Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/53

Rh brother without a cause." Verbs show similar changes of sense.

The Go. swers (Ger. schwer, heavy) has been lost in English in any sense, but is still familiar in Scots as unwilling, slow to move. In the Gospels the centurion's servant was swers or dear to him. Fagrs, again, our fair, has only the sense of suitable or fit. In German and Dutch the root is very common. On the other hand, many adjectives differ little from modern forms, thus, gods (good), ubils (evil), faus (few), manags (many), reiks (rich), arms (poor, Ger. arm), leitils (little), mikils (muckle), braids (Sc. bredd, broad), kalds (cold) and gradags (greedy), fuls (foul), wairs (worse, Sc. waur). Such adjectives were compared much as now; for example, for good, better, best, we have gods, batiza, batists. A quite obsolete adjective, mins, is treated similarly, minniza, minists. It still appears as a verb, to mince, make small, common in early English.

In the list of nouns there are interesting Gothic words still common in Scots though long lost to English. In the miraculous feeding the disciples took up of the remains of the feast, laibos gabruko, literally the lave of the brock or broken bits. In Ephesians the phrase, without spot or blemish, has wamme and maile, the former O.Eng. wem, a spot, the latter such a blemish as iron-mould (Sc. eirn-mail) or rust on linen. The Apostles are to shake the dust off their feet, if not favourably received, where we have in Go. mulda, the Du. mul and Sc. mools, a favourite expression for burial, as in being "laid amone the mools." Its adjective muldeins, earthy, is applied in Sc, as moolins, to crumbs. The sponge that the soldier handed to the Christ on the Cross is a swam (Ger. Schwamm). Swumfsl is the pool of Siloam. The word is in Eng. swamp, and, as a Scots mining term, is the sumph or draining hole at the foot of the shaft. When Judas led Pilate's men to Gethsemane they carried lanterns, for which Wulfila uses skeima. It is in our shimmer, but in Scots in the older form,—