Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/208

184 doggerel is in use:—"This (finger) go t' wood. This un says, what t’ do theer? To late mammy; what to do w' her? Sook a pap, sook a pap a' t' way heame." The word "late" here has an interest of its own. Dr. Prevost says it has two significations, to seek and to bring. A Cumbrian will say, "He's gaen to lait a lost sheep," or "He's gaen to lait t' kye in to milk" (Richardson). One is tempted to compare with these the layt in Jamieson, to allure, entice, an old word in Teviotdale, and his "ill-laits," common in Angus for "bad customs." The latter was much used as illaits in Fife for "bad habits." The former Jamieson traces to Icelandic. He says nothing of the expression, "he never let on," "made no remark," when it was expected. It can hardly be the usual let, permit. Kluge, under German laden, to invite, shows that the two senses above are substantially the same in their origin in the Gothic lathon, as in Matt. ix. 13: "nith-than kwam lathon usvaurthans," I came not to call the righteous; in Luke ii. 25: "Symaion beidands lathonais Israelis," in A.V. Simeon, waiting (biding) for the consolation of Israel.

Dr. Prevost supplies an interesting survival of the Gothic lathon, to invite, in the Cumbrian laitin : "In many places in the Lake district, when anyone dies, two persons from every house near are invited to the funeral, and the houses within the circle are termed the Laitin."

An interesting group of vanished Scots can be culled from the dalesmen. To scarce a living Scot is the squirrel known, as he was of old, by the name "con." A Cumberland contributor says, "'Fat as a con' is a simile I used to hear thirty years ago" (1845). "Hind," the A.S. hyne, a manager of an off-lying farm, is now heard only on the Scottish Border. Two Scoto-French expressions, of old very common in Scotland, are quoted from the dales. "Plague gang wi' them that tooly wi' thee," preserves the Scots tulzie, a quarrel, street-fight. Still more archaic is "Pie Powder," the ancient Court instituted when the Peace of the Fair was proclaimed. It settled all brawls and disputes over bargainings in which the outlander pedlar was involved. He was known as Pied Poudré or Dusty Foot.

While much of folk-lore is extremely local, much of it again