the inflection -es (rather than southern -eth) in third-person singular (he loves, he holdes, he dredes); the north tended to extend the -s inflection to other persons, so that we also find it used (instead of -est) for second-person singular both in the present (thou blames, thou thretes, thou says) and past (thou lestes [lost], thou kyssedes), and on occasion for present plurals (thay [trees] borgounes and beres; yow, that … weldes37). The ending -(e)s (rather than the southern -eth) is also used for the plural (or polite) imperative: Dos teches me; Displeses not if I speke errour
the present participle suffix -ande (as opposed to -inde/ende or -ing in the south): that malscrande [stupefying] mere; fannande fax [fanning hair]; gladande glory
the auxiliary can (as opposed to the southern gan), found in these poems with the characteristically western rounding of a to o before nasals (m, n, ng): con take [did take], con answare [did answer]
the verbs make and take can appear in contracted form: he mas him … mery; thay ta me; tan on honde [taken in hand]
the adverb bylive [promptly], which figures as blive in southern texts: raykes [goes] bylive; neghed [approached] bylive
several items of vocabulary that are northernisms: muckel [great(ly)], farande [fine], brent [steep: G 2165], stange [pole: G 1614], bodworde [news] (C 473)
a high number of words of Scandinavian origin: as well as such words as carp [speak], ill, [bad(ly)], kyrk [church], ugly [sinister], which were common in northern dialects, there are a number of colourful and unusual ones, such as skayned [grazed], snart [smartingly] and snitered [snowed] (G 2167, 2003)
A dialect area well to the north is, however, ruled out by the absence of some features that would indicate it, and by the presence of some that were more characteristic of the south:
there is no regular retention of Old English long a (which had been rounded in the south to o). Forms in a are the exception, and often occur only for rhyming purposes. Thus, where rhyme requires a, brade and mare each occur once (at Pe 138 and 145 respectively), and hame twice (G 1534, 2451), but all three words are otherwise spelled with o, that vowel being confirmed by rhyme at e.g. G 967 (brode : goode). The evidence thus suggests a poet familiar with a forms, but more regularly using o forms
northern forms such as gud [good], buk [book] and sall [shall] are not found
though the northern spelling qu- is often used for words beginning with hw- in Old English (e.g. quat and quen, regularized in the present edition to what and when), hw-derived words (even when spelled qu-) alliterate on w (e.g. MS querso [wheresoever] alliterates with world and worschipes at G 1227), and there is no sign of the falling together of the sounds of Old English cw- and hw- (leading to the alliteration of e.g. what with queen) which occurs in some dialects to the north of Cheshire (as in The Wars of Alexander and in the Lancashire poem The Destruction of Troy)38
third-person-plural present-tense verbs (though they sometimes have no ending, sometimes -e, and sometimes northern -s) frequently have the -en inflection typical of the more conservative Midlands, confirmed by metre at e.g. G 1163: ‘What! Thay [the deer] brayen and bleden, by bonkes thay dyen’39
An area towards the south of the northern dialect region is therefore indicated, and, as between east and west, the following features, among others, are westernisms:
the occasional unvoicing of final -b, -g and -d to -p, -k and -t, especially after nasals. We have regularized many such spellings where they serve no metrical purpose (e.g. MS ȝonke þynk at G 1526 appears in our text as yong thing), but fonte [found] at Pe 170, for instance, has not been regularized, because it is required (and confirmed) by rhyme. Final -d after an unstressed syllable was also unvoiced in the west, and occurs in e.g. Hadet [beheaded] at G 681
the form ho [she], which occurs frequently (and is confirmed by alliteration at G 948)
the raising of o to u before -ng (which makes possible the rhyme of ‘long’ and ‘strong’ with ‘tongue’ at G 32–6)
the rounding of a to o before a nasal, witnessed in e.g. bonk [bank], plonttes [plants], etc
Inflections were lost more rapidly from northern dialects than from elsewhere, and there is evidence from rhyme and metre that the poet did not always use or sound the ones discussed below where metre did not require them. But metre often does require, as well as medial -e- and adverbial -e, a sounded final -e for: first-person present-tense verbs; plural verbs; infinitives (which can also end in -y and in -(e)n); weak adjectives (used after the definite article the, after demonstrative and possessive adjectives such as that and his, and in vocatives); plural adjectives; dative nouns. Final -e is historically justified in these cases and this poet, like others from the North Midlands, made good use of it.40 The -es termination for plural or possessive nouns and for present-tense verbs, as well as past tense and participle -de/te and -ed, likewise often has syllabic value, especially when applied to monosyllabic stems. These inflections often assist the poet in supplying an unstressed syllable demanded by either (1) the iambics of Pearl and of the bob-and-wheel in Sir Gawain or (2) the alliterative line, which required a dip of two syllables (or more) in the second half of the line and (usually) between the alliterating stresses of the first half of the line, as well as one unstressed syllable at line ending (see the section on alliterative metre below).41 The following examples are representative:
Of all my joy the highë gate (Pe 395: weak adjective)
to flyë ful highë (G 524b: infinitive; adverb)
And then he cryëd so cler that kennë myght allë (Pa 357: past tense; infinitive; plural pronoun)
All that glydës and gos (C 325a: present tense)
I durë to longë (Pa 488b: first-person present-tense verb; adverb)
his luflychë deghter (C 939b: plural disyllabic adjective)
on wyngës ful scharpë (C 475b: plural noun; plural adjective)
of Arthurës wonderes (G 29b: possessive)
blenk on the snawë [glitter on the snow] (G 2315b: dative)
THE ALLITERATIVE METRE
Alliterative metre is based, not on a regular number of syllables in lines linked by rhyme (a metrical form imported from Latin and French), nor on iambic alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, but on a regular number of stresses linked by alliteration. Each line has four stresses (also known as staves), two in the first half-line (the a-verse) and two in the second half-line (the b-verse), with a caesura, or metrical pause, dividing the two halves of the line. In the so-called ‘classic’ form of the metre, alliteration links the first three of the stresses, but not the last, in an aa/ax pattern:
Clànnes whoso kỳndely còuthë commèndë (1)42
Words beginning with vowels alliterate in these poems (and some others) with any other vowel or with h-:
Thay hondel there His owne body and usen hit bothë (11)
The sounds s-, sk-, sp-, st- and sh- are normally treated as distinct, each alliterating only with itself:
Then segges to the soverayn sayden thereafter (93)
Stightled with the steward, stad in the hallë (90)
On spec of a spot may spedë to myssë (551)
Ascaped over the skyre wateres, and scaylëd the wallës (1776)
Thus in the last-quoted line the Norse-derived skyre [bright] has replaced the Anglo-Saxon-derived schyr(e) found elsewhere in the manuscript, the poet being very ready to exploit, for metrical as for stylistic purposes, the Scandinavian loan words in which his dialect was so rich (see p. xviii above).