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Studies in Linguistic
Variation and Change
Studies in Linguistic
Variation and Change

From Old to Middle English

Edited by

Fabienne Toupin and Brian Lowrey

Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change: From Old to Middle English

Edited by Fabienne Toupin and Brian Lowrey

This book first published 2015

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2015 by Fabienne Toupin, Brian Lowrey and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-7542-2

ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7542-4
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword and Acknowledgements ............................................................ vii

Introduction: Language Change in Early English....................................... ix

Brian Lowrey and Fabienne Toupin

Abbreviations ........................................................................................... xvi

Part I:
Functional and Regional Variation in Discourse and the Lexicon

Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents ............................................. 2

Anna WojtyĞ

The Linguistic Image of “sea” in Old English on the Basis of Orosius..... 19

Agnieszka Magnuszewska

The Middle English Preposition and Adverb atwen .................................. 41

Ewa Ciszek-Kiliszewska

Inkhorn Terms: Some that Got Away. The Case of Middle English Words
Ending in -ess(e) ........................................................................................ 64
Elena Sasu and Nicolas Trapateau

Part II:
Prosodic and Phonological Parameters

In Search of the Missing Link, or how OE macode Became ModE made ... 90
Jerzy Weána

Middle English Poetic Prosody and its Reliability as a Source of Data

for Linguistic Analysis: the Case of Chaucer .......................................... 106
Marta Koáos
vi Table of Contents

Part III:
Syntactic Variation and Change

The Influence of the Grammatical System and Analogy

in Processes of Language Change: the Case of the Auxiliation
of HAVE-to Once Again ............................................................................ 120
Olga Fischer

On the Status of cunnen in Middle English ............................................. 151

Magdalena Tomaszewska

OE weorþan and Related Process Copulas: Demise and Rise ................. 166
Xavier Dekeyser

On Two Types of Double Object Constructions in Old English

and Old Icelandic ..................................................................................... 178
Yana Chankova

Subjectless Infinitival Perception Reports in Old English ....................... 198

Brian Lowrey

Some Historical Notes on English Negation: unethes, almost

and hardly ................................................................................................ 215
Susagna Tubau and Richard Ingham

Contributors ............................................................................................. 227

 FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume consists of a selection of papers from the Third

International Biennial Conference on the Diachrony of English (CBDA-3)
held in Amiens, France, in June 2013.
CBDA is a relative newcomer to the world of internationally
recognized conferences addressing the history of the English language.
The main objective of the conference, created in 2008, is to provide
colleagues working in France and abroad with an opportunity to explore
linguistic phenomena from a diachronic perspective and to discuss their
theoretical implications. A second goal was to awaken interest in France in
the study of English from a variationist perspective, across a number of
fields including dialectology, historical and socio-historical linguistics.
Since 2008, CBDA has been held every two years alternately at the
universities of Amiens and Tours; but thanks to an enlarged network of
scholars involved, the 2015 edition is to be organized by the University of
Reims-Champagne-Ardenne in the beautiful medieval city of Troyes.
Ever since its creation CBDA has enjoyed the financial backing of two
research groups: LLL (Laboratoire Ligérien de Linguistique, UMR 7270)
and Corpus (EA 4295). Their unfailing support is gratefully acknowledged
here. More specifically, concerning the organization of CBDA-3, the
organizers wish to express their gratitude to the Corpus team, to the
University of Picardie, and to Professor Pierre Sicard for all their help and
support.
In all, some 40 papers were presented at CBDA-3. The abstracts are
available on the conference website (www.cbdaconference.org/). Only
12 papers appear in the present volume, though others might have been
published elsewhere.
The editors extend their warmest thanks to Dominique Boulonnais,
Xavier Dekeyser, Catherine Delesse, Sylvain Gatelais, Richard Ingham,
Élise Louviot, Olivier Simonin, Olga Timofeeva and Jerzy Weána for all
their tireless work in the process of reviewing the papers. Their
suggestions and corrections have not only facilitated the editors’ tasks but
were also greatly appreciated by the contributors to this volume. Our
warmest thanks are extended, too, to Professor Stephen Morrison and his
team in Poitiers, who have supported CBDA since the beginning. We are
also indebted to all the contributors for their kind and patient cooperation.
viii Foreword and Acknowledgements

Last but not least, we should like to thank Samuel Baker at Cambridge
Scholars Publishing for the assistance he gave us during the preparation of
the manuscript for publishing.

Amiens, January 2015

The Editors
 INTRODUCTION

The history of the English language since the time of the earliest
recorded writings has long been a source of fascination for diachronic
linguists. The collection of papers published here focuses on attested
variation and change in what is perhaps the most intriguing period in the
history of English: that of the transition from Old- to Middle-English,
which sees a number of what Baugh & Cable (1978: 158) call
“momentous changes” take place in a relatively short space of time. These
changes affect virtually every aspect of the language, from syntax to
semantics and phonology, and this diversity of change is reflected in this
book.
The considerable diversity of change is also mirrored by the diversity
of approaches to language variation and change in evidence in this
volume. Some of the papers seek to give as accurate a description as
possible of the function, distribution, and form of specific linguistic items,
at different stages in the evolution of Old English or Middle English.
Others focus more directly on certain specific changes which affect the
English of the medieval period, identifying the mechanisms concerned and
highlighting the factors which allowed new forms to become established.
Still others are concerned with the mechanisms of language change, in a
broader sense, and show how these mechanisms can be related to attested
changes which take place in English over time.
The first section of the book will be of particular interest to those
working in the field of lexical semantics. In “Verbs of Granting in Old
English Documents”, Anna WojtyĞ focuses on a range of native verbs that
could be used to express the idea of legally granting something in
medieval England, among which the central item seems to have been
unnan, “grant”. This verb, which belonged to the class of preterite-
presents, was lost in early Middle English. But the texts under
investigation contain other verbs with a similar sense, such as becweþan
“bequeath”, gifan or sellan, both with the sense of “giving”. Occasionally,
granting is also expressed by other items, including gan “go” or fon “seize,
inherit”, in structures such as “the estate should go to ...” or “someone
shall inherit ...”.
The study aims at identifying the most common verbs of granting used
in Old English legal texts and determining their relative frequency and the
x Introduction

contexts in which each was employed. The analysis is thus expected to

reveal whether any items endangered the position of the main item, i.e.
unnan, so that it went out of use. The data come from the Dictionary of
Old English Corpus, which contains a complete set of the surviving Old
English texts, thereby allowing a thorough investigation of legal
documents to be carried out.
Lexical semantics also constitutes the starting point for Agnieszka
Magnuszewska who, in her study entitled “The Linguistic Image of ‘sea’
in Old English on the Basis of Orosius”, investigates the concept of “sea”
in a ninth-century text, Orosius, using a specific methodological
framework originally developed in Poland, that of the “linguistic image of
the world”. It is to be noted that this is the first attempt at applying the
cognitive methodology of the “linguistic image of the world” to the
analysis of Old English lexis.
This consists essentially of a set of linguistic judgements about a
certain concept. These judgements are based on a set of predetermined
facets. Accordingly, the author analyses the linguistic image of “sea” in
Orosius in terms of the following facets: [name], [hyperonym],
[hyponym], [collection], [localization], [opposition], [visual feature], [non-
visual feature], [parts], [number], [agent of action], [object of action],
[metaphor] and finally [symbol]. The analysis of the distribution of these
facets brings to light the fact that the linguistic image of “sea” is not
homogeneous throughout the text: there are differences of distribution not
only between the geographical section and the historical section, but also
between the part translated from Latin and the Anglo-Saxon interpolations.
This leads the author to describe the concept of “sea” in Orosius as a
“fuzzy” set.
Whilst still dealing with lexical mattters, Ewa Ciszek-Kiliszewska’s
paper “The Middle English Preposition and Adverb atwen” examines a
closed-class, arguably semi-grammaticalised item. She considers the
origins of atwen, advancing the hypothesis that the preposition is formed
as a kind of compound, made up of “pre-prepositional” a- and the
shortened form of between, by analogy with other “twin” forms such as
afore/before and among/bimong. The author then goes on to paint a
remarkably detailed picture of its frequency and its dialectical and textual
distribution, observing that it was used not only as a preposition but also,
occasionally, as an adverb. She also analyses the semantics of atwen, and
identifies the types of context in which it was most likely to appear,
finding that it was particularly compatible with abstract meanings. This
property proves to be shared both by the preposition and the adverb. As for
the regional distribution of atwen, the author shows that it is essentially an
 Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change: From Old to Middle English xi

East-Midland form, first appearing in texts that can be dated to the 15th
century.
It is with suffixation and derivational productivity that Elena Sasu and
Nicolas Traputeau are concerned in “ Inkhorn Terms: Some that Got Away.
The Case of Middle English Words Ending in -ess(e)”. More specifically,
they examine the spread of the feminine -ess(e) nominal suffix in Middle
English, and its subsequent decline. Many of the words with the -ess(e)
ending found in Middle English share a number of properties with the
learned borrowings from Latin and French that will later come to be
referred to as “inkhorn” terms. They stress the importance of language
contact, with French and Latin, in the adoption of the form, and of analogy
in the subsequent creation of new -ess(e) words, and link their appearance
to the loss of other feminine suffixes during the Middle English period.
The authors go on to discuss the fate of -ess(e) nouns in early Modern
English, and the subsequent decline in the productivity of the suffix. The
paper also highlights the role played by sociolinguistic factors in the
evolution of -ess(e) words, raising the question of medieval translation
practices, and the manner in which changes affecting society tend to be
reflected in the lexicon.
The second part of the book is given over to changes in sound patterns.
Jerzy Weána explores one of the curious modifications in English verbal
morphology, namely the simplification of the preterite/past participle
macod(e) (OE macian “make”) to made instead of the expected form
*maked. The most popular hypothesis assumes the application of a
sequence of rules involving k-voicing, g-affrication, vocalisation of the
voiced velar fricative [ܵ] > [w] > [u] and its loss, i.e. makode > makede >
makde > magde > maћde > mawde > maude > made/mƗde (see Berndt
1960: 175). An alternative development, makde > makte > maxte
(Flasdieck 1923; cf. also Wright & Wright 1928: 113 and Jespersen 1949:
25-26) seems less likely as it would result in a form like *maught rather
than made. Yet another form found in Middle English texts is the reduced
preterite ma of made.
With reference to texts from the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English
Prose and a few other selected sources, the article discusses the dialectal
evidence from more than one hundred texts for “the missing link”,
intermediate forms between makede and made.
Language reconstruction is particularly fascinating whenever it allows
us to glimpse the transitory phonological qualities of a stage in the history
of a language that has long since disappeared. Marta Koáos’ paper
addresses the problems arising from the usage of versification patterns in
the study of phonological and word-formation issues. Firstly, it attempts to
xii Introduction

establish how well grounded the prosodic systems of Old and Middle
English poetry were in the suprasegmental phonology of the language,
given the expectation that versification patterns should, at least to some
extent, reflect linguistic rules (Kuryáowicz 1976: 66). Secondly, the
question is addressed of whether metrical anomalies in poetry should be
treated as evidence for phonological phenomena, or rather as proof of a
“loose” application of poetic techniques. These issues are discussed on the
basis of Chaucer’s iambic pentameter, primarily instances of anomalous
non-root stress on native vocabulary, and examined in the light of relevant
data from Old and Middle English poetry.
The final section of this volume is devoted primarily to questions of
syntax. Olga Fischer, in her paper on “The Influence of the Grammatical
System and Analogy in Processes of Language Change: the Case of the
Auxiliation of HAVE-to Once Again” returns to the question of the
development of the modal have to construction, often viewed as a
relatively straightforward case of grammaticalisation. Grammaticalisation
is often claimed to be a “unidirectional” process (cf. Heine & Kuteva
2002: 4). However, the author takes issue with traditional accounts of the
auxiliation of have to, arguing that insufficient attention has been paid to
developments taking place elsewhere in the grammar, notably to word
order factors, and that the role of analogy in the process has been hitherto
underestimated. In fact, the case of have to suggests that grammaticalisation
is not really a unidirectional process in any strict sense, but rather that it is
is shaped at all stages of the process by the synchronic system of grammar,
and particularly by analogical forces. Stressing the role of analogy as a
force in language change has far-reaching consequences, in that it implies
that we need not just to look at how individual constructions develop in
isolation (as is often the case with grammaticalisation-centred studies), but
also at how other, similar constructions may influence the development.
Grammaticalisation, or more specifically auxiliation, once again, is
also one of the chief concerns of Magdalena Tomaszewska in her paper
“On the Status of cunnen in Middle English”. By means of a set of clearly
defined semantic, syntactic and morphological properties shared by
cunnen either with auxiliaries or with full verbs, she attempts to determine
to what extent the verb could still be considered a lexical item after the
crucial transition stage from Old English to Middle English, and to what
extent it could be said to have fully grammaticalized as a modal auxiliary.
Comparisons are also made with other pretero-present verbs that survive
into Middle English. The author demonstrates that cunnen in fact appears
to lose certain properties of lexical verbs, such as the possibility of
appearing in impersonal constructions, while at the same time acquiring
 Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change: From Old to Middle English xiii

new participle forms, typical of lexical verbs. This leads her to speculate
as to whether some form of “split” (Heine & Reh 1984: 57-9) may be
taking place at this point in the verb’s development.
In “OE weorþan and Related Process Copulas: Demise and Rise”,
Xavier Dekeyser addresses the question of “process copulas” from a
historical point of view. Process copulas are linking verbs that express a
(mostly progressive) development from one point or stage to another.
Their history is characterized by lexical loss as well as innovation.
Weorþan is used with this function throughout the Old English period, and
well into Middle English, but disappears after c.1500. The author argues
that its loss is probably due to semantic competition (with become and
grow) and morphological dysfunctionality. Both become and grow are late
Middle English innovations. The available evidence demonstrates that
they derive from phrases with the preposition to, which are syntactically
different structures but semantically express the same notion as that of the
process copulas. This development is marked by grammaticalisation and
metaphorisation. In Modern English become has reached the stage where it
can be considered the prototypical process copula.
Finally, the author examines the development of get, which, somewhat
surprisingly, proves to be relatively recent. The copula sporadically
emerges in the course of the 17th century and has for a long time been
confined to the register of colloquial English. However, with Present-Day
English becoming increasingly less formal, it is now universally used by
the side of become, mainly when adjectival complements are involved.
Yana Chankova introduces a comparative dimension in her paper “On
Two Types of Double Object Constructions in Old English and Old
Icelandic”. She discusses the core properties of scrambling and seeks to
determine the ways these properties interact with semantic,
discourse/informational and prosodic factors, based on Old English and
Old Icelandic constructions with verbs characterized by the <Agent,
Benefactive/Recipient, Theme> Theta grid. The paper starts off with an
analysis of V-DO(Acc)-IO(Dat) orders which are described as consequent
upon optional movement of direct objects to targets phrasally-adjoined to
the left of VP “lower”. Vfin-DO(Acc)-IO(Dat)-Vnon-fin constructions are
then analyzed as being derived through optional movement of both direct
and indirect objects to XP-adjoined targets in the left periphery of the
“higher” VP.
Such an account stands as an alternative to case-feature driven
analyses, wherein movement is triggered by the need for the internal
arguments to have their case-features checked. Essentially, this paper
claims that scrambling is a semantically and pragmatically effective
xiv Introduction

movement device, but it does not draw on the weak version of

semantic/discourse/informational analyses, claiming that topic and focus
are purely semantic features, accessible at the interface, nor does it side
with their strong version which argues that topic and focus are active in
the computation by attracting movement of constituents to dedicated
functional projections.
Brian Lowrey, in “Subjectless Infinitival Perception Reports in Old
English”, approaches the issue of the complementation of perception verbs
from what might be termed a “constructional” point of view. Old (and
Middle-) English possessed two types of infinitive complement, used to
express the direct sensory perception of an event, one in which the
embedded infinitive had an “overt” subject (the so-called “AcI” construction,
still common with modern English see or hear), and another, Denison’s
(1993) V+I, in which the subject of the infinitive remained implicit. This
paper defines the distribution and the semantic properties of the subjectless
construction, which has been lost in Modern English, and compares them
with those of AcI perception verb complements. It shows that the
subjectless construction cannot, in all probability, be analysed as a kind of
“elliptical” AcI. The semantics of the subjectless complement are rather
different, describing events perceived from a telic viewpoint, much like
the past participle complement structure common with direct perception
verbs in Present Day English (as in: She heard the sonata played for the
first time last week). A further comparison with participial complements in
Old English shows that the latter were used not to describe the perception
of events, but rather of states, and that there has been a shift in the function
and distribution of the participle structure, presumably to fill the gap left
by the loss of V+I.
In “Some Historical Notes on English Negation: unethes, almost and
hardly”, Susagna Tubau & Richard Ingham analyse a change that can be
dated to the latter part of the medieval period, and which distinguishes
Modern English from earlier forms of the language. Seeking to explain
changing patterns in the distribution of the adverb unethes from late
Middle English to early Modern English, they show how it undergoes a
form of grammaticalisation, from a lexical-content adverb to a negative
modifier. However, they also point out that this process alone does not
explain the manner in which the distribution of unethes changes during the
late Middle English period. Unlike its modern equivalent, hardly, which
can only appear with any-series items, unethes could appear both with
any- and with n-series elements (no man, nothing, none, etc.) in late
Middle English. The authors demonstrate that the facts can be explained
by a parameter change–a shift in English negation patterns away from
 Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change: From Old to Middle English xv

negative concord, which begins in the later part of the Middle English
period and is more or less complete by the end of the 16th century. This
shift had far-reaching consequences, affecting certain items which were
not themselves inherently negative, such as unnethes, whose modified
distribution confirms the changing semantics of n-words at this time of
transition.
The range of topics discussed here will serve to confirm the extent of
the changes that took place in the transition from Old- to Middle-English,
as well as the range of linguistic variation which characterises those
periods. Variation is an omnipresent factor in all the aspects of the history
of English discussed here, whether it be form and function variation,
semantic variation in the meaning of individual lexical items, or variation
in usage or grammatical status. The relationship between variation and
change has for a long time been at the centre of investigations in
diachronic linguistics, and it is hoped that the papers presented in this
book will contribute to our understanding of how languages in general
change, and how English has changed in particular.

References
Baugh, Albert & Thomas Cable 1978 [1951]. A History of the English
Language (3rd edition). Routledge & Kegan Paul: London & New
York.
Berndt, Rolf. 1960. Einführung in das Studium des Mittelenglischen unter
Zugrundelegung des Prologs der “Canterbury Tales”. Halle (Saale):
VEB Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Denison, David. 1993. English Historical Syntax: Verbal Constructions.
London & New York: Longman.
Flasdieck, Hermann M. 1923. “Zu me. made”. Englische Studien 57, 139-
141.
Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heine, Bernd & Mechthild Reh. 1984. Grammaticalization and Reanalysis
in African Languages. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
Jespersen, Otto. 1949. A Modern English Grammar on Historical
Principles. Part 2. Morphology. London: Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Kuryáowicz 1976. “The linguistic foundations of meter”. Biuletyn
Polskiego Towarzystwa JĊzykoznawczego 34, 63-73.
Wright, Joseph & Elizabeth Mary Wright. 1928. An Elementary Middle
English Grammar. London: Oxford University Press.
 ABBREVIATIONS

Acc Accusative (case)

Dat Dative (case)
DO Direct Object
DPR Direct Perception Report
F French
Gen Genitive (case)
Ger. German
Ice Icelandic
inf. infinitive
IO Indirect Object
L Latin
ME Middle English
Nom Nominative (case)
OE Old English
PDE Present-Day English
Pol. Polish
pres. present
pret. preterite
part. participle
Ppt Past Participle
V+I Verb + Infinitive
VOSI Verb + Object or Subject + Infinitive
 PART I

FUNCTIONAL AND REGIONAL VARIATION

IN DISCOURSE AND THE LEXICON
 VERBS OF GRANTING
IN OLD ENGLISH DOCUMENTS

ANNA WOJTYĝ

1. Aims and sources

The main reason for the creation of Old English charters was to grant
material possessions and privileges to individuals as well as institutions,
most often the Church. Before the loan verb to grant entered the English
language in the mid-13th century (cf. Middle English Dictionary and
Oxford English Dictionary), legal granting had been expressed with a
range of native verbs. The main word employed in Old English documents
seems to have been the preterite-present verb unnan “to grant”
(WojtyĞ 2014), which was lost at a later date. However, corpus analysis
reveals several other verbs with a similar, or even identical, meaning.
The aim of this study is to identify the verbs of granting in Old English
legal texts and to determine their distribution. The research is expected to
reveal whether unnan was indeed the central item in that category and to
identify its potential rivals. The analysis involves a comparison of the
frequencies of the attested verbs of granting as well as the contexts in
which they were employed. A more general goal of the study is to
establish whether any of the native verbs was strong enough to endanger
the position of unnan and, consequently, contribute to its elimination from
the language.
The data for the analysis come from the Dictionary of Old English
Corpus (DOEC), containing a complete set of the surviving Old English
texts. Among those are various legal documents, most of which were
collected by Peter Sawyer in his annotated catalogue Anglo-Saxon
Charters (1968). They are thus referred to by the numbers from this
catalogue in DOEC and, consequently, also in the present study (e.g. Ch
1487). The corpus for the study consists of 412 texts, which are classified
in the following subgroups: writs (112 texts), grants and leases (59 each),
charters (52), wills (44), agreements (17), bequests and confirmations (11
each), as well as minor categories (fewer than 10 texts) such as records,
 Anna WojtyĞ 3

exchanges, letters, disputes and others, containing 88, 817 Anglo-Saxon

words altogether.

2. Making up a corpus
The notion of “granting” covers a whole range of actions, including
those of “agreeing”, “admitting”, “permitting/allowing”, and
“bestowing/conferring” (OED). Yet, since the data for the study come
from charters, which “by definition, deal with transfer and grant of
property and privilege” (Schwyter 1996: 23), “granting” is understood
here as the action of “transfer[ring] (property) from oneself to another
person, especially by deed” (OED, s.v. grant).
The first step of the analysis involved the identification of all the verbs
which conveyed the above-mentioned sense of granting. To establish the
list of relevant items, two historical thesauri were consulted, i.e. the
Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE) and A Thesaurus of Old English
(TOE). Interestingly, both contain several categories of words whose
meanings resemble that of “granting”. Out of nine different categories in
which the verb grant occurs in HTE, two are most relevant for the present
study, i.e. “confer by a formal act” (1a) and “grant by charter of deed”
(1b), both of which make reference to the use of a formal document, cf.:

(1) a. the mind > having or possession > giving > give [verb
(transitive)] > confer > by a formal act Źgrant (c1305)
b. society > authority > law > transfer of property > types of transfer >
[verb (transitive)] > grant by charter or deed Źgrant (1766)

The former, i.e. “confer by a formal act”, quite surprisingly includes no

synonyms, which suggests that no other items in English have carried that
sense. The latter category, i.e. “grant by charter or deed”, includes only
items attested later than Old English, such as book (c1225), convey (1495),
assure (1572), reassure (1592), and deed (1816), thus making no
contribution to the study of Old English. Therefore, the only applicable
category proves to be that of “granting or allowing to have”:

(2) the mind > having or possession > giving > give [verb (transitive)]
> grant or allow to have Źgrant (1297)

More general than the two previously-mentioned ones, this category

includes 21 items, merely three of which were already present in Old
English. These are i-unne (OE (ge)unnan), tithe (OE ti(g)þian), and two
4 Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents

verbs formed from the same root, i.e. lend and alene from OE lænan and
alænan, respectively. The other thesaurus consulted, TOE, contains
different categories. That of “grant, bestow, give” lists nine items, only
one of which, i.e. ti(g)þian, is also found in HTE:

(3) TOE: agifian, forgiefan, (ge)gearwian, (ge)giefan, (ge)girwan,

ondlenian, onleon, (ge)sellan, (ge)tiþian

Surprisingly, the list does not contain the verb unnan, which certainly had
that sense in Old English. Yet, unnan is placed in TOE in another
category, i.e. that of “grant, allow to have, give”. Although it is similar to
the previous one, i.e. “grant, bestow, give”, the verbs included are
different, cf.:

(4) TOE: alætan, aliefan, forlætan, (ge)lætan, (ge)liefan

Unnan is also one of the verbs categorized under the label “transfer of
property–by charter/deed”, together with

(5) TOE: (ge)becan, (ge)bocian, (ge)writan

Additionally, since the Old English documents under scrutiny also contain
wills, the verbs from a much narrower category of “bequeath by will”
were examined. These yielded only two items based on the same root, i.e.
becweþan and gecweþan.
Grouping the verbs from all the categories, one can compile a list of 21
items based on 15 roots, i.e. becan, bocian, cweþan, gearwian, giefan,
gifan, lænan, lætan, lenian, leon, liefan, ti(g)þian, sellan, unnan, and
writan. Two of them, becan and giefan, are eliminated from further study,
since they are absent from the data examined. Additionally, the study
ignores verbs which are used in Old English documents in a sense
significantly different from “granting”, that is gearwian, employed only in
the sense of “getting ready, preparing”, lenian, which denotes “pay back”,
and writan, used exclusively in the sense of “writing, assigning”. As
regards the remaining items, the preliminary analysis of Old English
documents made it possible to group the verbs into subcategories. The first
one includes verbs related to granting only for a limited period, i.e.
“leasing”, where lætan and lænan belong. The second one contains verbs
which refer only to granting permission, i.e. “agreeing” to something, with
liefan and ti(g)þian. These are excluded from the present study since they
do not carry the sense of granting a material thing, which is the main
 Anna WojtyĞ 5

purpose of writing wills and charters. Thus, the analysis focuses on six
verbs, i.e. bocian, cweþan, gifan, leon, sellan, and unnan. Two of these
verbs (leon and unnan) are obsolete at present, while the other four, i.e.,
bocian, cweþan (preceded by the prefix be-), gifan and sellan, survive into
Modern English. Since the process of collecting the data was not strictly
limited to those items, the analysis also yielded other verbs and phrases
used for granting, which are mentioned in section (3).
To determine the sense of the items under scrutiny, two Old English
dictionaries were consulted, i.e. Bosworth & Toller (1898), henceforth
referred to as B-T, and, whenever possible, The Dictionary of Old English
(DOE). Interestingly, “granting” is provided as the first sense for only one
of the six above-mentioned verbs, i.e. unnan, which is defined as “to grant,
to give, allow” (B-T). In the case of the remaining verbs, “granting” is
listed as a peripheral meaning, with the central one being that of “saying”
(becweþan) or “giving” (gifan, sellan):

(6) becweþan – I. to say, assert ... III. to BEQUEATH, to give by will;

legare (B-T)
1. to speak, say, declare … 4. to bequeath (something
acc.) (DOE)
bocian – to give by charter, to charter; (B-T, DOE)
gifan – to give; … IV. to assign the future ownership of property,
bequeath (B-T)
leon – to lend, grant for a time (B-T)
sellan – to give…I. of voluntary giving, to put into the possession of a
person, transfer ownership from one to (B-T)

In contrast to other verbs, whose meaning was quite general, the verb
bocian, denoting “giving something by a charter”, was more specialized
and, as such, had a narrower application. Thus, it is not expected to have
appeared in any documents other than charters, like, for instance, wills.

3. Expressing granting
The comparison of different types of Old English documents shows
that the verbs of granting appear most frequently in wills. The number of
attestations of such verbs in this type of document almost equals that of all
other types, with the ratio of 487 to 524 instances, although wills
constitute merely about 1/3 of the volume of other texts:
6 Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents

Verbs of Total number Frequency

granting of words per 1,000 words
487
Wills 21, 087 23.09
occurrences
Other 524
67, 730 7.74
documents occurrences

Table 1: occurrences of verbs of granting in Old English documents

The most frequent verb of granting in the examined Old English

documents proves to be unnan, which is attested 555 times in the data,
giving an average of 6.25 tokens per one thousand words. The verb is
especially common in wills (343 uses), with attestations in that type of
document accounting for 62% of all its occurrences in the Old English
material. In fact, out of 44 wills, only six lack that verb, whereas in 16 it is
the only verb of granting employed.
Unnan is mainly found in its present tense forms, prefixless an(n) and
geann, marked with the prefix ge-. The forms were typical of the 1st and
3rd persons singular, the variation in the pronouns being due to the fact that
wills were written by scribes, who wrote down either the exact words they
heard, hence the use of the 1st person form, or the name of the grantor
followed by a 3rd person pronoun and the relevant form of the verb
(Hazeltine 1930: xxxi).
In wills, unnan is often repeated in consecutive sentences containing
lists of grants for various people:

(7) & ic gean minum wiue & minre dehter healues þæs landes æt
Cunningtune to gedale buton þam feower hydon þe ic Æþelrice &
Alfwolde gean & þa healuan hyde þe ic gean Osmære minum cnihte.
& ic gean Ælfmære & his breðer Ælfstane þara twegra landa to
gedale æt Hættanlea & æt Pottune buton þam þe ic Osgare gean. & ic
gean Godere þæs þe ic æt Wimunde gebohte.
“And I grant to my wife and my daughter half the estate at
Conington, to divide between them, except the four hides which I
grant to Æthelric and Ælfwold, and the half hide which I grant to my
servant Osmær. And I grant to Ælfmær and his brother Ælfstan, to
divide between them the two estates, Hatley and Potton, except what I
grant to Osgar. And I grant to Godhere what I bought from Wimund.”
(trans. Whitlock 1930: 3)
(Will of Ælfhelm, Ch 1487, 20-25)
 Anna WojtyĞ 7

It is also noteworthy that the frequency of unnan would be even higher

if one took into consideration the instances of its omission. In numerous
wills, the verb is elided due to its presence in the preceding sentence.
Compare, for instance, the passage from the Will of Ælfgifu below. The
last two clauses listing grants to the Ætheling and the Queen have no
predicators, since, presumably, the intended verb here was unnan, present
in the previous sentence, listing gifts for the royal lord:

(8) And ic ann minæn cinæhlafordæ þæs landæs æt Weowungum …

and twegea bæagas, æigþær ys on hundtwælftigum mancussum, and
anræ sopcuppan and syx horsa and swa fala scylda and spæra. And
þam æþelingæ þæs landæs æt Niwanham and anæs beages on
þritægum mancussum. And þæra hlæfdigan anæs swyrbeages on
hundtweltifgum mancussum and anæs beages on þritegum mancussum
and anre sopcuppan.
“And I grant to my royal lord the estates at Wing … and two armlets,
each a hundred and twenty mancuses, and a drinking cup and six
horses and as many shields and spears. And to the Ætheling the estate
at Newnham and an armlet of thirty mancuses. And to the queen a
necklace of a hundred and twenty mancuses and an armlet of thirty
mancuses, and a drinking cup.” (trans. Whitlock 1930: 21)
(Will of Ælfgifu, Ch1484, 15-21)

In other types of documents, unnan appears with a radically lower

frequency. While the average for wills is 16 words per one thousand, in
other texts the ratio is that of three words per one thousand. This suggests
that the verb was typically employed in the sense of granting something
after one’s death, or actually promising such granting after one’s death
since most wills were “promises that on the death of the donors the donees
shall have conveyances” (Hazeltine 1930: xx) rather than factual grants. In
contrast, other types of documents transferring property or granting
privileges with immediate effect did not employ unnan that often, cf.:

unnan
Type of text No. of occurrences
wills 343 (62%)
writs 86 (15%)
charters 37 (7%)
other 89 (16%)

Table 2: three types of documents containing the highest ratio of unnan

8 Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents

In wills, the verb typically (56% of attestations) collocates with the

noun land (9a), names of particular properties, as well as nouns denoting
types and portions of land, such as, for instance, wudæland “woodland”
(9b), hida “hide” or acre “acre”. In other texts, e.g. writs, it is also
followed by words denoting various rights, e.g. the general noun (ge)riht
“right”, as well as phrases listing privileges such as saca & socna, toll &
team, infangeneþeof, etc., granting the rights to impose payments, to judge
offenders, and others (9c). The remaining things that are granted with the
use of unnan are material possessions such as clothes, tapestries (9d),
cups, as well as animals, weaponry and money (9e). Occasionally, an
office such as bishopric was given; additionally, there are single cases of
granting permission (2 instances), forgiveness, and admittance to the
monastery (1 instance each).

(9) a. And ic an þat lond at Herlawe into sancte Eadmunde …

“And I grant the land at Herlaw to St. Edmund …”
(Will of Thurstan, Ch 1531)
b. & þæt wudæland æt Totham þæ min fæder geuþæ into Myresiæ ...
“… and the woodland at Totham, which my father granted to
Mersea …” (Whitlock 1930: 39)
(Will of Ælfflæd, Ch 1486)
c. ic ann heom ðer ofer sakæ & socne, toll & team, infangeneðeof
blodwite & <weardwite> hamsocne & forsteall & ealle ða oðre
gerihte ðe to me belimpað.
“I grant them jurisdiction, toll and vouching, the right to judge in the
cases of theft, neglect, assault and the right to fines, and all other rights
due to them.”
(Ch 1137)
d. And ic geann Wulfmære minum suna anes heallwahriftes & anes
beddreafes.
“I grant to Wulfmar, my son, a tapestry and a set of bedclothes.”
(Will of Wulfwaru, Ch 1538)
e. þ is þ ic geann minon hlaforde twa hund mancessa goldes & twa
seolforhilted sweord, & feower hors, … & þa wæpna þe þærto
gebyriað.
“That I grant to my lord two hundred mancuses of gold, two silver-
hilted swords and four horses … and the weapons that he has carried
so far.”
(Will of Wulfric, Ch 1536)
 Anna WojtyĞ 9

It is also worth mentioning that the verb is not only employed in

sentences with the subject denoting a person, since there are rare cases in
which the donor is God (8 tokens). Then, unnan may govern an object
relating to things different from those mentioned earlier, such as life or
reward, as illustrated by the phrase gif me God bearnes unnan wille “if
God grants me a child”, from the Will of Abba (Ch 1482).
In terms of frequency, the next two verbs are sellan (195 instances) and
gifan (140 instances). Both items had the sense of “giving”, thus their
application was wider than that of unnan, and yet they appear in the
documents more rarely. As the data show, the two verbs differ in their
distribution. Sellan, like unnan, is most commonly found in wills (38% of
its attestations), a type of texts very rarely containing gifan (12% of its
attestations). Gifan, in turn, is rather found in writs (34%) and grants
(21%), see Table 3:

sellan gifan
Type of No. of Type of No. of
text occurrences text occurrences
wills 74 (38%) writs 47 (34%)
grants 29 (15%) grants 29 (21%)
leases 13 (7%) wills 17 (12%)
other 79 (41%) other 47 (34%)

Table 3: the three most frequent types of documents containing sellan

and gifan

Like unnan, both verbs are mainly found in the context of giving land.
Still, there is a semantic difference between the three verbs; while unnan is
typically employed to grant something after an owner’s death, sellan and
gifan are often found with a wider sense of giving (10a), or possibly, in the
case of the former, selling something (10b):
10 Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents

(10) a. & ic geann minon fæder æþelræde cynge … þæs horses þe

þurbrand me geaf & þæs hwitan horses þe Leofwine me geaf.
“And I grant to my father, king Ethelred, … the horse which
Thurbrand gave to me and the white horse which Leofwine gave to
me.” (transl. Whitlock 1930: 59)
(Will of Ætheling Athelstan, Ch 1503, 30)
b. & ic gean þæt fen þe ælfric me sealde into Holme.
“And I grant to Holme the fen that Ælfric gave to/sold me.”
(Will of Bishop Ælfric, Ch 1489, 29)

Yet, both verbs can also convey the same meaning as that of unnan. Thus,
the choice of one of them seems to be the result of the author’s or scribe’s
personal preference. Sellan, for instance, is the prevailing verb in the Will
of Alfred Ealdorman, where it is employed 12 times, as compared to
merely three occurrences of unnan (11a). Occasionally, one of those two
verbs is found not only in the same sense and context as unnan, but also in
close proximity to it (11b):

(11) a. Ic Elfred dux sello Werburge & Alhdryðe uncum gemenum

bearne, æfter minum dege, þas lond mid cwice erfe ….
“I, Earl Alfred, give Werburge and Althryth to our child, after my time,
that land with life stock and produce …” (transl. Harmer 1914: 47)
(Will of Alfred, Ealdorman, Ch 1508, 8)
b. þat is þat ic an þat lond at Eskeresthorp into seint Eadmund buten
ten acres ic giue þer into þere kirke.
“I grant the land at Eskeresthorp to St. Edmund, except ten acres which
I give to the church there.”
(Will of Eadwine, Sawyer 1516, 2)

Additionally, gifan appears in phrases identical to those which employ

unnan, such as I inform you that I have granted/given …, typically
opening the charters, compare (a) and (b):

(12) a. And ic kyðe eow þæt ic habbe geunnen Wulfwolde abbot þæt
land æt Ceorlecumbæ …
“And I inform you that I have granted to abbot Wulfwold the land at
Ceorlecumb …”
(King William I and Earl William of Hereford
to Bishop Giso, Ch IWm (Hunt 1), 3)
 Anna WojtyĞ 11

b. And ich cyþe eow þat ic habbe gegefen Gyso biscop þat land at
Merkerun …
“And I inform you that I have given bishop Giso the land at
Merkerun …”
(Writ of Queen Edith, Wells, Ch 1241, 2)

Also, sellan and gifan often occur as doublets in phrases such as I give and
grant (13a), or those stating that the person who inherits the land can give
it to whomever they please (13b):

(13) a. ich forgiue and selle for me selfne minre saule to alesnesse
minne … alderman Elfstane Alchene idal landes in þare istowe þe is
inemned be Chiselburne …
“I give and grant on my behalf … every part of the estate in the place
called Cheselborn to Earl Athelstan …”
(King Æthelred to Ælfstan, Ch 342, 2)
b. & sealde hyre þæt land æt Eanulfintune to gyfene & to syllenne ðam
ðe hire leofest …
“and gave her the land at Alton to grant and bestow upon whomsoever
she pleases …”
(Marriage Agreement of Wulfric, Ch 1459, 4)

Furthermore, the verb sellan is employed in the sense of giving something

annually as a payment (14a), or giving something in return for something
else (14b), thus conveying the idea of exchanging or selling:

(14) a. … þe mon ælce gere gesylle fiftene scillingas clænes feos to

Tettanbyrg …
“… each year the man should give fifteen shillings of good money to
Tetbury …”
(Settlement of a Dispute, Bishop Wærferth
and Eadnoth, Ch1446, 38)
b. Ðonne gesealde Aðelwold biscop his cynehlaforde twa und
mancussa goldes & anne sylfrene lefel on fif pundum wiþe niwunge
þyses freolses ….
“Then Bishop Athelwold gave to his royal lord 200 mancuses of gold
and a silver cup worth five pounds in return for the renewal of this
freedom ...” (transl. Robertson 1956: 95)
(King Edgar to Winchester Cathedral, Ch 806, 13)
12 Verbs of Granting in Old English Documents

Both gifan and sellan are occasionally employed with God as the subject
and then typically refer to granting abstract “concepts” such as
understanding, benefits, or life.
The fourth verb to be discussed, cweþan, is attested 84 times, which is
about one sixth of the frequency of unnan. In the majority of cases, the
verb appears with the prefix be-, as becweþan, although there are 4
instances marked with ge- (gecweþan); still, the two prefixes seem to be
semantically irrelevant. The verb cweþan is mainly present in wills (53
instances, 63% of all its attestations), although 31 instances are found in
other texts, especially writs (12 instances, 14%) and agreements (8
instances, 10%). The basic sense of the verb was that of “saying” (hence
the archaic form quoth “said” in Modern English), and yet in the Old
English material, cweþan is found exclusively in the sense of “giving
something as inheritance”. The possessions bequeathed include land,
money, various objects, such as pieces of jewellery, as well as animals and
people. Thus, in contrast to other verbs discussed so far, cweþan never
appears in the sense of giving something non-material. Interestingly,
unnan and cweþan quite often appear in the same documents, for instance
the Will of Ælfric Modercope (15a), the Will of Wulfric (15b), cf.:

(15) a. And ic an into Rameseye six marc silures and þat schal Godric
mine brother lesten. ... And ic biquethe to min heregete ane marc
goldes and þat schal Godric mine brother lesten.
“And I grant Ramsey six marks of silver, and that my brother Godric is
to pay. ... And for my heriot I bequeath one mark of gold and Godric,
my brother, is to pay it.” (transl. Whitelock 1930: 73)
(Will of Ælfric Modercope, Ch 1490, 6-10)
b. & ic geann ælfhelme minan mæge, þæs landes æt Paltertune, þæs ðe
Scegð me becwæð.
“And I grant to Alfhelm, my cousin, the land at Paterton, which Sceg
bequeathed me.”
(Will of Wulfric, Ch 1536, 34)

or the Will of Æthelric (Ch 1501), which contains geunnan throughout in

lists of grants (8 instances), whereas in the final sentence it reads: þæt ælc
þara þinga stande þe ic gecweden hæbbe “that each of the things I have
bequeathed”.
Similarly to cweþan, the verb bocian also has limited application. As it
denotes “granting by a charter”, it is absent from wills, whereas in other
documents it appears merely 30 times, most commonly in leases (13
instances, 43% of all its attestations). Note, however, that due to its
Another random document with
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let down the bars leading into the south lot, where the grass was
better, for that was the reason Mr. Savage wanted the animal shifted
from one spot to the other.
All would have gone well, but for the fact, of which Dan was not
aware, that there was a weak place in the fence enclosing the upper
lot, where the bull was expected to go. When the bars were down
Dan shouted to attract the animal’s attention, and then he took a
safe position outside the fence.
The black bull came forward on the run, thinking some fool-hardy
person had dared to dispute his rights. The animal caught sight of
the lowered bars, and, a moment later had done just as Dan
expected, run into the upper lot.
Then something else happened. The bull, who was up to all such
tricks, saw a weak spot in the fence. At it he went, full tilt, and, a
moment later was off down the road bellowing and kicking up a cloud
of dust.
“The bull has escaped!” cried Dan. “Oh, what shall I do? He may kill
somebody before he’s caught! Mr. Savage will blame me!” and he
started down the highway in pursuit of the ugly animal.
 CHAPTER III
UP A TREE

The upper lot and south pasture belonging to Mr. Savage were some
distance away from the farm, and on a road that was not much used.
However, this road connected with the main highway, near the
village, and Dan’s fear was that the bull would run into town, creating
no end of damage.
“I wonder if I can catch him?” the boy thought. “He’s a swift animal.
Oh, dear! I hope he doesn’t meet any girl or woman with a red dress,
or there’ll be a terrible time. I wonder why bulls hate red so? But I
guess I’d better stop wondering about that, and begin to think how I
can stop him, if I do catch him.”
Dan remembered that the bull had a ring in his nose, and to the ring
was attached a stout cord, the other end being looped to a buckle in
a sort of halter on the animal’s head.
“If I had some sort of a hook I could catch it in the rope or ring, and
hold the bull back,” he thought. “It would have to be a pretty long
hook, for I wouldn’t dare go very close to the savage animal. I have
it! I’ll cut a long pole, with a prong on one end, and I can hook that in
the cord, perhaps.”
Dan saw a tree that might provide what he wanted, and he lost little
time in cutting a long pole. He trimmed off all the branches but one
near the end, and this left him a very good substitute for a hook. The
trimming he did as he ran along.
The bull was now out of sight, around a turn in the road, but there
was a cloud of dust by which Dan could trace the animal’s
movement.
In a little while Dan, still running as fast as he could, met a man
driving a horse, attached to a light carriage. The horse seemed
frightened, and the man was pale.
“Was that your bull that just ran up the road?” the man asked.
“No, sir; it belongs to Mr. Savage.”
“It does, eh? Where is he?”
“At the farm. The bull got out of the lot.”
“I guess you mean that you let it out! That’s the way with careless
boys. I want to tell you that the beast frightened my horse, and it
nearly ran away. Part of the harness was broken, and I expect Mr.
Savage to pay for it. You can tell him that I say so. My name’s Sam
Battle, and I’m always ready for a fight, too. You can tell him that.”
“Was the bull going fast?” asked Dan, more anxious to catch up to
the animal, than to hear about the man’s characteristics.
“Fast? Well, you’d ought to have seen him. He’ll do a lot of damage,
before he gets off the rampage, and Mr. Savage will have a heavy
bill to settle. You’d better hurry up, if you want to catch him, and don’t
forget I’ve got to have pay for the broken harness.”
“I suppose Mr. Savage will threaten to get that out of me in some
way,” thought Dan, as he hurried on, almost out of breath.
As he went around a turn in the road he saw an elderly woman
stooping over a basket that had contained eggs. It was easy to see
what had been in the basket, for, all about her, was a pool of whites
and yellows from the broken shells. She was trying to pick out a few
whole ones, and, in the process her hands had become all daubed
up with the sticky substance.
“Hi, boy!” she called to Dan. “Come and help me gather up these
eggs.”
“I can’t,” said Dan, respectfully. “I’ve got to catch the bull.”
“Was that your bull?”
“It belongs to the man I work for.”
“Oh, I know you now. You’re Dan Hardy, and you live out to Mr.
Savage’s farm. Well, he’ll have a nice bill from me, I can tell you.
There was fourteen dozen eggs in that basket, and I was takin’ ’em
to Hank Lee’s store to trade fer groceries. Now I don’t believe there’s
half a dozen eggs left. He’ll have to pay fer ’em, that’s what he’ll
have t’ do!”
“Did the bull run into you, Mrs. Dowden?” asked Dan anxiously, as
he recognized the old lady.
“No, Dan, he didn’t exactly run into me, but when I saw the savage
critter comin’ I just sot my basket of eggs down in the middle of the
road, an’ I ran under a fence until he got by.”
“Then how did the eggs get broken?”
“Why, that savage black critter jest stomped up and down on that
basket of eggs until they are what you see now—nothin’ but a mess
of whites an’ yallers. That bull jest did it out of spite, ’cause I s’pose
he couldn’t eat ’em. Then he gives a bellow, stuck his tail up in the
air, and run on. Oh, he’ll do a lot of damage ’fore he gits through.”
“I’m sorry,” began Dan.
“I don’t s’pose it’s your fault,” said Mrs. Dowden, as she managed to
rescue one whole egg from the mess. “But I’ll have the law on Peter
Savage, if he don’t pay me fer these eggs, an’ they’re wuth thirty
cents a dozen now at store prices, too. Land sakes! I never see a
bull stomp on eggs afore, an’ I don’t want to see it ag’in.”
But Dan did not stay to hear what the elderly lady had to say. He left
her standing in the middle of a little lake of whites and yellows, and
continued on his way after the bull.
As Dan was hurrying along a straight stretch of road, with the bull
some distance ahead of him, he saw a man walking just in advance
of the animal. The man had come across lots and emerged upon the
highway without seeing the bull.
“I hope old Pullox (which was the bull’s name) doesn’t attack that
man,” thought Dan. “Perhaps he’ll run right by.”
But this, evidently, was not what the bull was going to do. Dan could
hear the animal give a bellow of rage, then it halted, pounded the
ground with its fore feet, and prepared to charge on the man.
“Look out!” cried Dan, giving a shout of warning.
But there was no need of it, for the man had heard the noise made
by the bull. He turned around quickly and saw the angry animal
about to attack him.
“Run!” shouted Dan.
The man did so, and not a moment too soon. The bull was after him
like a flash, and Dan, using his little remaining wind, redoubled his
pace, hoping to be able to aid the man.
On and on went the bull in pursuit. There were two clouds of dust
now; a small one, raised by the fleeing man, and a larger one, kicked
up by the bull.
“He may kill him!” thought Dan. “Isn’t this the worst luck!”
The man gave a look behind him. The bull was nearer. Then he did
the only thing feasible under the circumstances. He climbed a tree,
scrambling up it with a speed that did not seem possible in such a
stout person, for he was quite fat.
“Stay there! Stay there!” cried Dan, as he ran up.
“That’s just what I intend to do, young fellow,” the man answered,
panting from his exertions.
“What do you s’pose—Why, if it isn’t Dan Hardy!”
“Oh, Mr. Lee” exclaimed Dan, recognizing the crusty storekeeper for
whom he had once worked. “I didn’t know you at first.”
“No, and no one else would either, the way I had to run to escape
being killed by that ugly critter. You let him loose on purpose, that’s
what you did.”
“On purpose, Mr. Lee?”
“Yes, that’s what you done. I know you! You wanted to pay me back
for not taking you into my store again, and you thought you’d get
even. I’ll have the law on you for this!”
The bull was now pawing around the foot of the tree, paying no
attention to Dan, but, seemingly, very anxious to get at the
storekeeper.
“You have no right to talk that way, Mr. Lee,” spoke Dan firmly. “You
know I had nothing to do with the bull chasing you. I couldn’t help it.”
“Didn’t you let the bull loose?”
“No, sir. He broke out of the upper lot, when I was changing him from
the south pasture. There was a weak place in the fence.”
“Well, you knowed it was there, and you done it on purpose, and I’m
goin’ to have the law on you for it. I’ve got a weak heart, and I may
die from being chased this way. I feel bad now. I’ll make you pay the
doctor bills and the funeral expenses, too, that’s what I will.”
“I’m sorry, and I hope you’ll not be sick,” responded the lad. “But if
you are, I haven’t a cent to pay any bills with.”
The bull was running around the tree in a circle, pawing the ground
and bellowing.
“Why don’t you take the ugly critter away?” demanded Mr. Lee,
holding tightly to a branch, for he was afraid of falling out of the tree.
“I want to, but I can’t get a chance to hook this pole into the ring. If I
could he’d come along peaceably enough.”
“You’re keeping me up here for spite!” declared the man. “You picked
out this lonely spot, where there’s no houses, on purpose.”
Dan did not take the trouble to answer the unreasonable man. He
was watching his chance to catch the prong into the cord or ring in
the bull’s nose. But the creature, while it showed no disposition to
attack Dan, was keeping out of the boy’s reach.
“Aren’t you going to take the critter away?” demanded the man
again. “I’ve got important business at my store, and if I’m delayed I’ll
charge you damages, and heavy ones too.”
“I guess the way you’d figure it out, I now owe you more than I can
ever pay,” replied Dan more coolly, as he saw the bull was evidently
not likely to run any farther. “I’ll get him away if I can. I’ll have to get
you to help me. If you’ll stick one foot out, on the other side of the
tree, and make believe you’re coming down, you may attract his
attention there, and I can sneak behind him and slip the stick into the
ring. Just put your foot down a ways.”
“I know you! You want the bull to injure me!” cried Mr. Lee. “I see
your trick! You want me to get hurt so I can’t sue you. But I’ll sue just
the same.”
“Look here!” exclaimed Dan, in desperation. “If you want to get down
out of that tree, and if you want me to take the bull away, you’ve got
to help me. If you don’t do as I say I’ll have to leave the bull here
until I can go and get help.”
“Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” begged Mr. Lee in terror. “Don’t leave
me alone with that savage critter. I’ll do whatever you say. What is it,
Dan? I always liked you. You’re a good boy. I—I wish I’d given you
back your place in the store, but I couldn’t do it. I had to have
somebody. You’re a good boy, Dan. You won’t hold a grudge against
an old man like me. Don’t go off, and leave me all alone. I’ll do as
you say. Which foot shall I stick down?”
“It doesn’t make much difference,” replied Dan, hardly able to keep
back a smile at the change of manner in the man. “Either one will do.
I want you to attract the bull’s attention, until I can sneak up behind
him.”
“All right, Dan. I’ll do it. But don’t go off and leave me alone,” and the
storekeeper prepared to lower his foot. At the first sign of movement
on the part of the man up the tree the bull ceased going about in a
circle and stood still.
“I’ll get him now!” cried Dan.
 CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGER AGAIN

While the maddened animal had its attention fixed on Mr. Lee it did
not observe what Dan was doing. The boy went quietly behind the
bull, extended the stick, and, a moment later had caught the prong in
the ring in the brute’s nose.
“Now you’ve got him! Now you’ve got him, Dan!” cried the
storekeeper, as he hastily drew his leg up. “Hold him tight! Don’t let
him get away!”
“I don’t intend to.”
“Take him away! Lead him way off!”
“I will. I’ll take him back to the south pasture, where the fence is good
and strong.”
As soon as the bull felt the tugging of the ring in its sensitive nose it
ceased its attempt to get at Mr. Lee. The big creature calmed down
and allowed Dan to lead it away, though it did not go very willingly.
Dan kept a firm hold of the stick, and, as long as he did so the bull
could not approach him.
“You can come down now, Mr. Lee,” said the boy as he started along
the road with the animal.
“Do you think it would be safe?”
“Oh, yes, he can’t get away from me now.”
The storekeeper slid to the ground. He was a little stiff from his
climbing, and running, and his clothes were rather out of place.
“I’d like to shoot you, you miserable creature!” he exclaimed, shaking
his fist at the bull.
“It’s too valuable an animal to shoot,” said Dan.
“I don’t care whether it is or not, I’d like to shoot it. And you can tell
Peter Savage that I’m going to sue him and you too for the trouble
you caused me.”
“It was not my fault, Mr. Lee.”
“I don’t care whose fault it was, I’m going to sue. You did this on
purpose, and I’ll fix you for it too, Dan Hardy.”
“But, Mr. Lee—”
“Don’t you talk back to me. I said I’m going to fix you for this and I
will.”
Dan saw it would be of little use to further argue with the man, so he
turned away and gave his whole attention to managing the bull,
which was bellowing hoarsely and pawing the earth.
Mr. Lee kept on down the road, muttering to himself, almost as
angry, Dan thought, as was the bull.
“It wasn’t my fault,” remarked the boy to himself, “still I suppose I will
be blamed for it.”
Nor was his anticipation disappointed. When he had put the bull
back in the south pasture where the animal had first been kept, he
returned to the farm. Some news of what had happened had already
preceded him.
“Wa’ll, this is a pretty how-d’-do!” exclaimed Mr. Savage, as Dan
went to the barn, where his master was feeding the horses for the
night. “What ails ye, anyhow? Can’t ye do anything right?”
“What do you mean, Mr. Savage?”
“Jest what I say. What made you let that bull out an’ cause a lot of
damage? Oh, I know all about it. Mrs. Dowden sent her boy over to
see me, and she says I’ve got to pay for th’ eggs th’ bull smashed.
It’s all your fault.”
“It wasn’t,” replied Dan firmly, but respectfully. “I did not know there
was a loose place in the fence of the upper lot. You told me to let the
bull in there and I did so. I could not help his breaking down the
fence.”
“Did ye put th’ critter back safe?”
“Yes, sir, but it got Mr. Lee up a tree before I could do so,” and then,
fearing Mr. Savage might get a wrong account of the various
happenings from the persons involved, Dan told exactly what had
happened.
“Wa’al, ye’re a nice sort of boy t’ have around a farm, I must say!”
exclaimed Mr. Savage sarcastically. “Ye’re doin’ more harm than ye
be good! Now I s’pose I’ll have a lot of damages t’ pay. Why don’t ye
have some sense about ye? Good land o’ Tunket! I’ll be in the
poorhouse ef I don’t look out.”
“I’m sorry it happened,” said poor Dan. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t talk t’ me!” interrupted Mr. Savage. “I’ve seen enough of ye fer
one day. Here, ef ye kin do it without gittin’ int’ trouble, finish waterin’
them hosses. I’m goin’ t’ th’ village t’ see ef I can’t make some
arrangement with Lee ’fore he sues me. He’s liable t’ do it.”
Dan was in very low spirits. Everything seemed to be going against
him, and it is not to his discredit to say that he cried just a little as he
fed the horses, and gave them water. He was very lonely, and he
missed his mother very much.
As he entered the stall of the chestnut mare, an animal he frequently
drove, the animal put her soft nose down on the boy’s shoulder.
“Good Bess,” he murmured. “I wonder if you care for me? There
doesn’t any one else seem to around here.”
The mare whinnied, for she was fond of the boy, who was always
kind to her.
Dan had little time for grief or reflection, however, as, before he was
quite through with watering the animals, Mrs. Savage blew the horn
for supper, the house being across the road from the barn. To the
horn’s strident note she added her own voice:
“Now come along lively, Dan. I can’t keep supper all night fer a lazy,
good-fer-nothin’ boy. I want t’ git th’ dishes washed up, an’ ye’ve got
t’ dry ’em. Hurry up with that work, an’ don’t dawdle over it all night.”
Dan hurriedly finished with the horses and went into the house. The
two hired men of the farm were already at the table, eating very fast,
as if they feared some one would take the victuals away before they
were through. They nodded to Dan who, after a hasty wash in the tin
basin outside, took his place.
The kitchen was the room most in use in Mr. Savage’s house. There
the meals were served, and, what little leisure time the hired men
had, they spent there, when they were not at the village store, talking
with their cronies.
The room was of fair size, and contained a large range, which made
it very hot in summer time; a sink and pump, and a large
mantlepiece, over which hung an old musket, that Mr. Savage said
his grandfather had used in the Revolutionary War. Some of his
acquaintances remarked that Mr. Savage was too cowardly to go to
war himself, so he had no relics of the great Civil conflict.
Adjoining the kitchen was a sort of dairy and meal room, where Mrs.
Savage kept the feed for numerous chickens. What with that, and
the fact that a wood-shed, where fuel was kept, also opened out of
this apartment, and with the hot stove and the smell of cooking, the
kitchen was not the most cheerful place in the world.
“Don’t be all night over yer meal now,” said Mrs. Savage with a cross
look at Dan. “Ye’ve made trouble enough as it is, an’ Mr. Savage had
t’ go ’way without supper t’ see Mr. Lee ’count of that bull. Ye’ve got t’
help me with th’ work, fer I’m goin’t’ set bread.”
Dan did not reply, and to the questions from the hired men, who
asked them when Mrs. Savage was out of the room, he told as little
as possible of the bull incident.
“Never mind,” consoled Jonas Hannock, one of the men, as he
finished his piece of apple pie, and wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand. “Never mind, Dan. Bad luck can’t last forever,” for which
little sympathy the boy was grateful.
He was tired, not only from his work on the farm, but from his chase
after the bull, still he could not rest.
“Come now, git th’ dishes picked up,” called Mrs. Savage, before
Dan was quite through. “Ye’ve been long enough. Ye might as well
wash ’em too, while ye’re at it. I kin git more work done then.”
Of all the work about the farm or house Dan hated most of all doing
the dishes, but there seemed to be no escape from it. With as good
grace as possible he began at them, and he had about finished
when Mrs. Savage exclaimed:
“There! I haven’t got a yeast cake, Dan; ye’ll have t’ go t’ th’ village
an’ git one. Hurry too. Don’t stand gawpin’ along th’ road. Tell Mr.
Lee t’ charge it.”
This seemed the last straw. After his hard day’s work to be forced to
take a four mile walk before he could go to bed!
“Shall I saddle the horse?” he asked timidly, thinking of how much
easier it would be to gallop in on the back of Bess.
“Saddle a hoss? Wa’ll, I guess not! Them hosses has done work
enough fer one day.”
Dan thought he had also.
He started off on the errand, vainly wishing Mrs. Savage had
discovered the need of a yeast cake when Mr. Savage drove to the
village, as he could have brought it back with him. Still, after he was
started, walking along the highway in the pleasant summer evening,
some of Dan’s weariness left him.
As he neared the cross road, on which Dr. Maxwell lived, he heard
some one walking on the hard highway.
“I wonder if that’s the doctor,” he thought. “No, it can’t be. He always
rides.”
A few seconds later a man came into view. It was not very dark yet,
and Dan easily recognized the stranger as the person who had
asked him so many questions in the barn.
“Good evening,” said Dan.
“Oh, it is the corn-sheller boy,” remarked the stranger. “How are you?
Did you finish all that corn?”
“Yes, but I’ve got just as much more to do to-morrow.”
“That’s too bad. You seem to have to work pretty hard.”
“Oh, well, I suppose all boys do.”
“Not all, nor all men either.”
“If you’re looking for Dr. Maxwell’s house, it’s right down that road.”
“What makes you think I am looking for his house?” and the man
seemed annoyed.
“Well, you were asking about him—”
“That’s all right. I don’t want to see him. I just wanted to know where
he lived, out of curiosity. But I’m in a hurry, so I’ll have to leave you,”
and the man, who a moment ago seemed to have plenty of time,
turned off in the other direction and hurried away.
“That’s queer,” thought Dan. “He acted as if he was mad because I
told him where Dr. Maxwell lived. I wonder what he is doing in this
neighborhood?”
 CHAPTER V
THE OLD BLACKSMITH

Dan saw no prospect of his question being answered immediately,

so, after listening to the retreating footsteps of the stranger he
resumed his journey to the village.
“I hope Mr. Lee isn’t in,” said the boy to himself, as he neared the
store. “He might say something unpleasant, and there are usually a
lot of men in his place evenings. I hope I don’t meet him until he has
had a chance to forget about the bull.”
As Dan was walking along the village street he was hailed by a youth
about his own age.
“Hi, Dan! When ye goin’ t’ give an exhibition?”
“What sort of an exhibition, Tom?”
“Masterin’ wild bulls! I herd ye was pretty good at it,” and the boy
laughed.
Dan knew by this that his experience with the animal, which had
treed Mr. Lee, was pretty well known in the village. Still he hoped
that he would not meet the storekeeper when he went in for the
yeast cake. Nor did he, a clerk waiting on him and giving him what
he wanted.
There was no sign of Mr. Lee about the store, which was filled with
the usual crowd of loungers. Nobody, however, seemed to notice
Dan.
“I’m glad I didn’t see him,” thought the boy as he was on his way
home.
As Dan neared the place where he had met the mysterious stranger
he thought he saw the figure of a man crossing the lots, near the turn
of the road. He had half a notion to investigate, and see if it was the
man who had appeared to take such an interest in him, but the
thought of Mrs. Savage waiting for the yeast cake made him fear this
would not be advisable. So he kept on, although as he walked along
the grass by the roadside, he was almost sure he heard the
footsteps of some one on the highway.
“Wa’al, why didn’t ye stay all night?” demanded Mrs. Savage very
ungraciously when Dan, who was very tired, came in. He did not
answer, and, as there was no further demand made on him, except
to see that the henhouse was locked, he went up to bed.
Hard work is a good thing in one way, for it brings refreshing sleep.
When Dan awoke the next morning he felt much better, physically
and mentally. It was a bright, beautiful day, and when he was
dressing he could hear the songs of birds, in the trees opposite his
window.
“I hope things go well to-day,” the boy thought. “I haven’t got much to
be thankful for, but I can be glad it isn’t raining. Still, if it was, I
suppose I’d have to shell corn in the barn.”
He started to whistle a merry tune, but was rudely interrupted by a
call from below:
“Come now!” cried Mr. Savage. “Going t’ lay abed all day? Stir yer
stumps up there, Dan. There’s work t’ be done, an’ I hope ye don’t
expect me t’ do all of it! Move lively, git yer breakfast an’ shell some
more corn!”
Dan hurried with his dressing, spent little time over his washing
operations, and was soon hurrying with his breakfast. Everything
seemed to be “hurry” with him. He had no time for leisure with such a
task-master over him as Peter Savage.
Dan was about half through with his morning’s work of shelling corn
for the horses, when Mr. Savage appeared in the barn.
“Is that all ye got done?” he asked.
“I worked as fast as I could.”
“Fast! Humph, I guess ye must a’ turned it backward part of th’ time.
Now git a move on ye. Mrs. Savage want’s ye t’ go t’ th’ store fer
some molasses. Don’t be all day, nuther.”
“Shall I hitch up?”
“Hitch up? Not much. Ye kin walk, can’t ye?”
“Certainly, but I thought I might bring back some bran; we need it.”
“I’ll tend t’ that. Hustle now, an’ walk fast.”
Dan did not mind the walk so much this morning, as it would rest his
back from the wearisome labor of turning the corn sheller. He got the
molasses jug and started off, striking up a whistling chorus.
“Oh, let up on that!” exclaimed Mrs. Savage who was in no very
good humor, because the bread had not “come up” properly. “Boys is
always makin’ useless noises. Ye’ll walk faster ef ye don’t whistle,
an’ I want that molasses t’ make a Johnny cake fer dinner.”
Dan ceased his whistling until he was out of the hearing of Mrs.
Savage, and then he began again.
“It looks as if I’d get into trouble again before night,” he thought. “I
wonder what makes some people so mean, anyhow?”
Dan’s meditation was interrupted by hearing a wagon coming behind
him. He looked to see who it was, and the man driving the horse
called out, at the sight of the boy:
“Hello, Dan. Going to the village, I suppose? Don’t you want a ride?
There’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harrison. I wouldn’t mind a lift,” and Dan climbed up
on the seat beside Holman Harrison, the village blacksmith, a kindly
old man, and a veteran of the Civil War. He had known Dan’s father
and mother, and had been acquainted with Dan ever since the lad
was a baby. In fact Mr. Harrison was the one person in the village
whom Dan could think of as a friend.
“Going after vinegar?” asked the blacksmith, noticing the jug Dan
carried.
“No, Mr. Harrison, molasses.”
“Going to catch flies?”
“Catch flies? What do you mean?”
“Well, you know there’s an old saying, that it’s easier to catch flies
with molasses than it is with vinegar, and I thought perhaps Mrs.
Savage was going to try it.”
“I guess she wouldn’t waste vinegar or molasses that way. She’d
drive the flies out with a broom.”
“Yes, she and Peter are pretty ‘close’ I guess. How do you like it
there?”
“It might be worse.” Dan was not going to “tattle” about his employer.
“And that means it isn’t very good,” said the blacksmith shrewdly. “I
know Peter Savage, and he’s a hard man to work for. I wish I could
help you, Dan, for the sake of your mother and father, who often did
me good turns, but I can barely make a living for myself. Times are
very hard. I had to walk five miles to-day to get the job of repairing
this wagon. The man said if I’d come after it I could fix it for him, so I
tramped after it, borrowed his horse and I’m taking the wagon to my
shop. When I get it fixed I’ll drive back with it. Otherwise you wouldn’t
see me riding around like this. As it is I’ll have to walk back.”
“I hope you will meet some one who will give you a lift,” said Dan,
with a smile.
“Perhaps I will. Still I’m good and strong yet, if I am old, and have a
bullet in my leg from the battle of Antietam. I can limp along with the
best of ’em.”
“Does it hurt you very much?”
“Only just before a storm. Curious, but that Confederate bullet is as
good as a barometer. I can tell for sure when it’s going to rain. When
I can’t make a living blacksmithing any more I’m going to hire out as
a weather prophet,” and the veteran laughed heartily at his
misfortune.
The two chatted pleasantly during the ride, the blacksmith, at Dan’s
request, relating some of his war experiences. In turn Mr. Harrison
sought to draw from the boy something about his life at the Savage
farm, but Dan was not the one to complain, even if he did have it
hard.
“I know it can’t be very pleasant there for you,” said the old soldier,
“and I wish I could take you with me, but, as I said, I have hard
enough work to get along. Still, Dan, don’t forget I’m your friend, no
matter what happens, and if I can ever do anything for you, just let
me know.”
A little later they drove into the village, and, as Mr. Harrison turned
the horse down the side street leading to his shop, Dan saw the
mysterious stranger standing in front of Mr. Johnson’s shoe store.
“There he is again!” exclaimed the boy. “I wonder what he can be
doing around here.”
“That man,” and Dan pointed to him.
“What? Do you know him too?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know him, but I’ve talked with him,” and Dan
related what had passed between himself and the man. “Do you
know who he is, Mr. Harrison?”
“No, except he says he’s an inventor. He came into my place
yesterday, and got me to fix some sort of a tool. I never saw one like
it before. It was like a long chisel, or a big tack lifter. I thought it might
be for taking up carpets, and I asked him, but he said it was a new
tool he had invented, and that he wasn’t at liberty to tell me what it
was for. It had broken in two, and I welded it together for him. When I
saw he didn’t want to talk, I didn’t ask him any more questions. He’s
a queer man, but he seems to have plenty of money. But, if you’re
going to Mr. Lee’s store, you’d better get out here. Sorry I can’t give
you a ride back.”
“You’ve given me a good lift as it was,” said Dan, as he alighted with
the molasses jug. The blacksmith turned off into another street, and,
as Dan started for the general store, he saw the stranger waving his
hand to some one. Turning to see who it was, Dan beheld a rather
poorly dressed individual join the man in front of the shoe store.
“Well, he evidently knows some one in the village,” thought Dan.
 CHAPTER VI
SOME BAD MONEY

Feeling that he had no time to lose watching the movements of the

stranger and the poorly dressed man, though he vaguely wondered
what their objects might be. Dan hurried on to Hank Lee’s store. He
saw the proprietor behind the counter.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” exclaimed Mr. Lee, in rather a surly tone, as he
saw Dan. “I hope you haven’t got any wild bulls outside.”
“No, sir,” answered Dan, unable to repress a smile at the thought of
Mr. Lee up a tree.
“What you grinnin’ at?” demanded the storekeeper sourly. “I s’pose
you think it’s funny to see men chased by a bull.”
“No, sir; I’m sorry you had to run.”
“Had to run? I didn’t have to run. I could a’ stood still, and fought that
bull, if I’d a minded to, but I had some money in my pocket, from
collectin’ a bill, and I didn’t want to lose it. I wasn’t afraid of that bull,
and I don’t want you to git that notion into your head, either.”
Dan thought it wisest to say nothing on this score, though he was
very certain Mr. Lee had been very much frightened by the angry
beast.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” went on the storekeeper, “if you ever play a
trick like that on me again I’ll have you arrested, that’s what I’ll do.”
“It wasn’t a trick, Mr. Lee.”
“Don’t tell me. I know better. What do you want?”
“I want a quarter’s worth of molasses.”
“Well, give me the jug.”
Dan handed it to the storekeeper who filled it from a barrel in one
corner of the store.
“Where’s the money?” demanded Mr. Lee. “I ain’t goin’ to trust Peter
Savage any more. He owes me money now, an’ when I sue him for
the damage the bull done to me he’ll owe me more. I’ve got to have
cash for things, an’ you can tell him so.”
Perhaps Mrs. Savage had anticipated that something like this might
come to pass, for, contrary to her usual custom, she had given Dan
the money to pay for the molasses.
“Here’s the quarter,” spoke the boy, tossing the coin on the counter.
It fell with a curious, dull thud, and not with a ring, such as silver
gives out. Mr. Lee took up the money, looked at it closely, threw it
down on the counter again to listen to the sound it made, and then
announced:
“Don’t try none of your tricks on me, Dan Hardy.”
“Tricks? What do you mean? I’m not playing any tricks.”
“Then what do you mean by giving me bad money? That’s a
counterfeit twenty-five cent piece, an’ you knowed it.”
“I didn’t know anything of the kind, and I don’t believe it’s bad.”
“You don’t, eh? Listen to that sound!”
Again Mr. Lee rang the coin on the counter. It gave forth a dull tinkle.
Dan had to acknowledge the coin did not have the right sound.
“I’m not goin’ to give molasses for bad money,” went on Mr. Lee.
“I haven’t any other.”
“Then you will have to go back fer more. Made me draw a gallon of
molasses fer nothin’. I’ll keep the jug until its paid for.”
“Mrs. Savage will be angry if I don’t bring her back the molasses.”
“What do I care?”
“If you let me take the molasses back with me, I’ll tell Mr. Savage
that the money he gave me, or, rather which Mrs. Savage gave me,