Various
Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850

THE MOSQUITO COUNTRY.—ORIGIN OF THE NAME.—EARLY CONNECTION OF THE MOSQUITO INDIANS WITH THE ENGLISH

The subject of the Mosquito country has lately acquired a general interest. I am anxious to insert the following "Notes and Queries" in your useful periodical, hoping thus to elicit additional information, or to assist other inquirers.

1. As to the origin of the name. I believe it to be probably derived from an native name of a tribe of Indians in that part of America. The Spanish Central Americans speak of Moscos. Juarros, A Spanish Central American author, in his History of Guatemala, names the Moscos among other Indians inhabiting the north-eastern corner of that tract of country now called Mosquito: and in the "Mosquito Correspondence" laid before Parliament in 1848, the inhabitants of Mosquito are called Moscos in the Spanish state-papers.

How and when would Mosco have become Mosquito? Was it a Spanish elongation of the name, or an English corruption? In the former case, it would probably have been another name of the people: in the latter, probably a name given to the part of the coast near which the Moscos lived.

The form Mosquito, or Moskito, or Muskito, (as the word is variously spelt in our old books), is doubtless as old as the earliest English intercourse with the Indians of the Mosquito coast; and that may be as far back as about 1630: it is certainly as far back as 1650.

If the name came from the synonymous insect, would it have been given by the Spaniards or the English? Mosquito is the Spanish diminutive name of a fly: but what we call a mosquito, the Spaniards in Central America call by another name, sanchujo. The Spaniards had very little connexion at any time with the Mosquito Indians; and as mosquitoes are not more abundant on their parts of the coast than on other parts, or in the interior, where the Spaniards settled, there would have been no reason for their giving the name on account of insects. Nor, indeed, would the English, who went to the coast from Jamaica, or other West India Islands, where mosquitoes are quite as abundant, have had any such reason either. At Bluefields where the writer has resided, which was one of the first places on the Mosquito coast frequented by English, and which derives its name from an old English buccaneer, there are no mosquitoes at all. At Grey Town, at the mouth of the river San Juan, there are plenty; but not more than in Jamaica, or in the towns of the interior state of Nicaragua. However names are not always given so as to be argument-proof.

How did the word mosquito come into our language? From the Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian? How old is it with us? Todd adds the word Muskitto, or Musquitto, to Johnson's Dictionary; and gives an example from Purchas's Pilgrimage (1617), where the word is spelt more like the Italian form:—"They paint themselves to keep off the muskitas."

There is a passage in Southey's Omniana (vol. i. p. 21.) giving an account of a curious custom among the Mozcas, a tribe of New Granada: his authority is Hist. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, l. i. c. 4. These are some way south of the other Moscos, but it is probably the same word.

One of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies has the name of Mosquito.

Some "Mosquito Kays" are laid down on the chart off Cape Gracias à Dios, on the Mosquito coast; but these probably would have been named from the Mosquito Indians of the continent. And these Mosquito Indians appear to have spread themselves from Cape Gracias à Dios.

It is stated, however, in Strangeways' Account of the Mosquito Shore, (not a work of authority), that these Mosquito Kays give the name to the country:—

"This country, as is generally supposed, derives its name from a clustre of small islands or banks situated near its coasts, and called the Mosquitos."

I should be glad if these Notes and Queries would bring assistance to settle the origin of the name of the Mosquito country from some of your correspondents who are learned in the history of Spanish conquest and English enterprise in that part of America, or who may have attended to the languages of the American Indians.

2. I propose to jot down a few Notes as to the early connexion between the English and the Mosquito Indians, and shall be thankful for references to additional sources of information.

I have read somewhere, that a Mosquito king, or prince, was brought to England in Charles I.'s reign by Richard Earl of Warwick, who had commanded a ship in the West Indies; but I forget where I read it. I remember, however, that no authority was given for the statement. Can any of your readers give me information about this?

Dampier mentions a party of English who, about the year 1654, ascended the Cape River (the mouth of which is at Cape Gracias à Dios) to Segovia, a Spanish town in the interior; and another party of English and French who, after the year 1684, when he was in these parts, crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic, descending the Cape River. (Harris's Collection of Voyages, vol. i. p. 92.) Are there any accounts of these expeditions?

Dampier also speaks of a confederacy having been formed between a party of English under a Captain Wright and the San Blas Indians of Darien, which was brought about by Captain Wright's taking two San Blas boys to be educated "in the country of the Moskitoes," and afterwards faithfully restoring them, and which opened to the English the way by land to the Pacific Sea. (Harris, vol. i. p. 97.) Are there any accounts of English travellers by this way, which would be in the very part of the isthmus of which Humboldt has lately recommended a careful survey? (See Aspects of Nature, Sabine's translation.)

Esquemeling, in his History of the Buccaneers, of whom he was one, says that in 1671 many of the Indians at Cape Gracias spoke English and French from their intercourse with the pirates. He gives a curious and not very intelligible account of Cape Gracias, as an island of about thirty leagues round (formed, I suppose, by rivers and the sea), containing about 1600 or 1700 persons, who have no king; (this is quite at variance with all other accounts of the Mosquito Indians of Cape Gracias); and having, he proceeds to say, no correspondence with the neighbouring islands. (I cannot explain this; there is certainly no island ninety miles in circumference at sea near Cape Gracias.)

A quarto volume published by Cadell in 1789, entitled The Case of His Majesty's Subjects having Property in and lately established upon the Mosquito Shore, gives the fullest account of the early connexion between the Mosquito Indians and the English. The writer says that Jeremy, king of the Mosquitos, in Charles II.'s reign, after formally ceding his country to officers sent to him by the Governor of Jamaica to receive the cession, went to Jamaica, and thence to England, where he was generously received by Charles II., "who had him often with him in his private parties of pleasure, admired his activity, strength, and manly accomplishments; and not only defrayed every expense, but loaded him with presents." Is there any notice of this visit in any of our numerous memoirs and diaries of Charles II.'s reign?

A curious tract, printed in the sixth volume of Churchill's Voyages, "The Mosquito Indian and his Golden River, being a familiar Description of the Mosquito Kingdom, &c., written in or about the Year 1699 by M.W.," from which Southey drew some touches of Indian manners for his "Madoc," speaks of another King Jeremy, son of the previous one; who, it is said, esteemed himself a subject of the King of England, and had visited the Duke of Albemarle in Jamaica. His father had been carried to England, and received from the King of England a crown and commission. The writer of this account says that the Mosquito Indians generally esteem themselves English:—

"And, indeed, they are extremely courteous to all Englishmen, esteeming themselves to be such, although some Jamaica men have very much abused them."

I will conclude this communication, whose length will I hope be excused for the newness of the subject, by an amusing passage of a speech of Governor Johnstone in a debate in the House of Commons on the Mosquito country in 1777:—

"I see the noble lord [Lord North] now collects his knowledge by piecemeal from those about him. While my hon. friend [some one was whispering Lord North] now whispers the noble lord, will he also tell him, and the more aged gentlemen of the House, before we yield up our right to the Mosquito shore, that it is from thence we receive the greatest part of our delicious turtle? May I tell the younger part, before they give their consent, that it is from thence comes the sarsaparilla to purify our blood?"—Parl. Hist. vol. xix. p. 54.

C.

NOTES ON BACON AND JEREMY TAYLOR

In his essay "On Delays," Bacon quotes a "common verse" to this effect:—"Occasion turneth a bald noddle after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken." As no reference is given, some readers may be glad to see the original, which occurs in an epigram on [Greek: Kairos] (Brunck's Analecta, ii. 49.; Posidippi Epigr. 13. in Jacob's Anthol. ii. 49.).

[Greek:
Hae de komae, ti kat' opsin; hupantiasanti labesthai,
nae Dia. Taxopithen d' eis ti phalakra pelei;
Ton gar apax ptaenoisi parathrexanta me possin
outis eth' himeiron draxetai exopithen.]

In Jermey Taylor's Life of Christ (Pref. § 29. p. 23. Eden's edition), it is said that Mela and Solinus report of the Thracians that they believed in the resurrection of the dead. That passage of Mela referred to is, l. ii. c. ii. § 3., where see Tzschucke.

In the same work (Pref. § 20. p. 17.), "Ælian tells us of a nation who had a law binding them to beat their parents to death with clubs when they lived to a decrepit age." See Ælian, Var. Hist. iv. 1. p. 330. Gronov., who, however, says nothing of clubs.

In the next sentence, the statement, "the Persian magi mingled with their mothers and all their nearest relatives," is from Xanthus (Fragm. 28., Didot), apud Clem. Alexandr. (Strom. iii. p. 431 A.). See Jacob's Lect. Stob. p. 144.; Bahr, On Herodotus, iii. 31.

In the same work (Part I. sect. viii. § 5. note n, p. 174.) is a quotation from Seneca, "O quam contempta res est homo, nisi super humana se erexerit!" which is plainly the original of the lines of Daniel, so often quoted by Coleridge ("Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland"):—

"Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, now mean a thing is man!"

Perhaps some of your readers can supply the reference to the passage in Seneca; which is wanting in Mr. Eden's edition.

In Part III. sect. xv. § 19. p. 694. note a, of the Life of Christ, is a quotation from Strabo, lib. xv. Add. p. 713., Casaub.

As the two great writers on whom I have made these notes are now in course of publication, any notes which your correspondents can furnish upon them cannot fail to be welcome. Milton also, and Pope, are in the hands of competent editors, who, doubtless, would be glad to have their work rendered more complete through the medium of "NOTES AND QUERIES."

J.E.B. MAYOR

Marlborough Coll., April 8.

DUKE OF MONMOUTH'S CORRESPONDENCE

Thomas Vernon, author of Vernon's Reports, was in early life private secretary to the Duke of Monouth, and is supposed to have had a pretty large collection of Monmouth's correspondence. Vernon settled himself at Hanbury Hall, in Worcestershire, where he built a fine house, and left a large estate. In course of time this passed to an heiress, who married Mr. Cecil (the Earl of Exeter of Alfred Tennyson), and was divorced from him. Lord Exeter sold or carried away the fine library, family plate, and nearly everything curious or valuable that was not an heirloom in the Vernon family. He laid waste the extensive gardens, and sold the elaborate iron gates, which now adorn the avenue to Mere Hall in the immediate neighbourhood. The divorcée married a Mr. Phillips, and dying without surviving issue, the estates passed to a distant branch of her family. About ten years ago I made a careful search (by permission) at Hanbury Hall for the supposed Monmouth MSS., but found none; and I ascertained by inquiry that there were none at Enstone Hall, the seat of Mr. Phillips's second wife and widow. The MSS. might have been carried to Burleigh, and a friend obtained for me a promise from the Marquis of Exeter that search should be made for them there, but I have reason to believe that the matter was forgotten. Perhaps some of your correspondents may have the means of ascertaining whether there are such MSS. in Lord Exeter's library. I confess my doubt whether so cautious a man as Thomas Vernon would have retained in his possession a mass of correspondence that might have been fraught with danger to himself personally; and, had it been in the Burleigh library, whether it could have escaped notice. This, however, is to be noted. After Vernon's death there was a dispute whether his MSS. were to pass to his heir-at-law or to his personal representatives, and the court ordered the MSS. (Reports) to be printed. This was done very incorrectly, and Lord Kenyon seems to have hinted that private reasons have been assigned for that, but these could hardly have related to the Monmouth MSS.

SCOTUS.

PARNELL

The following verses by Parnell are not included in any edition of his poems that I have seen. They are printed in Steele's Miscellany (12mo. 1714), p. 63., and in the second edition of the same Miscellany (12mo. 1727), p. 51., with Parnell's name, and, what is more, on both occasions among other poems by the same author.

TO A YOUNG LADY

On her Translation of the Story of Phoebus and Daphne, from Ovid.

In Phoebus, Wit (as Ovid said)
Enchanting Beauty woo'd;
In Daphne beauty coily fled,
While vainly Wit pursu'd.

But when you trace what Ovid writ,
A diff'rent turn we view;
Beauty no longer flies from Wit,
Since both are join'd in you.

Your lines the wond'rous change impart,
From whence our laurels spring;
In numbers fram'd to please the heart,
And merit what they sing.

Methinks thy poet's gentle shade
Its wreath presents to thee;
What Daphne owes you as a Maid,
She pays you as a Tree.

The charming poem by the same author, beginning—

"My days have been so wond'rous free,"

has the additional fourth stanza,—

"An eager hope within my breast,
Does ev'ry doubt controul,
And charming Nancy stands confest
The fav'rite of my soul."

Can any of your readers supply the name of the "young lady" who translated the story of Phoebus and Daphne?

C.P.

EARLY ENGLISH AND EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.—"NEWS" AND "NOISE."

I am anxious to put a question as to the communication that may have taken place between the English and German tongues previous to the sixteenth century. Possibly the materials for answering it may not exist; but it appears to me that it is of great importance, in an etymological point of view, that the extent of such communication, and the influence it has had upon our language, should be ascertained. In turning over the leaves of the Shakspeare Society's Papers, vol. i., some time ago, my attention was attracted by a "Song in praise of his Mistress," by John Heywood, the dramatist. I was immediately struck by the great resemblance it presented to another poem on the same subject by a German writer, whose real or assumed name, I do not know which, was "Muscanblüt," and which poem is to be found in Der Clara Hätzlerin Liederbuch, a collection made by a nun of Augsburg in 1471. The following are passages for comparison:—

"Fyrst was her skyn,
Whith, smoth, and thyn,
And every vayne
So blewe sene playne;
Her golden heare
To see her weare,
Her werying gere,
Alas! I fere
To tell all to you
I shall undo you.

"Her eye so rollyng,
Ech harte conterollyng;
Her nose not long,
Nor stode not wrong;
Her finger typs
So clene she clyps;
Her rosy lyps,
Her chekes gossyps,"
&c. &c.

S.S. Papers, vol. i. p. 72

"Ir mündlin rott
Uss senender nott
Mir helffen kan,
Das mir kain man
Mit nichten kan püssen.

O liechte kel,
Wie vein, wie gel
Ist dir dein har,
Dein äuglin clar,
Zartt fraw, lass mich an sehen.
Und tu mir kund
Uss rottem mund, &c.

Dein ärmlin weisz
Mit gantzem fleisz
Geschnitzet sein,
Die hennde dein
Gar hofelich gezieret,
Dem leib ist ran,
Gar wolgetan
Sind dir dein prust,"
&c. &c.

Clara Hätzlerin Liederbuch, p. 111.

In all this there is certainly nothing to warrant the conclusion that the German poem was the original of Heywood's song; but, considering that the latter was produced so near to the same age as the former, that is, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and considering that the older German poetical literature had already passed its culminating point, while ours was upon the ascending scale, there is likeness enough, both in manner and measure, to excite the suspicion of direct or indirect communication.

The etymology of the word "news," on which you have recently had some notes, is a case in illustration of the importance of this point. I have never had the least doubt that this word is derived immediately from the German. It is, in fact, "das Neue" in the genitive case; the German phrase "Was giebt's Neues?" giving the exact sense of our "What is the news?" This will appear even stronger if we go back to the date of the first use of the word in England. Possibly about the same time, or not much earlier, we find in his same collection of Clara Hätzlerin, the word spelt "new" and rhyming to "triu."

"Empfach mich uff das New
In deines hertzen triu."

The genitive of this would be "newes," thus spelt and probably pronounced the same as in England. That the word is not derived from the English adjective "new"—that it is not of English manufacture at all—I feel well assured: in that case the "s" would be the sign of the plural: and we should have, as the Germans have, either extant or obsolete, also "the new." The English language, however, has never dealt in these abstractions, except in its higher poetry; though some recent translators from the German have disregarded the difference in this respect between the powers of the two languages. "News" is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language; the form of the genitive case, commonly used in conversation, not being understood, but being taken for an integral part of the word, as formerly the Koran was called "The Alcoran."

"Noise," again, is evidently of the same derivation, though from a dialect from which the modern German pronunciation of the diphthong is derived. Richardson, in his English Dictionary, assumes it to be of the same derivation as "noxious" and "noisome;" but there is no process known to the English language by which it could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it. In short, the two words are identical; "news" retaining its primitive, and "noise" adopting a consequential meaning.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

FOLK LORE

Charm for the Toothache.—A reverend friend, very conversant in the popular customs and superstitions of Ireland, and who has seen the charm mentioned in pp. 293, 349, and 397, given by a Roman Catholic priest in the north-west of Ireland, has kindly furnished me with the genuine version, and the form in which it was written, which are as follows:—

"As Peter sat on a marble stone,
The Lord came to him all alone;
'Peter, what makes thee sit there?'
'My Lord, I am troubled with the toothache.'
'Peter arise, and go home;
And you, and whosoever for my sake
Shall keep these words in memory,
Shall never be troubled with the toothache.'"

T.J.

Charms.—The Evil Eye.—Going one day into a cottage in the village of Catterick, in Yorkshire, I observed hung up behind the door a ponderous necklace of "lucky stones," i.e. stones with a hole through them. On hinting an inquiry as to their use, I found the good lady of the house disposed to shuffle off any explanation; but by a little importunity I discovered that they had the credit of being able to preserve the house and its inhabitants from the baneful influence of the "evil eye." "Why, Nanny," said I, "you surely don't believe in witches now-a-days?" "No! I don't say 'at I do; but certainly i' former times there was wizzards an' buzzards, and them sort o' things." "Well," said I, laughing, "but you surely don't think there are any now?" "No! I don't say at ther' are; but I do believe in a yevil eye." After a little time I extracted from poor Nanny more particulars on the subject, as viz.:—how that there was a woman in the village whom she strongly suspected of being able to look with an evil eye; how, further, a neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died, nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong belief that she had pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got from her an account of how any one who chose could themselves obtain the power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as nearly as I can recollect, as follows:—

"Ye gang out ov' a night—ivery night, while ye find nine toads—an' when ye've gitten t' nine toads, ye hang 'em up ov' a string, an' ye make a hole and buries t' toads i't hole—and as 't toads pines away, so 't person pines away 'at you've looked upon wiv a yevil eye, an' they pine and pine away while they die, without ony disease at all!"

I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine piece of Folk Lore.

The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated as follows:—

"From witches and wizards and long-tail'd buzzards,
And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,
Good lord, deliver us."

MARGARET GATTY.

Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.

Charms.—I beg to represent to the correspondents of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," especially to the clergy and medical men resident in the country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts. Independently of their archæological interest as illustrations of the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the natural history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such "charms," as well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of the efficacy of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to say, the diseases for which the charms are prescribed are cured; and, according to the mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox and heterodox, they must be cured by them,—post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhappily for the scientific study of diseases, the universal interference of ART in an active form renders it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to say whether it is nature or art that must be credited for the event. This is a positive misfortune, in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can be no question as to the non-efficiency of charms in a material or physical point of view (their action through the imagination is a distinct and important subject of inquiry), it follows that every disease getting well in the practice of the charmer, is curable and cured by Nature. A faithful list of such cases could not fail to be most useful to the scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; and it is therefore that I am desirous of calling the attention of your correspondents to the subject. As a general rule, it will be found that the diseases in which charms have obtained most fame as curative are those of long duration, not dangerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited by ordinary medicines. In such cases, of course, there is not room for the display of an imaginary agency:—"For," as Crabbe says,—and I hope your medical readers will pardon the irreverence—

"For NATURE then has time to work her way;
And doing nothing often has prevailed,
When ten physicians have prescribed, and failed."

The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised above:—Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony's Fire or The Rose (Erysipelas), King's Evil (Scrofula), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.

EMDEE.

April 25. 1850.

Roasted Mouse.—I have often heard my father say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave him a roasted mouse to cure him.

SCOTUS.

THE ANGLO-SAXON WORD "UNLAED."

A long etymological disquisition may seem a trifling matter; but what a clear insight into historic truth, into the manners, the customs, and the possessions of people of former ages, is sometimes obtained by the accurate definition of even a single word. A pertinent instance will be found in the true etymon of Brytenwealda, given by Mr. Kemble in his chapter "On the Growth of the kingly Power." (Saxons in Engl. B. II. c. 1.) Upon this consideration I must rest for this somewhat lengthy investigation.

The word UNLAED, as far as we at present know, occurs only five times in Anglo-Saxon; three of which are in the legend of Andreas in the Vercelli MS., which legend was first printed, under the auspices of the Record Commission, by Mr. Thorpe; but the Report to which the poetry of the Vercelli MS. was attached has, for reasons with which I am unacquainted, never been made public. In 1840, James Grimm, "feeling (as Mr. Kemble says) that this was a wrong done to the world of letters at large," published it at Cassell, together with the Legend of Elene, or the Finding of the Cross, with an Introduction and very copious notes. In 1844, it was printed for the Aelfric Society by Mr. Kemble, accompanied by a translation, in which the passages are thus given.—

"Such was the people's
peaceless token,
the suffering of the wretched."

l. 57-9.

"When they of savage spirits
believed in the might,"

l. 283-4.

"Ye are rude,
of poor thoughts."

The fifth instance of the occurrence of the word is in a passage cited by Wanley, Catal. p. 134., from a homily occurring in a MS. in Corpus Christi College, s. 14.:—

"Men ða leoçes can hep re3þ se hal3a se[~s] Io[~hs] þaep re Hael. eode ofen þone bupnan the Ledpoc hatte, on in[=e]n aenne p[.y]ptun. Tha piste se unlaesde iudas se þe hune to deaþe beleaped haefde."

In Grimm's Elucidations to Andreas he thus notices it:—

"Unlaed, miser, improbus, infelix. (A. 142. 744. Judith, 134, 43.). A rare adjective never occurring in Beowulf, Coedmon, or the Cod. Exon., and belonging to those which only appear in conjunction with un. Thus, also, the Goth. unleds, pauper, miser; and the O.H.G. unlât (Graff, 2. 166.); we nowhere find a lêds, laed, lât, as an antithesis. It must have signified dives, felix; and its root is wholly obscure."

In all the Anglo-Saxon examples of unlaed, the sense appears to be wretched, miserable; in the Gothic it is uniformly poor¹: but poverty and wretchedness are nearly allied. Lêd, or laed, would evidently therefore signify rich, and by inference happy. Now we have abundant examples of the use of the word ledes in old English; not only for people, but for riches, goods, movable property. Lond and lede, or ledes, or lith, frequently occur unequivocally in this latter sense, thus:—

"He was the first of Inglond that gaf God his tithe
Of isshue of bestes, of londes, or of lithe."

P. Plouhm.

"I bed hem bothe lond and lede,
To have his douhter in worthlie wede,
And spouse here with my ring."

K. of Tars, 124.

"For to have lond or lede,
Or other riches, so God me spede!
Yt ys to muche for me."

Sir Cleges, 409.

"Who schall us now geve londes or lythe,
Hawkys, or houndes, or stedys stithe,
As he was wont to do."

Le B. Florence of Rome, 841.

"No asked he lond or lithe,
Bot that maiden bright."
Sir Tristrem, xlviii.

In "William and the Werwolf" the cowherd and his wife resolve to leave William

"Al here godis
Londes and ludes as ether after her lif dawes."
p. 4

In this poem, ludes and ledes are used indiscriminately, but most frequently in the sense of men, people. Sir Frederick Madden has shown, from the equivalent words in the French original of Robert of Brunne, "that he always uses the word in the meaning of possessions, whether consisting of tenements, rents, fees, &c.;" in short, wealth.

If, therefore, the word has this sense in old English, we might expect to find it in Anglo-Saxon, and I think it is quite clear that we have it at least in one instance. In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 184., an oath is given, in which the following passage occurs:

"Do spa to lane
beo þé he þinum
I leat me be minum
ne 3ypne le þines
ne laedes ne landes
ne sac ne socne
ne þu mines ne þeapst
ne mint ic þe nan þio3."

Mr. Thorpe has not translated the word, nor is it noticed in his Glossary; but I think there can be no doubt that it should be rendered by goods

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1

It occurs many times in the Moeso-Gothic version of the Gospels for [Greek: ptochos]. From the Glossaries, it appears that iungalauths is used three times for [Greek: neaniskos], a young man; therefore lauths or lauds would signify simply man; and the plural, laudeis, would be people. See this established by the analogy of vairths, or O.H.G. virahi, also signifying people. Grimm's Deutsche Gram. iii. 472., note. "Es konnte zwar unlêds (pauper) aber auch unlêths heissen."—D. Gr. 225.

Back