292 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 19. 
the churchyard, at the right hand side of the walk 
leading to the south side of the church, which was 
removed several years ago, was supposed to have 
covered the remains of the former vicar of Dean 
Prior. 
Being baffled in our search after ‘tombstone 
information,” we called at the vicarage, which 
stands close by the church, and the vicar most 
courteously accorded us permission to search the 
registers of the marriages, births, and burials, 
whieh were in his custody. The portion of the 
dilapidated volume devoted to the burials is headed 
thus :— 
“ Dean Prior 
“ The names of all those yt have been buried in y® 
same parish from y® year of our Lord God 1561, and 
so forwards.” 
After some careful search we were gratified by 
discovering the following entry :— 
“ Robert Herrick Vicker was buried y® 15th day 
October,” “ 1674.” 
I fancy I met with a selection from Herrich’s 
Poems edited by Mr. Singer, several years ago, 
comprised in a small neat volume. Can any of your 
readers inform me whether there is such a book ? 
I possess Mr. Singer’s valuable editions of Ca- 
vendish, More, and Hall's Satires, and would wish 
to place this volume on the same shelf. 
J. Mizner Barry. 
Totnes, Feb. 21. 1850. 
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF “ L=RIG?” 
This guery, evidently addressed to our Anglo- 
Saxon scholars by the distinguished philologist to 
whom we are all so much indebted, not having 
been hitherto replied to, perhaps the journal of 
‘“ Nores AND Queries” is the most fitting vehicle 
for this sugyestive note : — 
TO DR. JACOB GRIMM. 
Allow me, though an entire stranger to you, to 
thank you for the pleasure I have derived, in 
common with all ethnological students. from your 
very valuable labours, and especially from the 
Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. At the same 
time I venture, with much diffidence, to offer a 
reply to your question which oceurs in that work 
at p. 663.: — “ Was heisst lerig ?” 
Lye says, ‘‘ Hee vox ocecurrit apud Cedm. At 
interpretatio ejus minime liquet.” In the Sup- 
plement to his Dictionary it is explained “ docilis, 
tyro!” Mr. Thorpe, in his Analecta A.-S. (1st 
edit. Gloss), says, “* The meaning of this word is 
uncertain: it occurs again in Cedmon;” and in 
his translation of C@dmon he thus renders the 
passage: — “ Ofer linde lerig= over the linden 
shields.” Here then lerig, evidently an adjective, 
is rendered by the substantive shields; and linde, 
evidently a substantive, is rendered by the adjec- 
tive linden. In two other passages Mr. Thorpe 
more correctly translates dindum = bucklers. 
Lind, which Lye explained by the Latin 
labarium, vexillum, that excellent scholar, the late 
lamented Mr. Price, was the first, I believe, to 
show frequently signified a shield; which was, pro- 
bably for lightness, made of the wood of the lime 
tree, and covered with skin, or leather of various 
colours. Thus we have “ sealwe linde” and “ hwite 
linde” in Cedm., “ geolwe linde” in Beowulf. 
All this is superfluous to you, sir, 1 know — 
“ Retournons ad nos moutons,’ as Maistre Pierre 
Pathelin says. 
The sense required in the passage in Brythnoth 
seems to me to be: — 
“ beerst bordes lerig=the empty f hollow shields 
“and seo byrne sang=and the armour (lorica) 
resounded.” 
And in Cedmon: — 
* ofer linde lerig=over the empty f hollow "? shield.” 
In Judith, Th. Anal. 137, 53. we have a similar 
epithet : — 
“ hwealfum lindum = vaulted peetiee, shields.” 
We should remember that Somner has ge-ler, 
void, empty, vacuus ; and Lye, with a reference to 
the Herbarium, ler-nesse, vacuitas. In the Teu- 
thonista we have ler, vacuus, concavus. In Heliand, 
3, 4. “darea stodun thar stenuatu sehsi = empty 
stood there stone-vats six.” I need not call to 
your mind the O. H. G. dari. 
I think, therefore, we cannot doubt that what is 
intended to be expressed by the A.-S. lerig is 
empty, hollow, concave. But, if we wanted further 
confirmation, leer, leery, leary are still in use in 
Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and perhaps elsewhere, 
for empty, hollow, as the provincial Glossaries will 
show. Skinner has the word leer, vacuus, and 
says, “ foeliciter alludit Gr. Aayapos, laxus, vacuus.” 
In Layamon we have (244, 16.), “the put wes 
i-ler.” Ihave found but one instance in Middle 
English, and that is in the curious old Phrase- 
Book compiled by William Horman, Head Master 
of Eton School in the reign of Henry VIII. : — 
“© At a soden shyfte Jeere barellis, tyed together, 
with boardis above, make passage over a streme.’ 
Tumultuario opere, inanes cupp2 colligate et tabulatis 
instrate fluminis transitu perhibent.”— Hormanni Vul- 
| garia, Lond. 1519, f. 272 b. 
Instances of the word are not frequent, possibly 
because we had another word for empty (¢oom) in 
common with the Danes; but perhaps there was 
no necessity for dwelling upon it in the sense of 
empty ; it was only its application as an epithet to 
a concave or hollow shield that your question could 
have had in view. 
