November 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



265 



THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE'S 

 GREENWOOD.-III. 



By George Morley. 



THAT the object which I had in view when jotting 

 down some of the peculiarities of speech of the 

 Warwickshire rustic, as explained in my first 

 sketch in the June Number of Knowledge (to wit 

 to write a chatty account of some of the dialect 

 words of Shakespeare's greenwood, rather than a dry, 

 analytical, and learned treatise on provincialisms), has been 

 accomplished, seems to be proved by the very interesting 

 correspondence which the subject has elicited from dwellers 

 in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Shropshire, and Kent. 



Nearer " the heart of England," as Drayton has well 

 called Warwickshire, than the above-named counties, it 

 need occasion no surprise to find the similitude of the 

 common tongue very marked in certain words, because the 

 commingling of inhabitants dwelling upon the fringes of 

 the shires would naturally effect this. Indeed, as pointed 

 out in my first paper, some of the dialect words cited are to 

 be met with in the adjoining counties, notably in Stati'ord- 

 shire, where, among working class folk, the sympathetic 

 word " nesh "' is in frequent use. 



That the language characteristic of the soil of rural 

 Warwickshire has similitudes so much farther north of those 

 counties — even, as a Lancashire correspondent informs 

 me, in the scene of Mr. Crockett's "Eaiders" in the "land 

 of brown heath and shaggy wood" — is a very delightful fact, 

 which serves to show the influence which the idiomatic 

 speech of Shakespeare's days has had upon the people of 

 these islands ; for, as has been very clearly shown, many 

 of the words selected in my two first papers as examples 

 of the dialect current to-day in the sequestered Warwick- 

 shire woodland, and which are also, as correspondents 

 assert, in active use in their counties, are taken direct 

 from the works of Shakespeare, and may reasonably be 

 concluded to be words in the mother tongue of the poet 

 himself, uttered in his childhood more than three centuries 

 ago. 



To those correspondents, therefore, from the above four 

 counties, who have so kindly pointed out to me the 

 resemblance between certain words in the language of 

 Shakespeare's greenwood and words in the dialect of places 

 from which they write, my thanks are cordially due and 

 are very gratefully given ; since it is only by such com- 

 munications that facts of considerable interest can be 

 made plain, and our knowledge of an important subject 

 be materially increased. 



Further interest may probably attach to this attractive 

 subject if my two previous articles are now briefly am- 

 plified by a selection of dialect words which I regard as 

 especially Warwickshire words ; words which are peculiar 

 to the language of Shakespeare's greenwood, though 

 variants of them may be heard in other neighbourhoods 

 near Warwickshire ; and words, moreover, which by their 

 singularity and quaintness cannot but be regarded as 

 picturesque and valuable examples of a dialect more 

 rich in strength, in simplicity, in poetical force, and 

 in the qualities of endurance than many other English 

 dialects. 



As an apt illustration of the poetry of the so-called 

 " common tongue " of the Warwickshire rustic, the term 

 " deaf nut," mentioned in my first paper, may be here 

 cited. The real meaning of the term is a hollow nut, a 

 nut without a kernel ; but the latent poetical instinct 

 implanted in the breast of the Arden peasant gives it a 



higher significance, and applies it to affections of the 

 heart. 



When a Warwickshire maiden's young man has left 

 her to seek his fortune at "gay Brookington " or else- 

 where, she will say with a demure face, " Hey, my life's 

 that holler now, 'tis like a deaf nut from Cuddington 

 'Ood," dropping the "w" in the manner usual with the 

 peasants of this greenwood when uttering the words 

 " wood " or " would.'' A mother's heart is " like a deaf 

 nut," void and withered, when her child's love has gone 

 from it. 



Singularly expressive, too, is the word " tooting," so 

 often heard tripping from the tongue of the rustic house- 

 wife. " Donna thee come tootin' about arter my lad, 

 Jacobina," a mother will say ; " othergates I shall tell thy 

 fayther, an' then ye'llget it mortal illconvenient, I mek no 

 doubt." In the meaning of the Warwickshire peasant to 

 " toot about " is to hang, to slink, to sidle, and to idle 

 about ; sometimes with a precise object in view (as when 

 •lacobina desires to wheedle Jack into taking her to the 

 Warwick statute fair — " the Mop," as she would call it), 

 at other times without it. The range of subjects and 

 objects to which " toot ' and " tooting " may be applied 

 is very wide indeed; from the bailiff tooting about the 

 farm buildings before taking possession, to the ancient 

 grimalkin who toots about the dairy in the hope of surrep- 

 titiously enjoying a dish of new cream. 



The word " brevet," though lacking the individuality of 

 " toot," is often used in exchange with that word, and has 

 a somewhat similar signification. "Now donna thee 

 brevet about that rick-straddle, orthee'lt hev it on top on 

 thee," is a sentence that may often be heard in the 

 Warwickshire harvest field. Literally, the meaning of 

 the word "brevet" is to sniff about, like a dog; but 

 common usage has applied the word to any person or 

 creature of an inquisitive turn of mind, and even the 

 parsons of certain villages have not infrequently been 

 accused of " brevettln' " their noses about into the 

 business of other folks. 



An illustration of the simplicity of the dialect of rural 

 Warwickshire is happily shown in the expressive, almost 

 pictorial, word, " othergates." In the language of Shake- 

 speare's greenwood " othergates " is a substitution for 

 " otherwise" — in another manner. If you cannot do a thing 

 this way you must do it that. If this gate is closed, that 

 may be open. " Ye muu do what I tell thee, othergates — " 

 meaning that, if you do not, some other way must be found 

 to make you do it. The strength and simplicity of this 

 word is not a little remarkable, and, as it is spoken by 

 the rustic, sometimes with a shake of the head to fore- 

 shadow the cost of a broken rule, it has that engaging 

 and picturesque efiect so peculiar to the Warwickshire 

 dialect. 



Certainly one of the quaintest words in the language of 

 this classic greenwood is the word " colly." The towns- 

 man would surely say that the word stood for a very 

 well-known member of the canine race, which the 

 Warwickshire shepherd invariably has sidling at his heels. 

 If the townsman were wandering down one of these 

 hidden leafy lanes some morning, with a dark and gloomy 

 sky overhead, and were to get into conversation with a 

 chance native, it would not be long ere he would be 

 entirely disillusioned, for the rustic when speaking of the 

 weather (a subject upon which the peasant is always the 

 spokesman and prophet of his own country) would be 

 almost sure to say : " 'Tis a mortal colly mornin', inna it, 

 sir ? " 



It will thus be seen that when the Warwickshire peasant 

 speaks of a " colly " morning, he means a dark, gloomy 



