470 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 76., June 13. '57. 



someness of their respective works, and almost 

 nothing to their real value, by noticing every pos- 

 sible way in which similar sounds can be repre- 

 sented in print. A variation in spelling by no 

 means necessarily implies a difference in dialect ; 

 any two persons attempting to write down a pro- 

 vincial dialogue from ear, would make variations 

 quite as wide apart as hauf and hoaf, maisled and 

 mazled, eilding and elden, peat and peente, &c. ; and 

 perhaps neither of them hit the exact pronuncia- 

 tion.* It would not be difficult to bring from 

 some of our old writers instances of the same 

 word being spelt half-a-dozen different ways in 

 the same book, almost in the same page ; but one 

 would not think a glossary to such book incom- 

 plete, because it did not notice all these variations. 

 So far from blaming B. H. and W. for giving too 

 few variations, the great objection I find to most 

 modern glossaries is, that their pages are swelled 

 out with mere variations in spelling, instead of 

 being confined to pure variations of dialect. 



With regard to one or two words in "The 

 Terrible Knitters e' Dent" : — 



Quiesed seems to be a form of quizzed. 



Staw is used by Sir W. Scott in Old Mortality 

 (ch. i.) : "I trow an hour o't wad staw them." In 

 the West Riding of Yorkshire it is pronounced 

 stall or stawl, or stole (how should this be spelt ?). 



Thack. Few things give one the idea of a 

 thorough soaking better than a thatched roof in a 

 wet season ; besides, a bill I received the other 

 day for repairs done to some cottages gave me 

 another proof, in the shape of an item " for 3 tons 

 of thatch steeping," that there is a time when 

 thatch is wet enough to warrant the use of the 

 proverb : " As wet as thack." 



" Ooyddes penner,'' " Boys income^'' SfC. — I beg 

 to furnish another " clue " to the explanation of 

 the last stanza of the " early satirical poem " in 

 which these phrases occur. 



Line 2. " Spryght of boohkas " is " spirit of Bo- 

 chas, or Boccace," whose works Lydgate trans- 

 lated. 



Line 6. " Ooyddes penner" is "Ovid's (anciently 

 spelt ouydes) pencase." 



Line 7. "Boys income " is " Boece's inkhorn." 



Halliwell gives " Boys, Boethius. (Lydgate, 

 p. 122.") 



Caxton, at the end of the second book of the 

 Recuyel of the History es of Troy, a.d. 1471, has 

 this passage, which well illustrates the above : 



" ffor as moche as that worshifull and religyo man dau 

 John lidgate monke of Burye dide translate hit but late, 

 after whos werke I fere to take vpon me that am not 

 worthy to here his penner and ynke home after hym, to 



* As an instance of this, Halliwell spells a word "hauf- 

 rochton" which means, in my native dialect, one who has 

 only been half-rocked in his cradle when an infant, i. e. 

 has not been properly attended to, nursed, or brought up, 

 and so is deficient in wits. 



medle me in that werke." — Ames's Typographical Dic- 

 tionary, i. 7. 



Marlyons (in the second stanza of the said 

 poem) occurs in Caxton's Julyan Bernes Bake of 

 Huntynge : 



"There is a Merit/on and that hawke is for a lady. 

 It is now spelt " merlin." 



" Chynner,'"' " syrryd," " gomards," and " ryl' 

 lyons " have as yet evaded the researches of 



J. Eastwood. 



Eckington. 



As far as my own somewhat lengthened ex- 

 perience of the dialect of the Dale extends, and 

 from what I can learn from ray old-fashioned 

 neighbours, " As sick as a peeate," " Quiesced," 

 " Raggeltly," " Stoult," " Kursmas teea," and " As 

 wet as thack," are terms quite unknown in Dent. 

 The heading itself of the story whence they are 

 taken is incorrect. It should have been "The 

 Terr'ble Knitters o'Dent ; " and, in the other ex- 

 amples adduced, many instances of false ortho- 

 graphy and pronunciation occur. These I now 

 proceed to notice, and, at the same time, will 

 endeavour to supply some portion, at least, of the 

 information required by your correspondent^ 



Elding, or rather elden, — never eildirifz — 'S 

 properly firing in general ; but, as peats and turves 

 constitute our principal articles.of fuel, the term 

 is, for the most part, appropriated to them. The 

 word occurs in " 'i'he Praise of Yorkshire Ale," 

 1697. It is the Icelandic Eldr, fire, flame, the 

 fire-hearth ; Dan. lid, pi. Ilden (our very expres- 

 sion) ; A.-S. JEled. Compare Gr. cAtj, and also 

 Persian Ala, which, according to Ihre, has the 

 same signification. Icel. Elder means the fire- 

 keeper and chimney-sweeper. Near Hellested in 

 Zealand, I may add, is a hill called Ildshoi, i.e. 

 firehill. 



Hauf, rather than hoaf. Our local pronuncia- 

 tion approaches nearer than the AaZ/" of modern po- 

 lite society to Icel. Hdlfr. It is the M. G. and 

 Germ. Halb ; A.-S. Healf and half; Dan. Hah. 



Maffle and faffle are both used amongst us to 

 signify hesitation in speech. The former term, 

 especially, is chiefly applied to the unconnected 

 wanderings of the delirious and dying. It is found 

 in Baret's Alvearie, 1580, where we are told, " He 

 so stammered or maffled in his talke, that he was 

 not able to bring forth a readie worde." Faffle is 

 probably a corruption of famhle, which Cotgrave 

 interprets " to maffle in the mouth." The expres- 

 sion may be referred to Icel. Fimbul-fambi, which 

 may be rendered, — confusedly murmuring, foolishly 

 garrulous, greatly stammering, talking to no pur- 

 pose. Fimbul, however, is a word of doubtful 

 etymology, compared by Finn Magnusen with 

 A.-S. Fymble, a fable, and by Grimm considered 

 simply as an augmentative. Fambi springs from 

 the same root as Icel. Fani, fabifini^ silly, doting, 



