Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/267

 ii s. VIIL OCT. 4, 1913.1 .NOTES AND QUERIES.

261

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1913.

CONTENTS.-No. 197.


 * SOTES:' The Digraph "ea" in Proper Names in

4 Widsith,' 261 Charles Lamb's "Mrs. S.," 262 Webster and Sir Thomas Overbnry, 263 Sir Samuel White Baker The Ballantyne-Lockhart Controversy- 1 Lives of the Queens of England ' : Elizabeth Woodvile Channel Tunnel Scheme in 1802 Catherine Court, Tower Hill, and Capt. Marryat, 266.

QUERIES : Sever of London and " Ye Olde Harpe," 267 Peregrine Pouchbelt and Roderick Ramrod John Hod- son, Bishop of Elphin "Transliteration" J. Wilcocke, Painter Author of Hymn Wanted ' Iconografia Galileiana,' 268 Dhona Legh's ' Accedens of Armory,' 1568 Lace made at Portchester Castle by French Prisoners of War Cages for Criminals The Roar of Guns and the Glare of Fire Reference Wanted Brigadier- General Thomas Fox-Strangways ' Maurice Rhynheart ' Lawrence : Washington, 269 Guy de Opheni The Age of Country Bridges Roding or Roothing Botanical Press and Entomological Pins Revolution Memorials in the Peak District-" Vestis adriatiea," 270.

REPLIES : Christ Church, Oxford, in time of Elizabeth, 270 Rolandsaulen Red Hand of Ulster Divination by Twitching, 273 British Graves in the Crimea Origin of Rimes Wanted 'The Bonny Brown Bowl 'Smuggling Queries, 274 The Brunels at Chelsea" Tramways," 275 Bucknall Hickey and Alexander, Draughtsmen to Lord Macartney's Chinese Embassy Wedding-Pieces Sever of Merton Lady Hamilton's Grave " Les Rochers," 276 The Milkwort in Literature The Earl- dom of Lincoln Armigall Wade Tourgis of Jersey Inwood or Inward, 277 Heraldic Khoja Hussein Old London Directories Statues and Memorials in the British Isles : Blake The Surname Larom " Mister " as a Surname, 278.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Recollections of the Rev. John Smith ' ' Westminster Cathedral ' ' Bulwer Lytton ' ' The Fortnightly ' ' The Cornhill.'

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

THE DIGRAPH "EA" IN PROPER NAMES IN 'WIDSITH.'

THE poem of * Widsith ' presents not a few of the orthographical criteria which serve to distinguish three of the Old English dia- lects from one another to wit, the Mercian, the Northumbrian, and the West Saxon. Before the poem can be understood some Old English scholar who is thoroughly con- versant with dialect will have to take it in hand, and render it true to dialect through- out. The following lines record the results of an attempt to classify the occurrences of the digraph ea, and to dissect the proper names in which ea occurs.

These proper names furnish twenty-three themes, which must be distributed into eight croups, two of which include occurrences of

ea which are either irrelevant or accidental ; and six others severally contain themes in which ea represents various sounds whose origin and history present important dif- ferences. These groups are as follows :

(a) The apparent only : Alexandreas, 15 ; Sceaft-, 32. The first is a meaningless word, and it would seem that the line in the original MS. from which the copy we have in the Exeter Book was made was mutilated, and stood thus :

" on Alexandra. "

The tenth-century scribe who foisted Biblical names into 11. 82 and 83 misjudged " on " to be the fragment of ond, and turned the oblique case into a sort of nominative by adding -as : " ond Alexandreas." Of. 'N. & Q.,' 11 S. vi. 7." Sceaft- " has e after c to denote that c is palatal.

(6) The accidental : -weald, 34. The true form is wald. The MS. shows a point under e ; cf. " Wald," 30.

(1) The O.E. diphthong ea : Creacum, 20. 76; Ead-, 74, 93, 98, 117; East-, 86, 113; Geatum, 58 ; -Reamum, 63 ; Sceafa, 32. Creac- is an abnormal O.E. representative of Germanic *Craug-, the Crogo (MS. eroco) of Sextus Aurelius Victor (fl. 365). The normal Old High German dialects shifted name of a district near the Wall of Severus which is mentioned by the Cosmographer of Ravenna, whose work was compiled in the seventh century from materials collected in the sixth. " Croucingo " = the Gou of Crouco, just as Mauringa=the Ga of Mauro. The Alemanic dialect of Old High German shifted *Croug- to Chrouc- ; cf. Chrocus in Gregory of Tours (fl. 590). " Geat- " in this group = Germanic Gaut-. It is an unin- fected form, and for that reason it cannot be equated with Yt- and let-, the West Saxon forms which represent the earlier *Eoti,
 * Craug- to Crouc- ; cf. " Croucingo," the
 * Euti.

(2) The West Saxon breaking ea : i. Seaxum, 62 ; ii. Ealh-, 5, 97 ; -healf, 23 ; -weald, supra b ; iii. Beardan, 32, 49, 80 ; Mearc-, 23. These themes present the regular breaking of hypothetical O.E. ce, Germanic of,* before h+ (sc. plus consonant), l+, and r+. These instances are all quite clear.

(3) The Mercian guttural umlaut ea : Deanum, 63; H?a]>o-, 32, 49, 63, 80, 116; Seafola, 115. This is the umlaut of hypo- thetical O.E. ce, West Saxon assimilated d. With the Mercian forms beadu, hea]>u,