Ox Words. 9 



will follosv the same rule, and a little atteution to these rules 

 would save a deal of study. But, indeed, we need not go so far 

 from home for instances, for the Scotchman says ierk or yerk 

 when the Englishman says jerk. He calls the gable of a house 

 the gavel. He calls a gate a yett, and a smithy a smiddy. The 

 withy or willow rope, which preceded the use of hemp for capital 

 punishment, he calls a wuddy, and so on. We are a very mixed 

 people, but the lowland Scotchman is probably, on the whole, 

 more of a Norseman than anything else. When Jamieson was 

 compiling his Scotch Dictionary he met with a learned Icelander 

 who said he had found four hundred Icelandic words in broad 

 Scotch. Dumfriesshire is entitled to its share, for Worsaao, tiie 

 Danish antiquarian, who visited Great Britain and Ireland half 

 a century ago for the express purpose of tracing the settlements 

 of the Danes, includes it along with the north of England in their 

 territory, one of the infallible proofs being the prevalence of 

 place names ending in by or bie, such as Lockerby^, Lamonby, 

 Denbie, Gotterby, &c., &c., the by signifying the home of the 

 Dane, as ham, heim, or hame does that of the Saxon. Garth is 

 another mark. The meaning of it is enclosed land. In fact, it 

 seems to be the same as yard, with the letters interchanged. 

 The word by m;iy probably have some connection with the 

 common phrase of oot bye or in bye. From the old intimacy 

 between France and Scotland, it is not surprising that French 

 words in a more or less Gorru|)ted state abound in broad Scotch. 

 Old French words which now terminate in eau terminated in el, 

 so that couteau, a knife, was coutel, and this the ScotchniMn 

 makes whuttle. Hardware came mostly from Flanders. The 

 town of Liege was famous for cutlery, so a large clasp knife was 

 called in Scotland a Jockteleg or Jacques de Leige. Mons Meg 

 was simply made at Mons in Flanders, though Galloway people 

 like the fable of its local manufacture. No country blacksmith 

 could have made such a gun. A well-known kind of shortbread 

 in Edinburgh used to be called petticoat tails, the real name 

 being petits gatels, or little cakes. They threw the slops over 

 tha windows with a shout of gardyloo, meaning gardez I'eau, or 

 beware of the water. Jigot of mutton on an ashet is, as is well 

 known, all French together. When a drunk man is said to be 

 fou he is not full. Fou in French means mad. A queer shaver 

 is not a barber, he is a chevre, a goat. When a mason puts up a 

 chimney-{)iece he puts it on the jambs, or legs in French. A 



