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MAY ALL GOOD WIVES GO TO HEAVEN!

Whan they mombytt on ther bedys
Ther pater noster ryue.

Here ys wretyn a geste of the wryght
That hadde a garlond wett I-dyght,
The coloure wytt neuer fade.
Now god, þat ys heuyn kyng,
Graunt vs att hys dere blessyng

Owre hertes for to glade;

And all tho that doo her husbondys rygħt,
Pray we to Ihesu fult of myght,

That feyre mott hem byfalle,

And that they may come to heuen blys,

For thy dere moderys loue ther-of nott to mys,
Alle good wyues alle.

Now alle tho that thys tretys hath hard,
Ihesu graunt hem, for her reward,
As trew louers to be

As was the wryght vn-to hys wyfe
And sche to hym duryng her lyfe.
Amen, for charyte.

Here endyth the wryghtes processe trewe
Wyth hys garlond feyre of hewe

That neuer dyd fade the coloure.
It was made, by the avyse

Of hys wywes moder wytty and wyse,
Of flourys most of honoure,
Of roses whyte pat wylt nott fade,
Whych floure att ynglond doth glade,

Wyth trewloues medelyd in sygħt;
Vn-to the whych floure I-wys
The loue of god and of the comenys
Subdued bene of ryght.

Explicit.

May be subdied; the word has been corrected.

19

Here then is
written a tale
of the Wright and
his Garland.

God grant us all

his blessing,

and may all true faithful wives

come to heaven's bliss,

and be such

true lovers as the

[leaf 187]

wright and his wife were. Amen!

Here ends our tale of the Garland

which was made of White Roses,

the flowers that gladden all England,

and receive the love of God, and of the Commons too.

NOTES.

The two first of the three operations of flax-dressing described in lines 526529, p. 15,

One of hem knockyd lyne,
A-nothyr swyngelyd good and fyne

By-fore the swyngytt-tre,
The thyrde did rele and spynne,

must correspond to the preliminary breaking of the plant, and then the scutching or beating to separate the coarse tow or hards from the tare or fine hemp. Except so far as the swingle served as a heckle, the further heckling of the flax, to render the fibre finer and cleaner, was dispensed with, though heckles (iron combs) must have been in use when the poem was written inasmuch as hekele, hekelare, hekelyn, and hekelynge, are in the Promptorium, ab. 1440 A.D. Under Hatchell, Randle Holme gives a drawing of a heckle.

The lines through the h's in the MS. are not, I believe, marks of contraction. There are no insettings of the third lines, or spaces on changes of subject, in the MS.

For reference to two analogous stories to that of the Poem, I am indebted to Mr Thomas Wright. The first is that of Constant Duhamel in the third volume of Barbazan, and the second that of the Prioress and her three Suitors in the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, published by the Percy Society, ed. Halliwell.

She

In the Barbazan tale "the wife is violently solicited by three suitors, the priest, the provost, and the forester, who on her refusal persecute her husband. To stop their attacks she gives them appointments at her house immediately after one another, so that when one is there and stripped for the bath, another comes, and, pretending it is her husband, she conceals them one after another in a large tub full of feathers, out of which they can see all that is going on in the room. then sends successively for their three wives to come and bathe with her, the bath being still in the same room, and as each is stripped naked in the bath, she introduces her own husband, who dishonours them one after another, one à l'enverse, with rather aggravating circumstances, and all in view of their three husbands. Finally the latter are turned out of the house naked, or rather well feathered, then hunted by the whole town and their dogs, well bitten and beaten."

(If any one wants to see a justification of the former half of the proverb quoted by Roberd of Brunne, Frenche men synne yn lecherye

And Englys men yn enuye,

let him read the astounding revelation made of the state of the early French mind by the tales in the 3rd and 4th vols. of Barbazan's Fabliaux, ed. 1808.)

The second story, told by Lydgate, is as follows:- A prioress is wooed by "a young knyght, a parson of a paryche, and a burges of a borrow." She promises herself to the first if he will lie for a night in a chapel sewn up in a sheet like a corpse; to the second, if he will perform the funeral service over the knight, and bury him; to the third, if he will dress up like a devil, and frighten both parson and knight. This the burges Sir John does well, but is himself terrified at the corpse getting up: all three run away from one another: the knight falls on a stake, and into a snare set for bucks, and breaks his fore top in falling from the tree; the merchant gets tossed by a bull; the parson breaks his head and jumps into a bramble bush; and the prioress gets rid of them all, but not before she has made the "burges" or "marchaunt" pay her twenty marks not to tell his wife and the country generally of his tricks. -Minor Poems, p. 107-117, ed. 1840.

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Blyue, 44, 110, 118, speedily. Bonde, 226, a bund-le; Du.

bondt, a bavin, a bush of thornes. Brayne, 342, scull.

Broke 165, enjoy. AS. brúcan, Germ. brauchen. H. Coleridge.

Brydalle, 71, AS. brýd-ál, bride ale, marriage feast.

By, 197, buy.

Chaste, 176, chest, box, pit.
Dowte, 14, fear.

Dyght, 323, 379, prepare, dress.
Fare, 148, 324, going on, wish,

project.

Fere, 604, company.
Flyte, 484, wrangle, quarrel ;
AS. flít, strife, wrangling.
Forthynketh, 51, repents, makes
sorry; AS. forpencan, to despair.
Frayne, 409, ask; AS. fregnan,
Goth. fraihnan.

Gan, 22, did.

Geue to God a gyfte, 351, I make a vow, I promise you, I'll take my oath.

Hele, 140, salvation.
Hovyd, 624, halted, stopt.
Hynde, 508? natty; hende, gentle.
I-doo, 335, done, finished.
I-dyght, 644, prepared.

In-same, 602, together.
Layne, 68, hide, conceal.

Lende, 107, stay; ? AS. landian,

to land, or lengian, to prolong.

Leyne, 231, lay, beat.

Lyne, 214, AS. lín, flax; ? rope,

246.

Meyne, 403, household.
Myster, 12, trade; Fr. mestier.
O, 329, one.

Onredde, 308; AS. unrét, unrót, uncheerful, sorrowful, or unréd, imprudent.

Opre, 205, second.

Putry, 61, adultery; O. Fr. puterie, whoring.

Rawte, 503, reached, gave.
Rewe, 186, have pity.

Rocke, 503, 508; Du. een Rocke, Spinrock, A Distaffe, or a Spinrock; Rocken, To Winde Flaxe or Wool upon a Rock (Hexham). Dan. rok, O.N. rokkr, G. rocken: "a distaff held in the hand from which the thread was spun by twirling a ball below. What, shall a woman with a rokke drive thee away?'” Digby Mysteries, p. 11 (Halliwell). "An Instrument us'd in some Parts for the spinning of Flax and Hemp." Phillips; for reeling and spinning (1. 529).

Rought, 198, AS. rohte, p. of récan, to reck, care for.

Ryde, 524, light, small, AS. geryd, levis, æquus. Lye.

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Stounde, 4, short time,

Strycke, 514, "Strike of Flax, is as much as is heckled at one Handful." Phillips.

Swyngylle, 216, "Swingle-Staff, a Stick to beat Flax with," Phil.; AS. swingele, a whip, lash. "Το swingle, to beat; a Term among Flax-dressers." Phillips. Though Randle Holme, Bk. III., ch. viii. No. xxxiii., gives the Swingle-Tree of a Coach-Pole (these are made of wood, and are fastened by Iron hooks, stables (sic) chains and pinns to the Coach-pole, to the which Horses are fastened by their Harnish when there is more then two to draw the Coach), yet at Chap. vi., § iv., p. 285, col. 1, he says, "He beareth Sable, a Swingle Hand erected, Surmounting of a Swingle Foot, Or. This is Wooden Instrument made like a Fauchion, with an hole cut in the top of it, to hold it by: It is used for the clearing of Hemp and Flax from the large broken Stalks or * Shoves, by the help of the said Swingle Foot, which it is hung upon, which said Stalks being first broken, bruised, and cut into shivers by a Brake.

a

S. 3, such erected in Fesse O. born by Flaxlowe.

S. 3, such in Pale A., born by Swingler."

(A drawing is given by Holme, No. 4, on the plate opposite p.

285.)

66

Swingowing is the beating off the bruised inward stalk of the Hemp

or Flax, from the outward pill, which as (sic) the Hemp or Flax, p. 106, col. 2. Spinning is to twist the Flax hairs into Yarn or Thrid. Reeling is to wind the Yarn of the Wheel Spool on a Reel," p. 107, Col. 2.

Take, 161, deliver.

The, 187, thrive.

Tolle, 62, entice (H. H. Gibbs). Tre, 105, wood, timber. Trewloves, 669, either figures like

true-lovers' knots, or the imitations of the herb or flower Truelove, which is given by Coles as Herb Paris (a quatrefoil whose leaves bear a sort of likeness to a truelovers' knot), and in Halliwell as one-berry; but I cannot find that Edward IV. had any such plants on his arms or badge. Knots were often worn as badges, see Edmonston's Heraldry, Appendix, Knots. On the other hand, Willement (Regal Heraldry) notices that the angels attending Richard II. in the picture at Wilton, had collars worked with white roses and broom-buds; and trueloves, if a plant be meant by it, may have been Edward's substitute for the broom (planta genista). The Trewloves bear, one, Ar. on a chev. sa., three cinquefoils, or; the other, Ar. on a chev. sa., a quatrefoil of the field.

Vade, 1 125, 419, fade; Du. vadden (Hexham).

Wone, 275, store, quantity.
Wonne, 90, 628, dwelling.
Woode, 153, wild, mad.
Yheue, 491, give.

Yougeth, 20, youth, bachelor's freedom.

The use of the flat vade (1. 419, p. 12) within 2 lines of the sharp fade (1. 417), corresponds with the flat 'stowde,' 1. 400, p. 12, riming with 'owte,' 1. 401, badde with hatte, 1. 265-6. Cost, brest, 1. 142-3, are careless rimes too.

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'The Rev. J. R. Lumby first told me of the proverb 'As white as a nun's hen,' the nuns being famous, no doubt, for delicate poultry. John Heywood has in his Proverbes, 1562 (first printed, 1546), p. 43 of the Spencer Society's reprint, 1867,

She tooke thenterteinment of the yong men
All in daliaunce, as nice as a Nun's hen.

The proverb is quoted by Wilson in his Arte of Rhetorique, 1553 (Hazlitt's
Proverbs, p. 69).

2 For honde.

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