Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/56

32 Scots, which, as distinctively Northern in character and largely influence by Norse, has preserved many antique forms. Here one finds the most astonishing identities, not alone in form and sense, but in pronunciation and minute turns of expression. The Goth said hwan, than, nu, ut, na, ain, haim, braid, gagg (gang), for when, then, now, out, no, one, home, broad, go. For "Suffer little children to come to me," Wulfila says, but slightly changed, "Let thay bairns gang to me." A hypocrite is a liuta = one that loots. The apostles, sent out to preach, are to take ane rung (one staff, aina hrugga). One is to lay upon the altar a hunsl as a gift, which is just hansel in Handsel-Monday, and Shakspere's "unhouseled" in "Hamlet." The leaven of the Pharisees, in translating the Greek ζύμη (cf. zymotic diseases), Lat. fermentum, is called beist, from beitan, to bite, in Scotland known as the first milk of the cow after calving. Milk itself is a dissyllable (miluks), just as one hears it now in Dutch. "Blessed are the merciful" appears as bleiths = the blate = coy, modest. St. Luke tells Theophilus that he has followed the Gospel story glegly (glaggwuba), or accurately (ἀκριβῶς), from the beginning, suggestion the Scrots phrase "gleg i' the uptak," sharp of wit. The gospel mystery, again, was concealed from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes. For babes here we have niu-klahs = new-born. Can this be the klekkin and klekkit, familiar to every Scottish laddie that has kept rabbits? The homeliness of the expression is almost shocking, but in language, as in life, there are plenty of poor relations. The hireling shepherd in the parable is betrayed by his "stibna framaths," his fremmit or strange voice. The Gadarene demoniac is wods = mad, Sc. wud, on which Shakspere puns in "Mid-summer Night's Dream"—"Wood within the wood," scarcely intelligible to southron readers. Another Shaksperian phrase "The wild waves whisht," in the "Tempest," is paralleled in Go. by the very Sc. expression, "There was a muckle wheesh," = and "Jah warth wis mikil" following our Lord's rebuke of the waves. Other peculiar terms oddly survive in Scots. Thus, James and John were partners—ga-dailans—of Simon, a word used