Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/174

 SWEAR-WORDS AND EXPLETIVES 155 with or without the particle re, which puts the initial in the second state, prefixed. The title " saint " is usually omitted. Thus : Re Yest! By St. Just! Re Gdlom ! By St. Columb! Re la! By St. la [Ives]. Re Vihall or Mihal ! By St. Michael. A little stronger, for those whose principles will allow them to mention it, is Ren Offeren ! By the Mass ! and some bold, bad persons have been known under great pressure to say Re Dhewl In the Dramas, Re thu am ros (Re Dhew a'm ros), By God who made me ! (or who gave me) is a more elaborate form of this swear. One also finds Abarth Dew, On God's part = In God's name, and in the mouths of pagans, Abarth Malan (a Celtic goddess) and even Abarth Satnas. Ill-temper is generally expressed by variations on mollath, pi. mollathow, curse. A moderate amount of anger may be indicated by Mollath ! or Mollathow ! alone, or Mollathow dheugh ! Curses to you ! or Mollath war- nough! A curse upon you ! A little more is expressed by specifying the number, generally large, of these curses, Mil mollath war'nough ! or even Cans mil mollath warnough ! Some, moved by very great indignation, have been known to say Mollath Dew warnas ! God's curse upon thee ! and Carew in his Survey of Cornwall of 1602 gives a by no means nice phrase (which he spells all anyhow and translates wrong), Mollath Dew en dha 'las I The curse of God in thy belly ! Another serio-comic but rather cryptic expletive, peculiar to Camborne, or at any rate to the Drama of St. Meriasek, is Mollath Dew en gegin ! God's curse in the kitchen ! It does not seem to mean anything in particular, except perhaps that one's food may not agree with one, though it makes quite as much sense as the "universal adjective" of English