Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/223

 9 th S. I. MAR. 12, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

215

2. Mid.E. sibreden; Stratmann's 'M.E. ] )ict.,' p. 546 ; sybrede, ' Prompt. Parvulorum,' ]. 545 (see Way's note, where a false and i npossible etymology is given).

3. Later, sibbered, sibberedge ; Ray's ' Glos-

has the misses the

whereby " beat " was pared off by the hand. The process is thus referred to in Fitzher- bert's ' Book of Husbandry,' 1534, ed. Skeat p. 17:

"And in some countreys, if a man plowe depe, he shall passe the good grounde, and haue but lyttel corne : but that countrey is not for men to kepe husbandry vppon, but for to rere and brede catell

4. Spelt sibrit, Sir Thos. Browne ; see the ?ame reference.

5. See

Cornewayle, and in som places of Deuonshyre.

from A.-S. sibb, correctly, yet actually fails to understand the suffix -rede, though it is 1. -red, and occurs both i]

6. Explained in my larger 'Etymological Dictionary,' s.v. ' Gossip.'

7. Explained, s.v. ' Sibred,' with two quota-

etymology, in the

During a recent perusal of the Court Rolls

^ or Q Sheffield i h ave sometimes

iicu wini mattock land." Thus in 1626 the jury found that William Bullos died seised (inter alia)

de et in uno alio messuagio, et octo acris terre

fact that some doubt still remains is somewhat strange. I think it is high time to give up paying any regard whatever to ridiculous suggestions like si quis sciverit, which are unsupported by evidence, and phonetically impossible. There is no longer any reason for troubling ourselves with re- futing such wild guesses, which have long ceased to command admiration. We have got beyond the period when guesses were most esteemed when they were most inge- nious, i.e., when they demanded very much from our credulity, and required miracles of phonetic change. The blessed word "cor- ruption " no longer accounts, as it once did, for surgical operations upon language.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

Mattock land quondam Johannis Osgathorpe, cum pertinenciis, infra socam de Sowthey tent' per copiam rotlor' curie predicte, ac de et in duabus parcellis terre vocate Infurland et Streete place, nuper libere tent'."

( 9 th

the of dispersion (J

and the German

?uestion in vain in ' N. & Q.' years ago, and have never been able to make out its meaning. It is, however, of frequent occur- rence both in the Sheffield Court Rolls and elsewhere. " Infurland " is, perhaps, equiva- lent to "foreland." The verb scale, in the sense of to pare land, appears to be given in Halliwell, who says that in Norfolk to " scale in " is to plough in with a shallow furrow. The Greek o-KaAAeti/, to clear the surface of the ground, to hoe, and <r/caAt's, a hoe, may be compared. In hilly country the Romans used the sarculum, or hoe, instead of a plough

/T)1C 4 XT TT * -.1- *-r-!-C-! 1 f\ jti l *7O\ C5, 1_

scalinga means pared land, or land which was pared with a beat-axe, mattock, or paring-spade.

Land treated in this way was sometimes

said to be floated* which means pared, and

is identical with fleeted, skimmed, used in

the phrase " to fleet milk." In my ' Sheffield

Glossary' (E.D.S.), p. 169, I have given

an account, too long to be quoted here,

the paring-spade and the way in which

used. It was, in fact, a breast-plough,

I for the same purpose as a beat -axe,

the

linage in England,' p f 170.
 * Compare fleyland in Prof. VinogradofFs ' Vil-

that the mediaeval Latin scalinga "particularly to land brought under ^"^h upon a hillside." The "plough," was a breast-plough, hoe, or mat- tock.

According to Prof. Skeat, " mattock " is a tic origin. Was it used by an ^eople on English hillsides? In SoutH Yorkshire it occurs as a surname.

S. O. ADDY.

In a charter referring to Hinksey, in Berkshire (Birch, 'Cartularium Saxonicum,' No. 1002; Kemble, 'Codex Diplomatics, ' No. 1216), a pond or river-course (lacu) is said to be on a scalinga. This proves that a scalinga