Page:The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland - Murray - 1873.djvu/41

Rh, this peculiarity should be claimed as Norwegian (although it extends to words never so contracted in Norse), we have a conclusive example in the interesting dialect of Barony Forth, in County Wexford, Ireland. The baronies of Forth and Bargy were occupied by an isolated colony of Strongbow's followers in 1169, who have preserved almost to the present day a remarkable form of speech, being a very archaic stage of English (with verbal -eth singular and plural, as in Chaucer, the ye- prefix to past participles, etc.), modified in pronunciation and glossary by the native Irish, by which it was surrounded, especially in this matter of the aphæresis of initial th, as may be seen in the following passages: