Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/142

Rh state of the Present Participle Active. It of old termi&shy;nated in ende: this in the South became inde about the year 1100; and now, in 1204, it turns into inge; being doubtless confounded with the verbal nouns that of old ended in ung. We find berninge, fraininge, singinge, and waldinge, Participles all used by Layamon. A hundred years later still, this corruption was unhappily adopted by the man who shaped our modern speech.

The English word for volaverunt used to be flugon, but Layamon changes this into fluwen, our flew. This likeness to flowan (fluere) is rather confusing, to say nothing of fleon (fugere).

The Perfect of þŷden (premere) was once þidde, but it now became þudde; hence our thud.

The old gyrdan (cingere) now gets a new sense (cædere), ‘he gurde Suard on þat hæfd’ (I. page 68); we still talk of girding at a man.

Pliht had hitherto meant periculum; it now takes the meaning of conditio, which we keep.

Swogan had meant sonare; it now got the sense of swoon. — I. page 130.

At I. page 275 we see for the first time the word agaste (terruit), whence comes our aghast. For the origin of this word we must go so far back as the Gothic usgeisjan. Our ghostly and ghastly come from sources that have been long separate.

Instead of the Old English word for insula, Layamon employs œite (ait), a word well known to all Etonians. It is the Danish ey with the Definite Article tacked on to the end in the usual way, ey-it, eyt, as Mr. Dasent tells us. Layamon has mœrcoden in the sense of videre; of