Student Resources

11.2 The Ormulum

Here is a ‘Rough Guide’ to this work:

• background: A collection of ‘homilies’ (religious texts intended to educate). It is 19,000 lines long. Just one copy exists, kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
• authorship: Þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum/ forþi þatt Orr mitt wrohhte (‘This book is named Ormulum because Orm created it’). The author’s name ‘Orm’ is related to the Old Norse word for ‘worm’ or ‘dragon’. It was quite a common name in the Danelaw area. The writer was a canon, probably associated with the abbey at Bourne in Lincolnshire. The poem was finished in about 1180.
• content: the homilies start with a paraphrase of a Biblical text, associated with the life of Christ or the acts of the apostles. This is followed by a critical interpretation of it (an ‘exegesis’).
• value: the work is of little literary or theological value, and the text is full of tedious lists and repetitions. It has pedagogic value, intended to present religious texts in English, the language understood by all. But the Ormulum’s chief interest is linguistic. It provides information about Early ME, and about the East Midlands dialect in which it was written – particularly about pronunciation. Orm tries to make his spelling reflect pronunciation, and one of the ways he does this is to use double consonants to indicate that the preceding vowel is a short one. So our word ‘and’ is written annd, to show that the ‘a’ vowel is pronounced [æ]; the word ‘arm’ (which is not in fact used in The Ormulum) would be written ‘arm’ in this system, because the vowel is long. There are many examples of doubled consonants in the quotation below.
• quotation: the inspiration for the work, Orm claims, comes from his brother Walter, who urged him to write it to help the understanding of English readers. The Þu (‘you’) mentioned in this passage (which comes from the poem’s opening Dedication) is Walter:

Icc hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh
goddspelles hallȝhe lare,
after þatt little witt þatt me
min Drihhtin hafeþþ lenedd.
Þu þohhtesst tatt itt mihhte wel
till mikell frame turrnenn,
ȝiff Ennglissh folk, forr lufe off Crist,
itt wollde ȝerne lernenn;
annd forþi ȝerrndesst tu þatt Icc
þiss werrc þe shollde wirrken.

‘I have translated into English the gospel’s holy teaching, using the little intelligence that the Lord has granted me. You thought that it might well be turned to great benefit if English people, for love of Christ, would eagerly learn and follow it, fulfilling it in thought, word and deed, and therefore you wanted me to compose this work.’

Some questions about the quotation:

1. Find the word for ‘I’. It is rather different from the PDE (and the one found in the later ME quotations in Chapter 11 and associated CWs).
2. The word given as ‘translate’ literally means ‘turn’. Can you see a semantic connection between ‘translate’ and the PDE word wend?
3. Find the word translated as ‘intelligence’. The PDE equivalent of this word has a number of meanings. What are they? One of them is indeed ‘intelligence’. Think of a context where it might mean that in PDE.
4. What case is the word me in line 3?
5. Locate the word translated as ‘great’. Have you come across a related word in PDE that has this meaning?

Answer to (v): ‘mickle’ is a Scottish word meaning ‘a lot’. It is also mentioned in 4.4.

11.3 Havelok the Dane

A ‘Rough Guide’ to this poem:

• background: an example of the popular ‘romance’ genre. Romances were fantastic tales of heroes, often with superhuman powers. They often had classical or French themes (with heroes like Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, and Roland). But there were also British heroes, like King Arthur. The poem is 3001 lines long, written in rhyming octosyllabic couplets.
• authorship: anonymous, written at the end of the thirteenth century. Based on the Anglo-Norman romance Lai d’Haveloc.
• content: Havelok is a Danish prince, dispossessed by his wicked brother who orders the fisherman, Grim, to drown the child. But Grim disobeys and takes Havelok to England, where Grim founds the port of Grimsby. Havelok grows into a charming, hard-working hero with near supernatural powers. He is married off to Princess Goldborough, also dispossessed by a wicked guardian. Eventually, Havelok and Goldborough become benign rulers of England and Denmark, as well as finding time to have 15 children.
• value: Drabble (1985: 441) says of the poem: ‘It is one of the most admired of all Middle English romances . . . because of its narrative coherence . . . and the sustained interest of its action.’ It is sometimes called a ‘bourgeois romance’ because is lauds the virtues of hard work, as our quotation shows.
• quotation: a portrait of the charming, hard-working hero:

He bar the turves, he bar the star,
The wode fro the brigge he bar,
Al that evere shulden he nytte,
Al he drow and al he citte -
Wolde he nevere haven rest
More than he were a best.
Of alle men was he mest meke,
Lauhwinde ay and blithe of speke;
Evere he was glad and blithe -
His sorwe he couthe ful wel mithe.

‘He carried the peat and sedge (for burning), and he bore the wood from the bridge, as much as was needed. He hauled, he cut, and he never wanted a rest, any more than a beast would. He was the meekest of men, always laughing and speaking happily. He was always full of good spirits, and could hide his sorrow well.’

Some questions about the quotation:

1. The ME form here translated as ‘peat’ is like a PDE word. The PDE word is an irregular plural. So too in ME. What then might the ME singular be?
2. The quotation has two words for PDE ‘always’. Find these. Perhaps you have come across the shorter of the two in Shakespeare or in some pre-twentieth century context?
3. The word evere occurs twice. Look at the word order following it. Perhaps the different order on each occasion suggests a stage of word order flexibility or uncertainty in the language.
4. Find the word translated as ‘carried’ (or ‘bore’). What might be the ME infinitive of the verb?
5. An odd word is used for PDE ‘hide’. It has now completely died out of the language. What is it?

Answer to (i): The word is turf or torf.
Answer to (iv): The infinitive is beren.

11.4 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

In Latin there was a construction known as the ‘dativus ethicus’, used to signify that the person mentioned had a particular interest in what was being talked about, or was particularly affected by it in some way. ‘Dativus ethicus’ became ‘ethic(al) dative’ in English. The word ‘ethic’ here does not mean ‘moral’ but something like ‘emotional’ – because a personal emotional involvement is indicated. The construction first appeared in ME, and is found in the work of Chaucer. In The Knight’s Tale, for example, a character says: Now to the temple of Dyane the chaste,/ As shortly as I can I wol me haste. Another possible example from The Pardoner’s Tale is: he wole him no thing hyde. Me and him are ‘ethic datives’.

The construction was still found in the eighteenth century. Here is Henry Fielding, in his novel Tom Jones (X.iii.475): as wholesome as the best champagne in the kingdom . . . and they drank me two bottles.

You also find versions of this curious construction today, in sentences like ‘I must get me a wife’. Some say that a modern equivalent is sometimes the phrase ‘for me’, added politely to a request or instruction and indicating that sense of ‘particular interest’. This is in common use among nurses, who might ask someone ‘Pop this [e.g. thermometer] in your mouth for me’. It makes the request sound like a personal favour rather than an imposition.

The ethic dative was particularly common in EModE times, and is found not infrequently in Shakespeare. You will find an example of it in 13.4’s ‘buckrom story’, when Falstaff says I followed me close. On one occasion, in The Taming of the Shrew, a joke is constructed around its use. Petruchio wants his servant Grumio to knock on the door of a house. Knock me at this gate, the master says, using the ethic dative. Grumio, doubtless disingenuously, interprets this to mean that he should ‘knock’ (hit) Petruchio when they reach the gate, which he duly does. Petruchio is not amused and punishes the servant, who protests thus: O heavens! Spake you not these words plain, ‘Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly ’? He was, he says, just obeying orders.

10.5 The past in the present

The ME period also saw the development of the so-called historic present tense. This is when a present tense is used to describe past actions. You can find an example of this in the opening paragraph of section 10.3, where a continuation of the Chaunticleer story is given. The events were, of course, in the past, but the story is told in the present. This practice is first recorded in the Early Middle English period. One explanation for this use of the tense is that it makes narrative sound more vivid – as if it were happening at the present time. Mick Short (unpublished) puts forward another explanation. He points out that the present tense is used for commentary (in football matches, for example), where a commentator is between the listener and the events being described. Often in narratives, the historical present has a similarly ‘distancing effect’, Short argues.

Storytellers like Chaucer (and later Dickens) use it. In The Canterbury Tales, it is particularly found in The Knight’s Tale and The Man of Law’s Tale. One of the characters in the latter is King Alla, and these lines describe, in the historic present, his return home: Alla the kyng comth hoom soone after this/ Unto his caste!, of the which I tolde,/ And asketh where his wyf and his child is. The use of this tense is sometimes controversial today, with some arguing that ‘past events should be told in the past tense’.

10.6 Chaunticleer escapes

(a) Here is a recording of the ME version:

A phonetic transcription of this recording:

ðə fɒks ænswɜːrd ‘in faɪθ it ʃæl beɪ dɒn’
ənd æz heɪ spaːk ðæt wɜːrd æl sɒdeɪnliː
ðɪs kɒk braːk frəm ɪz muːθ dəlivrɜːliː
ənd haɪx əpɒn ə treɪ heɪ flaɪx ənɒn.
ənd wæn ðə fɒks saʊx ðæt ðə kɒk wəz gɒn
‘əlaːs’ kwəʊt heɪ ‘əʊ ʃæntəkleɪr əlaːs
iː hæv tʊ juː kwəʊt heɪ iːdɒn trespaːs
. . . . .
Bət siːr, iː dɪd ɪt ɪn nəʊ wɪk əntentə
Kɒm duːn, ənd iː ʃæl tel juː wɒt iː mentə’

(b) A recording of the RP version:

A phonetic transcription of this recording:

ðə fɒks ɑːnsəd ‘in feɪθ it ʃɑːl biː dʌn’
ənd æz hiː speɪk ðæt wɜːd ɔːl sʌdənli
ðɪs kɒk brəʊk frəm ɪz maʊθ delivrəli
ənd haɪ əpɒn ə triː hiː fluː ənɒn.
ənd wen ðə fɒks sɔː ðæt ðə kɒk wəz gɒn
‘əlæs’ kwəʊθ hiː ‘əʊ ʃæntəklɪə əlæs
aɪ hæv tʊ juː kwəʊθ hiː iːdʌn trespæs
. . . . .
bət saɪə, aɪ dɪd ɪt ɪn nəʊ wɪk əntent
kʌm daʊn, ənd aɪ ʃæl tel juː wɒt aɪ ment’