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viii • Contents

Stress  188
A Closer Look at the Language of an Old English Text   190
Recommended Resources  192

SEVEN • The Grammar of Old English   193

Overview  193
Objectives  193
The Nominal System   194
The Grammatical Categories of the Nominal System   194
Pronouns  195
Nouns  198
Demonstratives, Adjectives, and Adverbs   204
Agreement  212
Case Usage  213
The Verbal System  218
Verb Classes  218
The Grammatical Categories of the Verbal System   223
Inflectional Endings of the Verb   224
Syntax  228
Verbal Periphrases  228
Word Order  230
A Closer Look at the Language of an Old English Text   236
Recommended Resources  239

EIGHT • The Rise of Middle English: Words and Sounds   240

Overview  240
Objectives  240
French and English in Medieval England   241
The Norman Conquest   241
The Establishment of French   243
The Re-establishment of English   247
The Word Stock of Middle English   249
French Influence  249
Latin Influence  252
The Written Records of Middle English   255
Middle English Dialects   255
Middle English Literature   259
Orthographic Changes  262
Consonant Changes  264
Vowel Changes  268
 Contents • ix

Vowel Reduction  268
Other Qualitative Changes   269
Quantitative Changes  273
A Closer Look at the Language of a Middle English Text   277
Recommended Resources  280

NINE • T
 he Grammar of Middle English and Rise of a
Written Standard  281
Overview  281
Objectives  281
The Effects of Vowel Reduction   282
Grammatical Developments in Middle English   283
Adjectives and Nouns   283
Pronouns  288
Loss of Grammatical Gender   291
Verbs  294
Syntax  299
Comparison of a Middle English and an Old English Text   307
Change from Synthetic to Analytic   311
Middle English as a Creole?   313
The Rise of a Standard Dialect   315
A Closer Look at the Language of a Middle English Text   317
Recommended Resources  320

TEN • T
 he Words, Sounds, and Inflections of
Early Modern English   321
Overview  321
Objectives  321
Early Modern English Vocabulary   323
The Great Vowel Shift   328
Nature of the Shift   328
Details of the Shift   329
Changes in the Short Vowels and Diphthongs   335
A Closer Look at the Language of an Early Modern English Text   339
Changes in Consonants   340
Renaissance Respellings  344
Changes in Nominal Inflected Forms   347
Nouns  347
Articles  348
Pronouns  349
x • Contents

Case Usage  356
Changes in Verbal Inflected Forms   359
Verb Classes  359
Inflectional Endings  361
A Closer Look at the Language of an Early Modern English Text   364
Recommended Resources  366

ELEVEN • Early Modern English Verbal Constructions and

Eighteenth-Century Prescriptivism  367
Overview  367
Objectives  367
Early Modern English Syntax   368
Reflexive and Impersonal Verbs   368
The Subjunctive and the Modal Auxiliaries   370
Verbal Periphrases  371
Do  376
Word Order  378
Late Modern English and the Rise of Prescriptivism   381
Social, Linguistic, and Philosophical Reasons for Prescriptivism   381
Important Prescriptive Grammarians of the Eighteenth Century   383
Aims of the Eighteenth-Century Grammarians   383
Ascertainment  383
An Academy  384
Methods of the Eighteenth-Century Grammarians   387
Authority  387
Model of Latin   388
Etymology  389
Reason  390
The Question of Usage   395
Dictionaries  398
Recommended Resources  403

TWELVE • Modern English  404

Overview  404
Objectives  404
Grammatical and Lexical Changes in Late Modern English   405
Grammatical Changes  405
Modern Borrowings  411
The Oxford English Dictionary  414
Changes in Progress   417
 Contents • xi

Neologisms  417
Grammatical Changes  420
The Effect of New Media on English   425
Radio  425
Television  426
Electronic Communication and the Internet   426
Recommended Resources  433

THIRTEEN • Varieties of English   434

Overview  434
Objectives  434
The Development of National Varieties   437
Second-Language Varieties of English   437
British versus North American English   443
Canadian English  448
United States English   455
Australian and New Zealand English   467
African English  471
Caribbean English  474
Important Regional Varieties of the British Isles   478
Welsh English  478
Standard Scottish English   480
Hiberno-English  482
English as a Global Language   485
Recommended Resources  487

Appendix A
Quick Reference Guide   489

Appendix B
Timeline of Significant Historical, Social, Literary, and Linguistic
Events in the History of English   505

Appendix C
Anthology of Readings   531

Exercise Key  553
Glossary of Linguistic Terms   588
Works Cited  602
Index  609
List of Tables, Figures,
Timelines, and Sample Texts

Tables
Table 3.1 Analogy in English Plural Endings 75
Table 4.1 Typological Features of VO and OV Word Order 100
Table 4.2 The Most Common First Languages of the World 102
Table 4.3 Earliest Documents or Inscriptions in the Indo-European Branches,
Listed from Oldest to Youngest 106
Table 4.4 Stop Consonants of Proto-Indo-European 117
Table 4.5 Reconstruction of the Vowels of Proto-Indo-European 118
Table 4.6 Sample Verb Inflections of Proto-Indo-European 120
Table 5.1 Grimm’s Law 145
Table 5.2 Verner’s Law 146
Table 5.3 The Order of Grimm’s Law, Verner’s Law, and the Accent Shift 148
Table 5.4 The Second Germanic Sound Shift 151
Table 5.5 The First Sound Shift as a Drag Chain 152
Table 6.1 Latin Loan Words in Germanic 165
Table 6.2 Compounding in Old English 171
Table 6.3 Derivational Suffixes in Old English 173
Table 6.4 The Germanic Voiceless Stops in Old English 177
Table 6.5 The Germanic Voiced Stops in Old English 178
Table 6.6 The Germanic Fricatives in Old English 179
Table 6.7 The Germanic Nasals and Approximants in Old English 179
Table 6.8 The Germanic Vowels in Old English 183
Table 6.9 New Vowels in Old English 183
Table 6.10 Details of Umlaut in Old English 186
Table 6.11 Details of Breaking in Old English 187
Table 7.1 Personal Pronouns in Old English 195
Table 7.2 Interrogative Pronouns in Old English 196
Table 7.3 The a-Stem Noun in Old English 200
Table 7.4 The ō-Stem Noun in Old English 201
 List of Tables, Figures, Timelines, and Sample Texts • xiii

Table 7.5 The n-Stem (Weak) Noun in Old English 202

Table 7.6 The Root-Consonant Stem Noun in Old English 202
Table 7.7 Demonstratives in Old English 205
Table 7.8 Weak and Strong Adjective Endings in Old English 208
Table 7.9 Examples of Fully Inflected Old English Noun Phrases 209
Table 7.10 Degrees of the Old English Adjective 210
Table 7.11 Suppletive Adjectives in Old English 210
Table 7.12 Case Usage in Old English 213
Table 7.13 Weak Verbs in Old English 219
Table 7.14 Strong Verbs in Old English 220
Table 7.15 Inflectional Endings of the Verb in Old English 224
Table 7.16 Non-finite Forms of the Verb in Old English 226
Table 8.1 French Borrowings in the History of English 249
Table 8.2 Orthographic Changes from Old English to Middle English 263
Table 8.3 Consonant Changes from Old English to Middle English 265
Table 8.4 Reduction of Old English Vowels in Middle English 269
Table 9.1 The Leveling of Old English Inflections in Middle English 282
Table 9.2 The Middle English Noun 285
Table 9.3 Personal Pronouns in Middle English 289
Table 9.4 The Interrogative Pronoun from Old English to Middle English 291
Table 9.5 Strong Verbs in Middle English 294
Table 9.6 Changes in Ablaut Grades from Old English to Middle English 295
Table 9.7 Inflectional Endings of the Verb in Middle English 297
Table 9.8 The Proportion of Native and Foreign Elements in the English Word
Stock 314
Table 10.1 Details of the Great Vowel Shift 329
Table 10.2 Renaissance Respellings 345
Table 10.3 Personal Pronouns in Early Modern English 350
Table 10.4 Inflectional Endings of the Verb from Middle English to Early
Modern English 363
Table 11.1 Use of Latin for Regulating the Language 389
Table 11.2 Use of Etymology for Regulating the Language 390
Table 11.3 Use of Analogy for Regulating the Language 392
Table 11.4 The Wallis Rules for the Use of shall and will 393
Table 13.1 Examples of Lexical Differences between British and North
American English 447
Table 13.2 Orthographic Differences between US and British English 448
Table 13.3 Raised Diphthongs in Canadian English 452
xiv • List of Tables, Figures, Timelines, and Sample Texts

Figures
Figure 2.1 The Organs of Speech 30
Figure 2.2 The Consonants of English and Germanic 33
Figure 2.3 The Vowel System of English 39
Figure 2.4 Starting and Ending Points of English Diphthongs 42
Figure 2.5 Development of the Alphabet 57
Figure 2.6 The Runic Alphabet 58
Figure 2.7 The Franks Casket 59
Figure 3.1 Original Document from Old Bailey Proceedings 72
Figure 3.2 Semantic Changes of silly 81
Figure 4.1 Distribution of Indo-European Languages in Present-Day Europe
and Southwestern Asia 104
Figure 4.2 The Indo-European Language Family 107
Figure 4.3 Sample PIE Cognate Set 115
Figure 4.4 The Vowel System of Proto-Indo-European 118
Figure 4.5 The Indo-European Homeland 127
Figure 5.1 Early Germanic 132
Figure 5.2 Vowel Changes from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic 149
Figure 5.3 The Vowel System of Germanic 150
Figure 5.4 Grimm’s Law as a Drag Chain 152
Figure 5.5 The Germanic Invasions of England, According to Bede 155
Figure 5.6 The Dialects of Old English 159
Figure 6.1 Gold Strip from the Staffordshire Hoard 165
Figure 6.2 A Manuscript Page Written in the Insular Script 176
Figure 6.3 The Consonants of Old English 181
Figure 6.4 The Vowel System of Old English 183
Figure 6.5 Schematic View of Umlaut in Old English 185
Figure 6.6 A Page from the London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius 189
Figure 7.1 A Page from the New Minster Liber Vitae 222
Figure 8.1 The Bayeux Tapestry 244
Figure 8.2 The Dialects of Middle English 256
Figure 8.3 A Page from the Arundel Manuscript 261
Figure 8.4 The Consonants of Middle English 267
Figure 8.5 Qualitative Vowel Changes from Old English to Middle English 270
Figure 8.6 New Diphthongs in Middle English 271
Figure 8.7 The Vowel System of Middle English 272
Figure 8.8 Open Syllable Lengthening in Middle English 274
Figure 8.9 Pilgrimage Badge of St Thomas Becket 280
 List of Tables, Figures, Timelines, and Sample Texts • xv

Figure 9.1 A Page from Caxton’s Printing of The Canterbury Tales 318
Figure 10.1 Schematic View of the Great Vowel Shift 328
Figure 10.2 Short Vowels from Middle English to Early Modern English 335
Figure 10.3 The Vowel System of Early Modern English 337
Figure 10.4 Diphthongs from Middle English to Early Modern English 338
Figure 10.5 A Page from the Second Quarto of Shakespeare’s Hamlet 353
Figure 11.1 Regulation of do in Different Sentence Types 378
Figure 12.1 James A.H. Murray 415
Figure 12.2 Nineteenth-Century Emblematic Poem ‘Essay to Miss Catharine
Jay’ 429
Figure 13.1 Three Circles of World English 439
Figure 13.2 Historical Sources of Canadian English 449
Figure 13.3 Four Major Canadian Dialect Areas 450
Figure 13.4 Regional Varieties of US English 456
Figure 13.5 Places Where English Has a Special Status 486

Timelines
Timeline of Indo-European 97
Timeline of Germanic 130
Timeline of Old and Middle English 241
Timeline of Early Modern English 322
Timeline of Late Modern English 368
Timeline of the Transmission of English 435

Sample Texts
Parable of the Sower and the Seed (Matthew 13:24–30), Parallel Texts 10–11
Old Bailey Proceedings, excerpt from trial (1831) 72
Hymn to Indra (Rig Veda 1.32.1) 121
The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13), Parallel Texts 133
Selection from the Old English Poem ‘The Ruin’ (from the Exeter Book) 154
The Coming of the Germanic Tribes (from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the
English People, Book 1, Chapter 12) 156
‘Cædmon’s Hymn’ (from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book
4, Chapter 25) 191
Ælfric, selection from the Catholic Homily on St Gregory 236
Robert of Gloucester, selection from Metrical Chronicle 246
John of Trevisa, selection from the Polychronicon 257
xvi • List of Tables, Figures, Timelines, and Sample Texts

Geoffrey Chaucer, selection from ‘The Reeve’s Tale’ in The Canterbury Tales
(ll. 4022–33) 259
Geoffrey Chaucer, selection from ‘The General Prologue’ in The Canterbury Tales
(ll. 1–27) 277
Parable of the Sower and the Seed (Matthew 13:24–30), Old and Middle
English 307
Two Paston Letters 310
William Caxton, selection from the ‘Prologue’ to the Eneydos 319
William Harrison, selection from ‘Of the Languages Spoken in This Iland’ 327
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 340
‘Noah and the Flood’, King James Bible (Genesis 6:12–22) 364
Salem Witch Trials, deposition 366
Jonathan Swift, selection from A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and
Ascertaining the English Tongue 385
George Campbell, selection from Philosophy of Rhetoric 397
William Makepeace Thackeray, selection from Vanity Fair 399
Samuel Johnson, selection from the preface to A Dictionary of the English
Language 409
‘I Know Moon-Rise’ 467
John Agard, ‘Listen Mr Oxford Don’ (from Mangoes and Bullets) 475
Preface

Introduction
This text surveys the development of the English language from its Indo-European past
to the present day. It begins with a discussion of attitudes toward language change and of
motivations for and mechanisms of linguistic change. Considering next the prehistoric
changes from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic, the text then examines the structure
and vocabulary of English through its major periods: Old English, Middle English,
Early Modern English, and Modern English. The text focuses on changes in sounds
(phonology), in forms of words and their endings (morphology), in sentence structure
(syntax), in spelling (orthography), in meanings of words (semantics), and in vocabulary
(lexicon). Attention is also given to social and political factors affecting the language.
This text is addressed to all students interested in English, including those whose
primary area of interest is English language, English literature, theoretical and applied
linguistics, stylistics, the Middle Ages, English as a second language, or secondary
English education. The text does not assume any background in language or linguis-
tics; all necessary terms and concepts are taught in the text, and the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which students are required to use, is carefully introduced.
The text assumes the perspective of North American English, especially in its discus-
sion of the national and regional varieties of English.
Upon completion, students should have acquired

• a comprehension of the mechanisms of language change and an acceptance of

the inevitability of language change;
• a knowledge of the origins of English and its place in respect to other lan-
guages of the world;
• a recognition of the major stages in the language and important changes in the
development of English from a synthetic to an analytic language; and
• an understanding of how the current state of the English language has resulted
from historical change.

Most of the examples presented in the text are taken from literary sources, especially
Chaucer and Shakespeare for Middle and Early Modern English, respectively. While
these examples will be of interest to students of literature, they have been chosen
because both writers incorporate a range of registers, from high to low, and a variety
of genres—both prose and poetry; moreover, they represent speech, which we assume
may approximate actual conversation. Their works are readily available in searchable
xviii • Preface

electronic corpora, which we have taken advantage of to provide fresh illustrations of

the grammatical phenomena under discussion.
We have glossed and analyzed sample texts to support the linguistic descriptions
given. Other texts are included for the purpose of classroom analysis and discussion.
Many share the same topic, representing contemporary reflections on language issues
from the Middle Ages to the present.
The text includes self-testing exercises, incorporated throughout each chapter, that
are designed to help students learn the skills and concepts embodied in each chapter.
The answers to these questions are located in an answer key at the end of the book.
The third edition features enhanced discussion of the social and cultural back-
grounds of the English language, with new ‘Language in Context’ boxes in each
chapter that foreground the sociohistorical contexts of language change. To the same
end, brief timelines of historical events appear in relevant chapters as a supplement to
the comprehensive timeline of historical, social, literary, and linguistic events found in
Appendix B. Discussion of new approaches to the history of English, such as historical
pragmatics and historical sociolinguistics, has been added or expanded. New debates
on topics such as the homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and the status of English
as a global language are highlighted. New maps and illustrations are incorporated
throughout the text. The organization of the text for the most part follows that of the
second edition, except that the section on phonological change has been moved to
Chapter 2. For the readers’ convenience, the terms in the glossary are cross-referenced
to relevant pages in the textbook.
To counterbalance the use of literary examples in the body of the textbook,
the third edition includes a new appendix providing samples of ‘everyday English’
(Appendix C). This anthology of readings includes twelve specimen texts—three each
from Old, Middle, Early Modern, and Late Modern English—which are ‘speech-
based’, such as excerpts from plays, letters, diaries, trial transcripts, sermons, charms,
and so on. Instructors may wish to use these passages for class analysis and discussion.

Quick Reference Guide

The Quick Reference Guide, located in Appendix A, functions as both a study aid and
a reference for the student. The guide begins with an overview of the line of descent of
English and then presents the International Phonetic Alphabet. Phonological inventories
are then gathered together to allow the student to trace change over time: these include
vowel charts from Proto-Indo-European, Germanic, Old English, Middle English, Early
Modern English (including the Great Vowel Shift), and Present-Day English along
with consonant charts from Proto-Indo-European and Germanic (Grimm’s Law), Old
English, Middle English, and Modern English. The guide also provides a synthesis of
morphological changes discussed in the textbook. Visual schema show the following:

• the sources of English inflections,

• the sources of English pronoun forms,
 Preface • xix

• the sources of English verbal constructions, and

• the chronology of English clause types.

Companion Website
An accompanying website contains additional resources for both students and instruct-
ors (www.oupcanada.com/BrintonArnovick3e).
On the website, students will find the following materials:

1) Three different tutorials for using the search functions of the online Oxford
English Dictionary—these tutorials give students practice searching for words of
foreign origin, for literary coinages, and for syntactic constructions.
2) Additional self-testing exercises and answers (modeled on those given in the text)
for all of the chapters, providing students with further opportunities for practice
and review.
3) Recommendations for further reading, both to aid in understanding the chapter
material and to allow students to pursue topics further.
4) Recommended web links, covering external history, pronunciation guides, gram-
mar reviews, supplemental exercises, sample manuscripts and texts, maps, and
other relevant material.
5) Spoken performances of a selection of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English
literary works with accompanying written texts. Students are directed to these
readings at the appropriate place in the textbook with the following icon: .
In-text study questions focus on linguistic features of the readings.

Instructors will find sample syllabuses for using the textbook in a quarter (10-week),
semester (16-week), or year-long course. In addition, three different versions of the
10-week syllabus are given, with a general, medieval, and modern focus.

A Note on Punctuation
For this text we have used various punctuation conventions which students may not be
familiar with.
It is standard practice to distinguish between words (or parts of words) which
are ‘mentioned’ and words which are used. Using words is what we do whenever we
speak, but mentioning words is what we do when we refer to words as words or to
the forms of words, rather than evoking their meanings. For example, try reading the
following sentences:

The word grammar has seven letters.

Bank has several different meanings.
The feminine suffix -rix is almost obsolete.
The clause when you arrive home is an adverbial clause.
xx • Preface

Readers may have difficulty understanding such sentences because they contain word
forms which are mentioned rather than used. The convention in printed texts is to
italicize these mentioned forms, as follows:

The word grammar has seven letters.

Bank has several different meanings.
The feminine suffix -rix is almost obsolete.
The clause when you arrive home is an adverbial clause.

This convention should make these sentences much easier to read. This use of italics
differs from the use of quotation marks to repeat the exact words of a spoken or written
text (for example, ‘convention’ occurs two times in the previous sentences) or to give
the meaning or gloss for a word (for example, the word garrulous means ‘tiresomely
talkative’).
Italics denote all linguistic forms which are used as examples within a sentence.
When the actual sound of the word is being referred to, the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) is used. The IPA is a set of symbols used to transcribe, that is, to
represent in writing, speech sounds in a precise and technical way. The IPA will be
introduced in detail in Chapter 2 (see also Appendix A). To distinguish such rep-
resentations from regular writing, they are enclosed in square brackets (or slashes),
for example:

The word read is pronounced [rɛd] or [rid]

The practice of this textbook is to use square brackets to represent sounds, as will
be explained in Chapter 2.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our colleagues at the University of British Columbia, Siân
Echard, Bryan Gooch, Steve Partridge, and Gernot Wieland, who expertly recited
the samples of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English texts that can be heard on
the website. Other colleagues who deserve thanks are Ina Biermann, Niall Christie,
Anthony Dawson, Stefan Dollinger, Virginia Evans, Margery Fee, John Wilson Foster,
Daniel Heath Justice, Patricia Merivale, Laura Moss, Tiffany Potter, Robert Rouse,
and Richard Unger. Gernot Wieland also supported the project from the beginning
and lent us his Old English wisdom on a number of occasions. Our graduate stu-
dent, Ben Packer, wrote or adapted many of the self-testing exercises. Gary Holland
of the University of California, Berkeley, provided the passage of Vedic Sanskrit.
Henry Ansgar Kelly of the University of California, Los Angeles, commented on
the first edition; we benefited from his always thoughtful observations. Peter Petré
of the University of Antwerp gave the text careful scrutiny and supplied very useful
 Preface • xxi

suggestions. John Considine of the University of Alberta provided extensive—and

always astute—commentary on our revised text. As always, we would like to thank
our undergraduate students, who continue to teach us ways to make the history of the
English language meaningful.
At Oxford University Press, we would like to thank Leah-Ann Lymer and the
editors of previous editions, especially Eric Sinkins, Peter Chambers, Jacqueline
Mason, and Janice Evans. We owe a debt of gratitude to Catherine Innes-Parker
(University of Prince Edward Island), Murray McGillivray (University of Calgary),
Matthew Sergi (University of Toronto), and our anonymous reviewers, who were gen-
erous with their time and care.
This third edition is dedicated to Robert, Ralph, and Monica.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in this text:

AAVE African American nom. nominative case

Vernacular English NZE New Zealand English
acc. accusative case O object
ADJ adjective obj. objective case
ADV adverb OE Old English
AusE Australian English OF Old French
AUX auxiliary OHG Old High German
BCE Before the Common Era ON Old Norse
BE British English p. person
CanE Canadian English part. participle
CE Common Era PDE Present-Day English
CONJ conjunction PIE Proto-Indo-European
dat. dative case pl. plural
EModE Early Modern English pres. present tense
fem. feminine pret. preterit tense
Fr. French q.v. quod vide (‘which see’)
gen. genitive case RP Received Pronunciation
Ger. German S subject
Gk. Greek SAE South African English
Gmc. Germanic sg. singular
Go. Gothic Skt. Sanskrit
HE Hiberno-English SSE Standard Scottish English
IE Indo-European subj. subjunctive mood
ind. indicative mood s.v. sub verbo (‘under the word’)
instr. instrumental USEng United States English
IPA International Phonetic V verb
Alphabet WE Welsh English
Lat. Latin WISE West Indian Standard
LSE Liberian Standard English English
masc. masculine 1st p. first person
ME Middle English 2nd p. second person
ModE Modern English 3rd p. third person
N noun > changes to, becomes
NAE North American English < derives from
neut. neuter Ø no ending or form
CHAPTER ONE

Studying the History

of English

Overview
Beginning with a number of reasons for studying the history of English, this chapter
offers a definition of language and surveys its component parts. Next it gives an
overview of the recognized periods in the history of English, providing a sample text
from each. It then focuses on several concrete examples of change in Shakespearean
sonnets, contrasting Early Modern English with Modern English. The chapter argues
for the inevitability of linguistic change, claiming that this is brought on by the con-
ventional or arbitrary nature of language. We speculate briefly about the origin of
language, and we explore the popular notion that language change entails linguistic
corruption. After analyzing the reasons for such an attitude, we look at prescriptive
approaches to grammar and the belief in standards of linguistic correctness. The
chapter ends with a discussion of the resources available for studying the history of
the English language.

Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to

• give a general definition of language and its components;

• identify the names and dates of the historical periods of the English language;
• point out where the language in a passage from an earlier period of English
differs from Modern English in respect to sounds, word forms, syntax, and
meaning;
• understand the relation between the linguistic sign and language change; and
• explain reasons for the predominant attitude toward language change and
recognize examples of this in popular literature.
2 • The English Language: A Linguistic History

Why Study the History of English?

Some reasons for studying the history of English are intrinsic to the language as it has
developed and been studied over time, and some are intrinsic to the student’s individ-
ual educational interests.
We have over 1,200 years of recorded history for the English language. Although
such a period pales in comparison to the recorded histories of such languages as
Hebrew, Chinese, and Greek, it is nonetheless a substantial time span over which
we have good documentary evidence. We are fortunate to have this record when we
consider that for many of the world’s languages, we have only very sparse records,
making linguistic study much more challenging. The many Native languages of North
America, for example, did not come to be recorded until relatively recently, when
some were already endangered or lost.
Although the changes that English has undergone in its history are not unique,
they are nevertheless dramatic. English has experienced a significant change in the
way in which it encodes grammatical meaning—what linguists call ‘typological’
change—from being a highly inflected (or synthetic) language to one that relies
primarily on fixed word order and function words to convey meaning (an analytic
language). Moreover, the English language has been subject to equally dramatic
external influences—for example, the Norman Conquest of England—which have
changed the vocabulary of English and, to a lesser extent, its grammar and speech
sounds (phonology).
The processes of change in the English language have been illuminated by a
considerable amount of scholarship. This attention to English is in a way accidental:
scholars of historical linguistics working early in the nineteenth century focused on the
Germanic and Indo-European language families, and in this way revealed much about
the history of English. In spite of thorough study, however, important areas remain
open to debate and inquiry.
For reasons that are historical and political rather than linguistic, English has
become the most widely spoken language in the world and has attained the status of a
global language. There is nothing linguistically superior about English, and it would
be wrong to engage in linguistic jingoism. Certainly, English has a cosmopolitan
vocabulary, one of the characteristics often cited as an attribute of a world language,
but there is no evidence that its lack of inflections contributes to grammatical sim-
plicity and ease of use by non-native speakers. Rather, as David Crystal observes, ‘A
language has traditionally become an international language for one chief reason: the
political power of its people—especially their political and military power’ (2003b:9).
The status of English as a lingua franca will be discussed more fully in Chapter 13.
On a disciplinary level, studying the history of English is a way to become fam-
iliar with the methods and principles of linguistics. More particularly, the history of
English informs our understanding of the language’s current state; modern spelling
and pronunciation, for example, result from historical developments, and irregularities
 ONE | Studying the History of English • 3

(as well as regularities) can be explained by reference to the language’s past. Principles
of semantic change operating in English can tell us, for example, how the meaning of
the word nice developed from ‘foolish and ignorant’ to ‘pleasing or agreeable’. The
history of English can also provide insight into the literary works of great writers:
a full appreciation of a writer such as Shakespeare depends upon knowledge of the
grammar, phonology, and vocabulary of Early Modern English, just as an appreciation
of Chaucer depends upon a knowledge of Middle English.
Finally, studying the history of English helps us trace the origin of the Standard
English we use today, whether at university or at work, and enables us to distinguish
between prescriptive and descriptive rules of English grammar. Study of historical
developments in any language can lead us to recognize that linguistic change is inevit-
able and that patterns of change that began in the past are likely to continue into the
future. Such study should lead to greater self-consciousness about the language we use
and to an awareness that ‘everyone speaks a dialect’, that Standard English is but one
of a number of Englishes, including regional and national varieties, none of which is
inherently superior to any other. Ultimately, study of the history of English reveals that
language is, above all, a cultural construct.

A Definition of Language
Human language is a system. In other words, it is highly structured and operates
according to a set of principles. Every language is governed by rules for the formation
of words and sentences; these rules constitute its grammar. In order for us to learn a
language, the set of rules must be finite in number, but with these rules we can produce
an infinite number of sentences and understand sentences which we have never heard
before. Theoretically, we could also produce sentences of infinite length, though there
are practical limits imposed by memory and the physiology of speech. It is for these
reasons that we say that human language is infinite or creative.
Language consists of meaningful signs, things that stand for or represent some-
thing else. In general, the relationship between the linguistic sign and the thing it
represents is symbolic—that is, it is conventional, or arbitrary, since there is no natural
or necessary relation between a sequence of sounds and an object in the real world. We
will consider the arbitrary nature of the sign in greater detail below, as it is a funda-
mental principle underlying language change.
Since human language is primarily vocal (oral and aural), speech comes prior to
the written word in both the history of humankind and the history of the individual:
we learn to speak before we learn to write. Writing is a secondary, and in many ways
imperfect, means of recording speech, although both speech and writing make certain
distinctions that the other medium cannot make.
Human language is now thought to be innate: we have an inborn capacity for
language acquisition. That is, we are genetically equipped to learn a language (not
a specific language, but human language in general). In other words, every child is
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
Pat Hayden:
My father was gardener here at Coole in the time of Mr. Robert's
grandfather. He was sick one time, and he thought to go to the friars
at Esker for a cure, and he asked Mr. Gregory for the loan of a
horse, and he bade him to take it. So he saddled and bridled the
horse, and he set out one morning and went to the friars, and
whatever they did they cured him, and he came back again. But in
the morning the horse was found dead in the stable. I suppose
whatever they took off him they put upon the horse. And when Mr.
Gregory came out in the morning, "How is Pat?" he says to one of
the men. "Pat is well," says he, "but the horse he brought with him
is dead in the stable." "So long as Pat is well," said Mr. Gregory, "I
wouldn't mind if five horses in the stable were dead."

Mrs. Manning:
There was a friar in Esker could do cures. Many I've seen brought to
him tied in a cart, and able to walk home after. Father Callaghan he
was. There was one man brought to him, wrong in his head he was,
and he cured him and he gave him some sort of a Gospel rolled up,
and bid him to put it about his neck, and never to take it off. Well,
he went to America after that and was as well as another and got
work, and sent home £10 one time to Father Callaghan he was that
grateful to him.
But one day in America he was shaving, and whether he cut the
string or that he took it off I don't know, but he laid the charm down
on a table. And when he looked for it again, if he was to burn the
house down he couldn't find it. And it all came back on him again,
and he was as bad as he was before.
So the wife wrote home to Father Callaghan, and he sent out
another thing of the same sort; and bid him wear it, and from the
time he put it on, he got well again. A priest has the power to do
cures, but if he does he can keep nothing, one thing will die after
another.
Biddy Early could do the same thing, she had to cast the sickness on
some other thing—it might be a dog or a goat or a bird.

Priests can do cures if they will, but they are afraid to do them
because their stock will die, and because they are afraid of loss in
the other world as well as in this. There's a neighbour of your own
lost his milch cow the other day for a small one he did,—Father
Mulhall that is.

There was Father Rivers was called in to a woman that was bad,
between Roxborough and Dunsandle. And he said to the father,
"Which would you sooner keep, the wife or the child?" And he said,
"Sure I'd sooner have the wife than all the children of the world." So
Father Rivers went in and cured her so that she got well, but he put
whatever she had on the son, so that he grew up an idiot. Harmless
he used to be, not doing much. Well, when he came to twenty
years, the mother said, "Come outside into the field, and cut the
eyes of a few stone of potatoes for me." But he took up the graip
that was at the door and made at her to kill her. And she ran in and
shut the door, and then he made for the window and broke it. And at
that time Mr. Singleton from Ceramina was passing by, and he
stopped and called some men and they took him and took the graip
from him, and he was brought away to Ballinasloe Asylum, but he
didn't live more than six months after. Waiting all that time he was to
do his revenge, but hadn't the power to do it till the twenty years
were up.

There is a man that is living strong and well in the village of Lochlan
and that has sixteen or seventeen children, and one time something
came on him and he wore away till there was no more strength in
him than in that thraneen. And there was an old woman used to be
doing cures with herbs, and he sent for her, and she went out into
the field and she picked two or three leaves of a plant she knew of.
And as she was carrying it through the fields to the house she fell
dead.
And his strength came back to him when the death fell on her and
he was as well and as strong as ever he was. I will bring you three
of those leaves if I have to walk two miles—three-cornered leaves
they are (penny royal). No harm will come upon me, for I am
nothing but an old hag. Before sunrise they must be picked, and the
best day to do it is a Friday.

An Old Army Man:

I knew a man had charms for headache and for toothache and other
things, and he did a great many cures, but all his own children
began to die. So then he put away the charms, and made a promise
not to do cures for others again; and after that he lost no more
children.
Priests can do cures as well as Biddy Early did, and there was a man
of the neighbours digging potatoes in that field beyond, and a
woman passed by, and she never said anything. And presently the
top of his fingers got burned off, and he called out with the pain, a
blast he got from her as she passed. Often he'd come into this
house, and crying out with the hurt of the pain. And at last he went
to the priests at Esker, and they cured him, but they said, "Your own
priests could have done the same for you." And when he came back
there were two cows dead.
And the same thing when Carey's wife—that is a tenant of your own
—was sick, they called in Father Gardiner and he cured her, and he
told them to watch by her for two or three days. And then the priest
went out to see the stabling, and Carey with him, for Carey had
always a pair of good horses. And when they went into the stable,
the horses were dead before them.

It was Flaherty gave his life for my sister that was his wife. When
she fell sick he brought her to Biddy Early in the mountains beyond.
And she cured her the first time. But she said, "If you bring her
again, you'll pay the penalty." But when she fell sick again he
brought her, but he stopped a mile from the house. But she knew it
well, and told the wife where he was, and that time the horse died.
But the third time she fell sick he went again, knowing full well he'd
pay the penalty; and so he did and died. But she was cured; and
married one O'Dea afterwards.
The priests know well about these things, but they won't let on to
have seen them, and the people don't much like to be telling them
about them. But there was Father Gallagher that did cures by means
of them, and at last he got a touch himself, and was sent for a while
to an asylum, and now he has promised to leave them alone. Fallen
angels some say they are. I know a man that saw them hurling up
there in Hanlon's field. Red caps they wore and looked very
diminutive, but they were hurling away like Old Boots.

The way the bad luck came on Tom Hurley was when a cow fell sick
on him and lay like dead. He had a right to leave it or to kill it; but
the father-in-law cut a bit off the leg of it and it rose again, and they
sold it for seven pounds at the fair of Tubber. But he had no luck
since then, but lost four or five head of cattle, near all that he
owned.

There was a man did a cure on his son that came from America sick.
He didn't like to see him ailing, and one night he did the cure. But
before sunrise the sight of one of his eyes was gone.

A Mountainy Man:
There's some people living about three miles from here on Slieve-
Mor, and they came from the North at the time of the famine, and
they can do cures, but they don't like to say much about it—for the
people of the North all have it. Their names are natural, McManus,
and Irwin and Taylor. There's one of them gave a cure for a man
that was sick, and he grew better, but a calf died. And the son was
going to him again, but the mother said: "Let him alone, let him die,
or we'll lose all the stock"; for she'd sooner have the husband die
than any other beast. So the son was out and he met the man, and
he said, "It is to me you're coming?" And the son said it was, for he
didn't like to tell about what his mother said or about the death of
the calf. So the man got him a bottle, and said he'd come home with
him, but when they were on the road they met some one that spoke
of the death of the calf. So when the man heard that, he was angry
and he said, "If I knew that I wouldn't have helped you," and he
broke the bottle against the wall. So the father died, and the wife
kept the stock—a very unkind woman she was.

There was a woman of my village never put a shoe on her feet from
the time of her birth till the time of her death. Doing a penance she
said she was. And she never married and would never eat meat.

As to cures, there's none can do them like the priests can, if they
will. There was a woman I knew, and her little boy was sick and
couldn't move. And she got the priest to come and do a cure on him,
but no one knew what he did. And often he said to the woman: "You
have a horse and a pony, and which do you value the most?" And
she said she valued the pony the most. And next day the horse had
died, but the little boy got well.

A Man of the Islands:

There's an old woman here now—there she is passing the road—that
does cures with herbs. But last year she got a sore hand and she
had to go to the hospital, and before she came back they took two
fingers off her. And there's no luck about bone-setters either. There's
one here on the island and a good many go to him. But he had but
one son and he never did any good, and now he's gone away from
him.

John Curtis:
When Father Callan was a curate he did a cure for me one time for
my cattle, and I gave him half a sovereign in his hand for it, in this
road. It was the time I had so much trouble, and my brothers trying
to rob me, and but for our landlord I wouldn't have kept the farm.
And all my stock began to die. There was hardly a day I'd come out
but I'd see maybe two or three sheep lying there in the field with
froth at their mouths, and they turning black. The same thing was
happening Tommy Hare's stock, and he went to Father Callan and he
came to the house and read some sort of a Mass and took the
sickness off them. So then I went to him myself, and he said he'd
read a Mass in the chapel for me, and so he did. And the stock were
all right from that time, and the day he came to see them and that I
gave him the money, there ran a dog out of Roche's house and
came behind the priest and gave him a bite in the leg, that he had
to go to Dublin to cut it out. Why did the dog do it? He did it
because he was mad when he saw the stock getting well. And
weren't the Roches queer people that they wouldn't kill the dog
when the priest wanted it, the way he'd be in no danger if the dog
would go mad after?

IV
AWAY
 IV
AWAY
Pwyll, Prince of Dyved ... let loose the dogs in the wood and
sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs
he lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he
heard the cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and
coming in the opposite direction.... And he saw a horseman coming
towards him on a large light-grey steed with a hunting horn round
his neck, and clad in garments of grey woollen in the fashion of a
hunting garb, and the horseman drew near and spoke to him thus:...
"A crowned King I am in the land whence I come.... There is a man
whose dominions are opposite to mine, who is ever warring against
me, and by ridding me of this oppression which thou can'st easily
do, shalt thou gain my friendship." "Gladly will I do this," said he.
"Show me how I may." "I will show thee. Behold, thus it is thou
mayest. I will send thee to Annwyvn in my stead, and I will give thee
the fairest lady thou didst ever behold to be thy companion, and I
will put my form and semblance upon thee, so that not a page of the
chamber nor an officer nor any other man that has always followed
me shall know that it is not I. And this shall be for the space of a
year from tomorrow and then we will meet in this place." ... "Verily,"
said Pwyll, "what shall I do concerning my kingdom?" Said Arawn: "I
will cause that no one in all thy dominions, neither man nor woman,
shall know that I am not thou, and I will go there in thy
stead."—"The Mabinogion."

I was told by a Man of Slieve Echtge:

That girl of the Cohens that was away seven year, she was bid tell
nothing of what she saw, but she told her mother some things and
told of some she met there. There was a woman—a cousin of my
own—asked was her son over there, and she had to press her a long
time, but at last she said he was. And he was taken too with little
provocation, fifty years ago. We were working together, myself and
him and a lot of others, making that trench you see beyond, to drain
the wood. And it was contract work, and he was doing the work of
two men and was near ready to take another piece. And some of
them began to say to him, "It's a shame for you to be working like
that, and taking the bread out of the hands of another," and I
standing there. And he said he didn't care, and he took the spade
and sent the scraws out flying, to the right and to the left. And he
never put a spade into the ground again, for that night he was taken
ill, and died shortly after. Watched he was, and taken by them.

As to the woman brought back again, it was told me by a boy going

to school there at the time, so I know there's no lie in it. It was one
of the Taylors, a rich family in Scariff. His wife was sick and pining
away for seven years, and at the end of that time one day he came
in he had a drop of drink taken, and he began to be a bit rough with
her. And she said, "Don't be rough with me now, after bearing so
well with me all these seven years. But because you were so good
and so kind to me all that time," says she, "I'll go away from you
now and I'll let your own wife come back to you." And so she did,
for it was some old hag she was, and the wife came back again and
reared a family. And before she went away, she had a son that was
reared a priest, and after she came back, she had another son that
was reared a priest, so that shows a blessing came on them. (Note
39.)

A Man on the Beach:

I remember when a great many young girls were taken, it is likely by
them. And two year ago two fine young women were brought away
from Aranmor one in a month and one in a week after the birth. And
lately I heard that her own little girl and another little girl that was
with her saw one of them appear in a cabin outside when she came
to have a look at the child she left, but she didn't want to appear
herself.

John Flatley:
There was a man I knew, Andy White, had a little chap, a little
summach of four years. And one day Andy was away to sell a pig in
the market at Mount Bellew, and the mother was away someplace
with the dinner for the men in the field, and the little chap was in
the house with the grandmother, and he sitting by the fire. And he
said to the grandmother: "Put down a skillet of potatoes for me, and
an egg." And she said: "I will not; what do you want with them, sure
you're not long after eating." And he said, "Take care but I'll throw
you over the roof of the house." And then he said, "Andy"—that was
his father—"is after selling the pig to a jobber, and the jobber has it
given back to him again, and he'll be at no loss by that, for he'll get
a half-a-crown more at the end." So when the grandmother heard
that she wouldn't stop in the house with him but ran out, and he
only four years old.
When the mother came back and was told about it she went out and
she got some of the leaves of the Lus-Mor, and she brought them in
and put them on him; and he went, and her own child came back
again. They didn't see him going or the other coming, but they knew
it by him. But if her child had died among them, and they can die
there as well as in this world, then he wouldn't come back, but that
shape in his place would take the appearance of death.

Mrs. Cooke:
There's a man in Kildare that lost his wife. And every night at twelve
o'clock she came back, to look at her child. And it was told the
husband that if he had twelve men with him with forks when she
came in, they would be able to stop her from going out again.
So the next night he was there, and with him his twelve friends with
forks. And when she came in they shut the door, and when she
could not get out she sat down and was quiet.
And one night she was sitting by the hearth with them all, she said
to her husband, "It's a strange thing that Lenchar would be sitting
there so quiet, with the bottom after being knocked out of his
churn."
So the husband went to Lenchar's house, and he found it was true
what she had said, and the bottom was after being knocked out of
his churn. But after that he left her, and lived in the village and
wouldn't go near her any more.

Myself, I saw when I was but a child a woman come to the door that
had been seven years with the good people, but do you think that
could be true? And she had two strong girls with her. My brother was
ill at the time, where he had his hip hurt with the shaft of a cart he
was backing into the shed, and my father asked her could she cure
him. And she said, "I will, if you will give me the reward I ask for."
"What is that?" said he. And she stooped down and pointed at a
little kettle that stood below the dresser, and it was the last thing my
mother had bought in this world before she died. So he was vexed
because she cast her eye on that, and he bid her go out of the
house for she wouldn't get it, and so she went away.
But I remember well her being there and telling us that while the
seven years were going by, she was often glad to come outside the
houses in the night-time, and pick a bit of what was in the pigs'
troughs. And she bid us always to leave a bit somewhere about the
house for them that couldn't come in and ask for it. And though my
father was a cross man and didn't believe in such things, to the day
of his death he never dared to go up to bed without leaving a bit of
food outside the door. (Note 40.)

A Herd:
The McGarritys in the house beyond, they have plenty of money. It
was money they got out, buried money, and they are after them.
There is one of them—Ned—is rather silly; I meet him often on the
farm stretched by the side of the wall. He met with something one
night and he is not the same since then.
There is another of them was walking one evening by the brink of
the bushes and he met with two fillies—he thought them to be fillies
—and one of them called out, "How are you, John?" and he legged it
home as fast as he could. It is likely it was the father or the uncle.
Sure leaving town one time he was brought away to the railway
station, and some of the people brought him hither again and set
him towards home and he was brought back to the very same place.
They had a right to have got the priest to say a few Masses in that
house before they went to live in it at all.
It was the time their uncle was dying there was a whistle heard
outside and the man in the bed answered it, and it was that very
night he died. To keep money you would get out like, that is not
right unless you might give the first of it in a few Masses. It was the
man the money was took from gave that whistle.

Mrs. Donnely:
My mother told me that when she was a young girl, and before the
time of side-cars, a man that was living in Duras married a girl from
Ardrahan side. And it was the custom in those days for a newly
married girl to ride home on a horse, behind her next-of-kin.
And she was sitting behind her uncle on the horse, and when they
were passing by Ardrahan churchyard he felt her to shiver and
nearly to slip off the horse, and he put his hand behind for to
support her, and all he could feel in his hand was for all the world
like a piece of tow. So he asked her what ailed her, and she said that
she thought of her mother when she was passing by the churchyard.
A year after that when her baby was born, then she died. But
everyone said the night she was taken was on her wedding-night.
And sure a sister-in-law of my own was taken the same way that
poor Mrs. Hehir was. It was a couple of days after her baby was
born, and I went to see her, and she Fardy's daughter and niece to
Johnson that has the demesne land. And she was sitting up on the
bed and so well and so strong that her mother says to me,
"Catherine, try could you get a chicken any place; I think she'll be
able to eat it tomorrow." "Chicken's is scarce, ma'am," says I, "but
anyway I'll do my best and someway or other I'll find one."
Well, after that we left, and her husband being tired with the nights
he'd been sitting up came with us to sleep at the house of his uncle,
Johnson. And hardly had he got to the house when bad news
followed him. And when he got home his wife was dead before him.
Hardly were we out of the house when she said to her mother "Take
off my boots." "Sure, you have no boots on," said the mother.
"Well," says she, "lay me at the foot of the bed." And presently she
says, "Send in to the McInerneys and ask them if the coffin they
have is a better one than mine." And the mother saw she was going,
and sent for the husband, but she was gone before he could come.
And she so well and sitting up in the bed. But Hehir's wife was out of
bed altogether, and brought her husband his tea in the hayfield
before she was took.
And now I'll tell your ladyship a story that's all truth and no lie.
There was an uncle of my own living near Kinvara, and one night his
wife was coming home from Kinvara town, and she passed three
men that were lying by the roadside. And the first of them said to
her in Irish, "Go home, my poor woman." And the second said, "Go
home if you can." And when she got home and told the story, she
said the voice of the second was like the voice of her brother that
was dead.
And from that day she began to waste away, and was wasting for
seven year, until she died. And at the last some person said to her
husband, "It's time for you to ask her what way she's been spending
these seven years."
So he went into the room where she was on the bed, and said, "I
believe it's time to ask you now what way have you been spending
these seven years." And she said, "I'll tell you presently when you
come in again, but leave me now for a while." And he went back
into the kitchen and took his pipe for to have a smoke before he'd
go back and ask her again. And the servant girl that was in the
house was the first to go into the room, and found her cold and
dead before her.
They had her took away before she had the time to tell what she
had been doing all those seven years.

J. Kenny:
I was in a house one night with a man used to go away with the
faeries. He got up in the night and opened the house door and went
out. About four hours he was away, and when he came back he
seemed to be very angry. I saw him putting off his clothes.

Nora Whelan:
Indeed Moneen has a great name for things that do be going on
there beside that big forth. Sure there's many can hear them
galloping, galloping all the night. You know Stephen's house at the
meadow? Well, his daughter got a touch from them one night when
she heard them going past with horses and with carriages, and she
the only one in the house that felt them. She got silly like for a bit,
but she's getting better now.

An old woman from Loughrea told me that a woman, I believe it was

from Shragwalla close to the town, was taken away one time for
fourteen years when she went out into the field at night with
nothing on but her shift. And she was swept there and then, and an
old hag put into the bed in her place, and she suckling her young
son at the time.
It was a great many years after that, there was a pedlar used to be
going about, and in his travels he went to England. And up in the
north of England he saw a rich house and went into the kitchen of it,
and there he saw that same woman, in a corner working. And he
went up to her and said, "I know where you come from." "Where's
that?" says she, and he gave her the name of her own village. Well,
she laughed and she went out of the kitchen, and I don't know did
she buy anything from him. But anyhow not long after that she
come back and walked into her own house.
The husband never knew her, but the boy that was then fourteen
year come up and touched her, and the father cried out, "Leave off
putting your hand to that fine dress," for she had very rich clothes
on. But she stood up and said, "I'm no other than your wife come
back again, and the first thing you have to do is to bring in all you
can carry of turf, and to make a big fire here in the middle of the
floor."
Well, the old hag was in the room within, in the bed where she'd
been lying a long time, and they thinking she was dying. And when
the smoke of the fire went in at the door she jumps up and away
with her out of the house, and tale or tidings of her they never had
again.
My mother often told me about her sister's child—my cousin—that
used to spend the nights in the big forth at Moneen. Every night she
went there, and she got thin and tired like. She used to say that she
saw grand things there, and the horses galloping and the riding. But
then she'd say, "I must tell no more than that, or I'll get a great
beating." She wasted away, but one night they were so sure that she
was dead they had the pot boiling full of water to wash her. But she
recovered again and lived five years after that.

Sure there was a faery in the house out beyond fourteen years. Katie
Morgan she was called. She never kept the bed, but she'd sit in the
corner of the kitchen on a mat, and from a good stout lump of a girl
that she was she wasted to nothing, and her teeth grew as long as
your fingers and then they dropped out. And she'd eat nothing at all
only crabs and sour things. And she'd never leave the house in the
day-time, but in the night she'd go out and pick things out of the
fields she could eat. And the hurt she got or whatever it was
touched her, it was one day that she was swinging on the corner
gate just there by the forth. She died as quiet as another. But you
wouldn't like to be looking at her after the teeth fell out.

Martin Rabitt:
There's some people it's lucky to meet and others it's unlucky, and if
you set off to go to America or around the world, and one of the
unlucky ones comes and speaks to you on the boat, you might as
well turn back and come home again.
My own sister was taken away, she and her husband within twenty-
four hours, and not a thing upon them, and she with a baby a week
old. Well, the care of that child fell on me, and sick or sorry it never
was but thriving always.
And a friend of mine told me the same thing. His wife was taken
away in child-birth—and the five children she left that did be always
ailing and sickly—from that day there never was a hap'orth ailed
them.
Did the mother come back to care them? Sure and certain she did,
and I'm the one can tell that. For I slept in the room with my sister's
child after she dying; and as sure as I stand here talking to you, she
was back in the room that night.
Walking towards nightfall myself, I've seen the shadows dancing
before me, but I wasn't afeared, no more than I am of you. And I've
felt them other times crying and groaning about the house.

As to the faeries, up beyond Ballymore there's a woman that was

said to be with them for seven years. But she came back after that
and had an impediment in her speech ever since.

Martin King:
There's a little forth on this side of Clough behind Glyn's house, and
there was a boy in Clough was said to have passed a night and a
day in it. I often saw him, and he was dull looking, but for
cleverness there was no one could touch him. I saw a picture of a
train he drew one time, with not a bolt nor a ha'porth left out; and
whatever he put his hand to he could do it, and he with no more
teaching than any other poor boy in the town. I believe that he went
to America afterwards.

And I remember a boy was about my own age over at Annagh at the
other side of the water, and it's said that he was away for two years.
Anyway for all that time he was sick in bed, and no one ever saw bit
or sup cross his lips in all that time, though the food that was left in
the room would disappear, whatever happened it. He recovered after
and went to America.

There was a girl near taken, in the Prestons' house. I saw her myself
in the bed, near gone. But of a sudden she sat up and looked on the
floor and began to curse, and then they left her for they can't bear
curses. They have the hope of Heaven or they wouldn't leave one on
the face of the earth, and they are afraid of God. They'll not do you
much harm if you leave them alone; it's best not to speak to them at
all if you should meet them. If they bring any one away they'll leave
some old good-for-nothing thing in its place, and the same way with
a cow or a calf or such things. But a sheep or a lamb it's beyond
their power to touch, because of our Lord.

An Old Butcher:
I was born myself by daylight, and my mother often told me that I'd
never see anything worse than myself. There's some can see those
things and some that can't.
But one time I went up by the parish of Killisheen to look for half-
beef, I having at the time a contract for the workhouse. And I went
astray on the mountains, and near Killifin I came to a weaver's
house and went in. And there was sitting in the corner such a
creature as I never saw before, with nothing on him but a shirt, and
eyes that would go through you. And I wouldn't stop in the house
but went out again. And the weaver followed me and says he, "Is it
afraid of him you are?" "It is," says I. "I thought you would be," says
he, "and would you believe that he's my own son, and as fine a
young chap as ever you seen until seven year ago when I sent him
to Clough on a message, and he fell going over a wall, and it's then
he got the touch, and it's like this he's been ever since." "Does he
ask to eat much?" says I. "He'd eat the whole world," says he. "Then
it's not your son that's in it, you may be sure of that," says I, and I
turned and went away and never went back there again.
And it's not many year ago that such a lot of fine women were taken
from Clough, very sudden, after childbirth—fine women—I knew
them all myself. And I'll tell you a thing I heard of in the country.
There was a woman died, and left her child. And every night at
twelve o'clock she'd come back, and brought it out of the bed to the
fire, and she'd comb it and wash it. And at last six men came and
watched and stopped her at the door, and she went very near to
tear them all asunder. But they got the priest, and he took it off her.
Well, the husband had got another wife, and the priest came and
asked him would he put her away, and take the first again. And so
he did, and he brought her to the chapel to be married to her again,
and the whole congregation saw her there. That was rather hard on
the second wife? Well, but wasn't it a great thing for the first poor
creature to be brought back? Sure there's many of those poor souls
wandering about.
Sure enough, some are brought away and kept for years, but
sometimes they come back again. There was a woman beyond at
Cahirmacun was away for a year, and came back and reared a family
after. They know well what happened them, but they don't speak of
it. There was a young fellow got a touch there near Ballytown, and a
little chap met him wandering in the field. And he bid him put out
food for him every night, for he had none of their food ate yet, and
so they hadn't got full power over him. So food was left for him, and
after a time he came back as well as another.

A Connemara man:
There are many that die and don't go out of the world at all. The
priests know that. There was a boy dying in a house up the road,
and the priest came to him and he was lying as if dead, that he
could not speak nor hear, and the priest said, "The boys have a hand
in this." He meant by that, the faeries. I was outside the house
myself at the time, for the boy was a friend of mine, and I didn't like
him to die. And you never saw such a storm as arose when the
priest was coming to the house, a storm of wind, and a cloud over
the moon. But after a while the boy died, and the storm went down
and the moon shone out as bright as before.
There was a man was said to go away of nights with them. When he
got the call, away he must go if he liked it or not.
And one day he was out in the bay with some others, and all of a
sudden he said, "Let me go home, my horse is like to die." And they
wouldn't mind him for a time, but at last they turned and rowed
home, and they found his horse that was well when he went out,
stretched on the field.
Another time he was with a man that had a grand three-year-old filly
and was showing it to him. And he said, "You won't have her long";
and it wasn't long after that she died.

Mrs. Feeney:
There was a man died and his wife died, and an uncle took charge
of the children. The man had a shop but the uncle lived a little way
from the shop, and he would leave the children alone through the
night. There were two men making a journey, and a storm rose up,
and they asked could they have a part of the night in the house
where the shop was, and the uncle said they could, and he went to
his own house.
The men were sitting up by the fire and the children were sleeping
at the other side of the room. And one of the men said to the other
"God rest the soul of the man that died here. He was a good man."
And the other said, "The wife wasn't so good." And just then they
heard a noise below, and they saw the wife that had died coming
into the room and she went across and lay down on the bed where
the baby was. And the baby that was crying before got quiet then
and made no sound at all.
But as to the two men, bad as the storm was outside, they thought
better to be out in it than to stop in the room where the woman
was, so they went away. It was to quiet the baby she used to come
back.

There was an old woman I remember, Mrs. Sheridan, and she had to
go with them for two or three hours every night for a while, and
she'd make great complaints of the hardship she'd meet with, and
how she'd have to spend the night going through little boreens or in
the churchyard at Kinvara, or they'd bring her down to the seashore.
They often meet with hardships like that, those they bring with
them, so it's no wonder they're glad to get back. This world's the
best.
There was a woman living over there near Aughsulis, and a few
years ago she lost a fine young milch cow, with its first calf. And she
and the three boys in the house salted it down and they ate the half
of it and they couldn't eat the other half, it was too hard or too
tough, and they put it under the dung that was in the yard, the way
it would melt into it. And when the springtime came, they turned up
the dung, and in the place it was buried they found nothing but
three planks of the wood that's cut in Connemara—deal they call it.
So the cow never died, but was brought away with themselves. For
many a young boy and young woman goes like that, and there's no
doubt at all that Mary Hynes was taken. There's some living yet can
remember her coming to the pattern was there beyond, and she was
said to be the handsomest girl in Ireland. (Note 41.)

There's a man now living between this place and Kinvara, Fannen his
name is, and he goes away with them, and he's got delicate and silly
like. One night he was in that bad place that's near the chapel of
Kinvara, and he found a great crowd of them about him and a man
on a white horse was with them, and tried to keep him, and he cried
and struggled and they let him go at last. But now the neighbours all
say he does be going with them, and he told me himself he does. I
wouldn't be afraid of him when I'd meet him on the road, but many
of the neighbours would be afraid.
And two of his sons have got silly. They found a bar of gold one time
out playing in the field, and the money they got for it they put it in
the bank. But I believe it's getting less now, and what good did it do
them when they went like that? One of the boys was to be a priest,
but they had to give that up when he got silly. It was no right
money. And they'd best not have touched it.
Mrs. Finnegan:
Dreams, we should not pay too much attention to, and we should
judge them well, that is, if a dream is bad or good, we should say
"It's a good dream"; and we should never tell a dream to anyone
fasting; and it's said if you tell your dream to a tree fasting, it will
wither up. And it's better to dream of a person's downfall than of
him being up. When the good people take a cow or the like, you'll
know if they did it by there being no fat on what's left in its place
and no eyes in it. When my own springer died so sudden this year, I
was afraid to use it. But Pat Hevenor said, "It's a fool you are, and it
might save you the price of a bag of meal to feed the bonifs with a
bit of it." And he brought the cart and brought it home to me. So I
put down a bit to boil for the bonifs to try it, for I heard that if it was
their work, it would go to water. But there was fat rising to the top,
that I have enough in the shed to grease the cart wheels for a year.
So then I salted a bit of it down.
If they take any one with them, yourself or myself it might be, they'll
put some old spent man in his place, that they had with them a long
time, and the father and the mother and the children will think it is
the child or the father or the mother that is in it. And so it may be
he'd get absolution. But as for the old faeries that were there from
the beginning, I don't know about them. (Note 42.)
It's said that if we know how to be neighbourly with them, they'd be
neighbourly and friendly with us. It's said it was they brought away
the potatoes in the bad time, when all the potatoes turned black.
But it wasn't for spite, it was because they wanted them themselves.

Mrs. Casey:
There was a woman in Ballinamore died after the baby being born.
And the husband took another wife and she very young, that
everyone wondered she'd like to go into the house. And every night
the first wife came to the loft, and looked down at her baby, and
they couldn't see her; but they'd know she was there by the child
looking up and smiling at her.
So at last some one said that if they'd go up in the loft after the cock
crowing three times they'd see her. And so they did, and there she
was, with her own dress on, a plaid shawl she had brought from
America, and a cotton skirt with some edging at the bottom.
So they went to the priest, and he said Mass in the house, and they
didn't see so much of her after that. But after a year, the new wife
had a baby. And one day she bid the first child to rock the cradle.
But when she sat down to it, a sort of a sickness came over her, and
she could do nothing, and the same thing always happened, for her
mother didn't like to see her caring the second wife's baby.
And one day the wife herself fell in the fire and got a great many
burns, and they said that it was she did it.
So they went to the blessed well Tubbermacduagh near Kinvara, and
they were told to go there every Friday for twelve weeks, and they
said seven prayers and gathered seven stones every time. And since
then she doesn't come to the house, but the little girl goes out and
meets her mother at a faery bush. And sometimes she speaks to her
there, and sometimes in her dreams. But no one else but her own
little girl has seen her of late.

There was one time a tailor, and he was a wild card, always going to
sprees. And one night he was passing by a house, and he heard a
voice saying, "Who'll take the child?" And he saw a little baby held
out, and the hands that were holding it, but he could see no more
than that. So he took it, and he brought it to the next house, and
asked the woman there to take it in for the night.
Well, in the morning the woman in the first house found a dead child
in the bed beside her. And she was crying and wailing and called all
the people. And when the woman from the neighbouring house
came, there in her arms was the child she thought was dead. But if
it wasn't for the tailor that chanced to be passing by and to take it,
we know very well what would have happened it.

That's a thing happens to many, to have faery children put upon

them.

A Man at Corcomroe:
There was one Delvin, that lies under a slab yonder, and for seven
years he was brought away every night, and into this abbey. And he
was beat and pinched, and when he'd come home he'd faint; but he
used to say that the place that he went to was grander than any city.
One night he was with a lot of others at a wake, and they knew the
time was coming for him to go, and they all took hold of him. But he
was drawn out of the door, and the arms of those that were holding
him were near pulled out of their sockets.

Mischievous they are, but they don't do much harm. Some say they
are fallen angels, and hope yet to be saved.

A Slieve Echtge Woman:

I knew another was away for seven years—and it was in the next
townland to this she lived. Bridget Clonkelly her name was. There
was a large family of them, and she was the youngest, and a very
fine-looking fair-haired girl she was. I knew her well, she was the
one age with myself.
It was in the night she used to go to them, and if the door was shut,
she'd come in by the key-hole. The first time they came for her, she
was in bed between her two sisters, and she didn't want to go, And
they beat her and pinched her, till her brother called out to know
what was the matter.
She often told me about them, and how she was badly treated
because she wouldn't eat their food. She got no more than about
three cold potatoes she could eat all the time she was with them.
All the old people about here put out food every night, the first of
the food before they have any of it tasted themselves. And she said
there was a red-haired girl among them, that would throw her into
the river she got so mad with her. But if she'd had their food ate,
she'd never have got away from them at all.
She married a serving-man after, and they went to Sydney, and if
nothing happened in the last two years they're doing well there now.

Mrs. Casey:
Near my own house by the sea there was a girl went out one day to
get nuts near the wood, and she heard music inside the wood. And
when she went home she told her mother. But the next day she
went again, and the next, and she stopped so long that the mother
sent the other little girl to look for her, but she could see no one. But
she came in after a time, and she went inside into the room, and
while she was there the mother heard music from the room; but
when the girl came out she said she heard nothing. But the next day
after that she died.
The neighbours all came in to the wake, and there was tobacco and
snuff there, but not much, for it's the custom not to have so much
when a young person dies. But when they looked at the bed, it was
no young person they saw in it, but an old woman with long teeth
that you'd be frightened, and the face wrinkled, and the hands. So
they didn't stop but went away, and she was buried the next day.
And in the night the mother would hear music all about the house,
and lights of all colours flashing about the windows.
She was never seen again except by a boy that was working about
the place. He met her one evening at the end of the house, dressed
in her own clothes. But he could not question her where she was, for
it's only when you meet them by a bush you can question them
there.

A Man of Slieve Echtge:

There was a man, and he a cousin of my own, lost his wife. And one
night he heard her come into the room, where he was in bed with
the child beside him, and he let on to be asleep, and she took the
child and brought her out to the kitchen fire and sat down beside it
and suckled it.
And then she put it back into the bed again, and he lay still and said
nothing. The second night she came again, and he had more
courage and he said, "Why have you got no boots on?" For he saw
that her feet were bare. And she said, "Because there's iron nails in
them." So he said, "Give them to me," and he got up and drew all
the nails out of them, and she brought them away.
The third night she came again, and when she was suckling the child
he saw that she was still barefoot, and he asked why didn't she wear
the boots. "Because," says she, "you left one sprig in them, between
the upper and the lower sole, But if you have courage," says she,
"you can do more than that for me. Come tomorrow night to the gap
up there beyond the hill, and you'll see the riders going through, and
the one you'll see on the last horse will be me. And bring with you
some fowl droppings and urine, and throw them at me as I pass,
and you'll get me again." Well he got so far as to go to the gap, and
to bring what she told him, and when they came riding through the
gap, he saw her on the last horse, but his courage failed him, and he
let it drop, and he never got the chance to see her again.
Why she wanted the nails out of her boots? Because it's well known
they will have nothing to do with iron. And I remember when every
child would have an old horse nail hung round its neck with a bit of
straw, but I don't see it done now.

There was another man though, one of the family of the Coneys
beyond there, and his wife was away from him four years. And after
that he put out the old hag was in her place, and got his wife back
and reared children after that, and one of them was trained a priest.

There was a drunken man in Scariff, and one night he had drink
taken he couldn't get home, and fell asleep by the roadside near the
bridge. And in the night he awoke and heard them at work with cars
and horses. And one said to another, "This work is too heavy, we'll
take the white horse belonging to so and so"—giving the name of a
rich man in the town. So as soon as it was light he went to this man,
and told him what he had heard them say. But he would only laugh
at him and say, "I'll pay no attention to what a drunkard dreams."
But when he went out after to the stable, his white horse was gone.
That's easy understood. They are shadows, and how could a shadow
move anything? But they have power over mankind that they can
bring them away to do their work.

There was a woman used to go out among them at night, and she
said to her sister, "I'll be out on a white horse and I'll stop and knock
at your door," and so she would do sometimes.
And one day there was a man asked her for a debt she owed, and
she said, "I have no money now." But then she put her hand behind
her and brought it back filled with gold. And then she rubbed it in
her hand, and when she opened the hand there was nothing in it
but dried cow-dung. And she said, "I could give you that but it
would be no use to you."

An Old Woman Talking of Cruachmaa:

I remember my father being there, and telling me of a girl that was
away for seven years, and all thought she was dead. And at the end
of the seven years she walked back one day into her father's house,
and she all black-looking. And she said she was married there and
had two children, but they died and then she was driven away. And
she stopped on at her father's house, but the neighbours used to
say there was never a day but she'd go up the hill and be there
crying for one or two hours.

An Old Woman who only Speaks Irish:

I remember a young man coming to the island fourteen years ago
that had never been in it before and that knew everything that was
in it, and could tell you as much as to the stones of the chimney in
every house. And after a few days he was gone and never came
again, for they brought him about to every part. But I saw him and
spoke to him myself.

Mr. Sullivan:
There was a man had buried his wife, and she left three children.
And then he took a second wife, and she did away with the children,
hurried them off to America, and the like. But the first wife used to
be seen up in the loft, and she making a plan of revenge against the
other wife.
The second one had one son and three daughters; and one day the
son was out digging the field, and presently he went into what is
called a faery hole. And there was a woman came before him, and,
says she, "what are you doing here trespassing on my ground?" And
with that she took a stone and hit him in the head, and he died with
the blow of the stone she gave him. And all the people said it was by
the faeries he was taken.

Peter Henderson:
There was a first cousin of mine used sometimes to go out the
house, that none would see him going, And one night his brother
followed him, and he went down a path to the sea, and then he
went into a hole in the rocks, that the smallest dog wouldn't go into.
And the brother took hold of his feet and drew him out again. He
went to America after that, and is living there now; and sometimes
in his room they'll see him kicking and laughing as if some were with
him.
One night when some of the neighbours from these islands were
with him, he told them he'd been back to Inishmaan, and told all
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