Words in the Bible now Provincialisms. 193 



joined with fyr, to light) the fire, and on cold days makes it 

 blissy (connected with blysa, a torch). The crow-boy in the 

 spring sets up a gally-bagger (galan, in its last meaning to 

 terrify), instead of the "maukin" of the north, to frighten 

 away the birds from the seed ; and the shepherd still tends his 

 chilver-lamb (cilferlamb) in the barton (here tun, literally the 

 barley enclosure). The labourer still sits under the lew (hleow, 

 or "Meow's," shelter, warmth) of the hedge, which he has been 

 ethering ("efter," a hedge); and drives the stout (stut, a gadfly) 

 away from his horses ; and feels himself lear (lames, emptiness), 

 before he eats his nammit (non-mete), or his dew-bit (deaiv-bite). 

 If we will only open our Bible we shall there find many 

 an old word which could be better explained by the Forest 

 peasants than any one else. Here the ploughman still talks of 

 his "dredge," or rather "drudge," that is, oats mixed with 

 barley, just as we find the word used in the marginal reading of 

 Job xxiv. v. 6. Here, too, as in Amos (chap. iv. v. 9), and other 

 places, the caterpillar is called the " palmer-worm." Here, also, 

 as in other parts of England, the word "lease," from the Old- 

 English lesan, is far commoner than glean, and is used just as 

 we find it in WyclinVs Bible, Lev. xix., 10 : " In thi vyneyeerd 

 the reysonus and cornes fallynge down thou shalt not gedere, 

 but to pore men and pilgrimes to ben lesid thou shalt leeve." 

 The goatsucker is known, as we have seen, not only as the 

 "jar-bird," but as the "night-hawk," as in Leviticus 

 (chap, xi., v. 16) and Deuteronomy (chap, xiv., v. 15) ; and 

 also the " night-crow," as we find it called in Barker's Bible 

 (1616) in the same passages. So also the word "mote," in the 

 well-known passage in St. Matthew (chap, viii., v. 3), is not here 

 obsolete. The peasant in the Forest speaks of the " motes," 

 that is, the stumps and roots of trees, in opposition to the 



C C 



