, 288. wantit pret. lacked, 191, 266. wantOUn adj. (OE. wantogen) rude, rough, 100. wapnis, wapplnnis sb. weapons, 515, 835. war pret. were, 379, 484, 915. wardrop sb. wardrobe, 239, 313, 379. wardroparis sb. grooms of the chamber, 274. warld sb. world, 892. warrand inf. warrant, 122, 534, 587. warysoun sb. protection, 916 (see note). wassalage sb. knightly deed, 887. wayis sb. ways, roads, 394, 587. wayndit pret. (OE. wandian) hes- itated, 228. WCdder sb. storm, 21, 27, 36, 74, 97, 106, 285 ; weather, 59, 290. weid sb. (Nth. woede) garment, 560, 577, 593. weild imp. and inf. possess, 925> 965. weildit pret. possessed, owned, 578. WCill adv. well, 46, 93, 249, 555. weir sb. war, 460, 766, 824. weir sb. doubt, 228, 288, 499. weird sb. destiny, fortune, chance, 377. weit adj. wet, 106. wend pret. (Nth. wende) thought, supposed, 649. wend, went pres. and inf. go, de- 162 Glossary. part, 249, 366, 691 ; shouldst go, 394. wene pres. ween, think, 187. weryouris sb. warriors, 766, 789. weschin pp. washed, 143, 726. Wicht adj. (ON. vlgr) strong, violent, 36, 356, 754, 965. Wlckit adj. bad, 21, 36, 106, 283 ; wicked, 892. widdeis sb. withes, ropes, 366. Will adj. and adv. (ON. villr) astray, lost, 35, 73, 106. willar adj. more astray, in worse plight, 138. Win inf. (OE. winnan) get, attain, go, 110, 625. win sb. (OE. wynn) joy, happi- ness. 925. winnis pres. (Nth. wuneft) dwells, 527. Wirk inf. manage, act, 377, 929. Wise sb. way, manner, 929. wist pret. knew, knew how, 21, 30. Wit inf. know, 226, 249, 643. With all adv. withal, 831, 835; also, 734. Withoutin prep, without, 44, 144, 318, 392, 424. with thy coj. provided that, on condition that, 70. Wittin pp. known, 604, 649. wonder adv. (OE. wundrum) very, extremely, 24, 100, 247. WOrSChip sb. honour, dignity, 460, 824, 965. WOrthie, worthy adj. and sb. wor- thy one, 461, 765, 925; worthy ones, 726 ; able, 625, 750. WOrthis pres. (Nth. worses) shall become, 692 ; can be, 704. WOrthit pret. became, 831. WOSChe pret. washed, 215. WOX pret. (Nth. wox) grew, be- came, 36, 100. wraith sb. and adj. wrath, 486; angry, wroth, 100. wrocht pp. wrought, made, 264. wy sb. (OE. wiga) man, 578, 630, 649. wyfe sb. wife, 98, 133, 144, 157, 174, 267, 291, 356, 966. wyis sb. men, 691. wylit pp. enticed, 709. wyn sb. profit, gain, 918. wyne sb. wine, 186, 208, 266. wynning sb. dwelling, 227, 643. wyse adj. wise, crafty, 722, 727. wyse sb. way, manner, 433. wyselie adv. carefully, 587. wythest (wichtest) adj. strongest, 766. 3aip adj. active, brisk, 628. 3air adv. carefully, 641. ^ald pret. yielded, returned, 224. }arue imp. desire, ask, 837. ^C pron. ye, you, 89, 116, 158, 179. 3e, }ea adv. yea, yes, 298, 376, 545, 620. ^eid pret. (Nth. code, eade) went, 131, 267, 595. 3 eliding sb. yielding, submission, 837. 3eir sb. year, years, 200, 286, 662. 3elriS sb. years, 231. Glossary. 163 3eman sb. yeoman, 628. 3 eme imp. (Nth. gema) take care of, guard, 641. 3et g6. gate, 609, 612, 628. 3ettiS sb. gates, 633. 3it adv. yet, as yet, 80, 138, 428, 659, 692. 3one adj. yon, yonder, that, 367, 372. 3