Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/51

Rh witan, to know) absent, witness witoda-laisareis, a teacher of the law, witoda-fasteis, a lawyer. And of course writing must have been a regular art—"ainana writ witodis" = ane writ of the law (a stroke of the pen, Luke xvi. 17).

The refined arts of healing and teaching are illustrated by lekeis, a physician, the O.Eng. leech, literally the licker, and lekinon, to heal, and by laisareis (Ger. Lehrer), Wulfila's rendering of Rabbi. The root of the latter is in a Gothic preterite verb, lais, I know, and its derivative, laisjan, therefore means to make to know, that is, teach. Gothic thus distinguished between the two processes, long expressed in English, as it is still in Scots, by the one term, learn. The only reference to anything like education is stabs, a letter, element, still a compositor's term (cf. Ger. Buch-stabe). Our spell has its older meaning, spillon, to narrate (cf. gospel = good-spell), spill, a tale, spilla, a teller, and spilda, a writing-tablet. The art of the healer had to deal with two serious forms of disease—palsy and leprosy. The paralytic, us-litha, is named from lithus, a joint or limb (Ger. G-lied) from leithan, to go (our lead). Scott tells the story of Samuel Johnson's discussion with the elder Boswell at Auchinleck. The doctor's depreciation of Cromwell the laird clinched with, "He gar'd kings ken they had a lith in their neck." Leprosy is thruts-fill, from thriutan, to threaten and fill, the skin.

The Goth could not have been without his pleasures—witness his siggwan, to sing, also to read, doubtless a recitative in church. In this connection may be noted an odd expression that throws light on the ceremonial of Wulfila's converts. When Our Lord entered the synagogue at Nazareth on Sabbath He stood up to read, ἀνέστη ἀναγνῶναι, "us-stoth siggwan bokos," literally, stood up to sing the book. Again, a certain lawyer asked, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the law? How readest thou?" replied Jesus. The Greek is simply πῶς ἀναγκώσκεις, but Wulfila writes, "Hwaiwa us siggwis?" how singest thou? alluding to intoning the lessons. Wherever Scripture reading occurs this verb is met with. Our word read is also in Gothic (rodjan), but in the sense of speaking. For singing in the secular sense we have liuthon (Ger. Lied), and liuthareis, a singer. The only instrument mentioned