Dartnell and Goddard say that “in Somerset, red-haired men are often said to be a bit touched with the Danes”.
Modern English is what Clement of Alexandria called a “Stromateis or patchwork stitched together of bits and ends of borrowings”, and the sources of some of these borrowings can be traced in many country dialects. But Wiltshire is the source of more than a borrowing or two. It is the canvas upon which the patchwork was stitched. In the history of English literature edited by the late Lord Tweedsmuir (John Buchan) it is said that “ from the time of Alfred up to the Conquest, West Saxon became the literary language of England, and appears, probably in a normalised form, in the mass of old English prose and in the later poetry”. Our Wiltshire dialect is so nearly a pure version of this “ literary language of England” that it is incredible that its use should be condemned as ignorant by educated people in this very county. There may be much to criticise in it, but to call it ignorant? No!
West Saxon is the enduring skeleton which gives fundamental form to the English language, saving it from becoming either flabby or exotic; and even when the natives of Wiltshire do not still speak the pure dialect they retain enough of the syntax and pronunciation of their fathers to reveal the shape of the bones.
But there are words in the Wiltshire dialect which are far older than King Alfred’s West Saxon. Across the Hundred-Acre Plough on Mr Rawlence’s farm at Bulbridge, how often we heard as children the strange harsh shouts of the carter, which seemed more animal than human. They bridge the gap between horse and man, and were perfectly intelligible on each side of that gap. And the horses knew to which individual member of the team each sentence was addressed.
Wowt and Coom Eddur were for the front pair, telling them whether to turn left or right.
Wo-oot and Gie aay oot were orders to the hinder pair. They too in their turn must go left or right.
The dividing line between the human and the animal is sometimes said to be the introduction of speech. Animals could easily make all those noises, but they never do. The fact that nevertheless they perfectly understand them shows that these syllables come from a period when the boundary line had hardly been crossed.
King Alfred must have heard those words on his many journeys over the Wiltshire downs, although even by then they were remnants of a forgotten tongue, for he was certainly as bilingual as were all Wessex children till compulsory education narrowed down their means of expression. Very soon those primeval sounds will be heard no more, for farm tractors are fast driving them into the limbo of other dead languages.
Alfred the Great. There he stands in those statues in the streets of Pewsey and of Winchester; and he stands there as the father of English prose, for it was he who saw in the West Saxon tongue brought into Wessex by his ancestor Cerdic a vitality justifying its becoming the language of all the English now united in one kingdom.
Most people are frankly bored by being asked to grapple with an unknown dialect, and yet it is impossible to get into the spirit of Wiltshire people without knowing something of the fine racy language in which they express themselves. It must either be written about or written in.
The English of King Alfred contained so much of the Wiltshire of today that I have read aloud some of his original verses to members of a Woman’s Institute and they have been perfectly understood. Yet, I think, for those who are not Wiltshire people, I can best show the relationship between West Saxon and the Wiltshire dialect by using a word-for-word translation made by Margaret Williams in her book of passages from old English literature called Word Hoard. It shows how the dialect of today has preserved the West Saxon syntax.
A passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which comes directly from King Alfred’s day is interesting apart from its language, because it shows that as long ago as the ninth century the English people were of the same spirit as they were in 1940:
“The horde had not, thanks to God, altogether broken the English nation, but they were very much broken in those three years by the death of cattle and of men, and most of all because many of the King’s best thanes who were in the land went forth from life in those three years.… Then King Alfred ordered long ships to be built against the ash-ships; they were full nigh twice as long as the others, some had sixty oars, some more.”
Does not this recall England in 1940 after the Battle of Britain when most of our aircraft had been destroyed?
The greater part of King Alfred’s writings are translations, but translations so idiosyncratic as to convert the original into something revealing the man who wrote them and also the finest qualities of ninth-century English language and literature. Bishop Asser describes how the King began his collection of quotations:
“One day we were both of us sitting in the King’s chamber, talking on all kinds of subjects as usual, and it happened that I read to him a quotation out of a certain book. He heard me attentively with both his ears, and spoke with a thoughtful mind, showing me at the same moment a little book which he carried in his bosom wherein the daily courses of psalms and prayers that he had read in his youth were written, and he told me to write the same quotation in the book.… But when I could not find any empty space in that book wherein to write the quotation, for it was already full of various matters, I made a little delay, principally that I might stir up the bright intelligence of the King.”
Then Miss Williams goes on to translate, in her truly King Alfred method, part of the very first of his own writings—his translation of the Cura Pastoralis by Gregory the Great, still to be seen at Worcester among the Hatton manuscripts:
“Many right-sayings the wise-hearted Gregory pondered in his deep mind, his hoard of cunning thoughts.
For this he gained, greatest of mankind, the favour of
Heaven’s Keeper, he, best of Rome-dwellers,
thought-wealthiest man, wide-known gloriously.
Then into English Alfred the King turned every word of
me.”
The preface to the Cura Pastoralis is King Alfred’s own composition, and a few sentences extracted from it show what his purpose was in translating it:
“So clean fallen away was learning among the English people that there were very few this side of the Humber who could understand their Mass-Book in English or even change a letter from Latin into English; and I think that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few that I cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I took the kingdom.… And when I remembered how before this, the knowledge of the Latin tongue had fallen off throughout England, and yet men could read English writing, then I began, among the other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to change into English the book that is called Pastoralis in Latin, and in English, Shepherd Book, sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund my Archbishop and from Asser my Bishop, and from Grimbold my mass-priest and from John my mass-priest. When I had learned it I changed it into English, as I best understood and most carefully might render it.”
Four hundred years later we find the first written document unblushingly in the Wiltshire dialect. Among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum is the one existing manuscript of a Life of Saint Edith written at Wilton about the year 1420. A German philologist, Herr Horstmann, published an edition of this at Heilbronn in 1885, and in his preface he gives the names of nine chaplains who were officiating in the Abbey of Wilton in 1383. He follows W. H. Black, an earlier scholar, in thinking that “one of these may have been the author … for such a work, composed for the instruction of the recluses, was very likely undertaken by direction of the Superiors; and who more likely to have the charge than a grave elderly clergyman?” But at Wilton we have no faith in that “grave elderly clergyman”. Local tradition has always ascribed the little book to a young nun in the Abbey. Latin was, of course, the natural language of the chaplains, although during the fourteenth century some of the young ladies were given lessons in French, into which language the Rule of St Benedict and the
Ordinances of Bishop Wyvill were translated in 1379. But this poem is surely the production of a country girl knowing neither Latin nor French. Like the dialect speakers of today, she used the word “ he” indiscriminately as a masculine or feminine pronoun.
At the risk of irritating many readers I shall now print a few verses of this Life of Saint Edith in the original dialect, being sure that Wiltshire readers will understand it; and asking other people to try reading it aloud, when the sense will almost speak itself. At any rate, these lines prove that the Wiltshire dialect spoken today is not very unlike its ancestor of six centuries ago.
Nevertheless those who really dislike dialect are advised to omit this chapter.
Men & woman louede here fulle welle;
& wylde bestes & folys of flyzt
To here clepynge wolde come fulle snelle
& at hurre byddyng thei wolde doun lyzt
& of hurre hond they wolde meyte take.
Bot dowuys of briddis (s)he louede most
& grests chere to hem wolde make,
By-cause they ben legenyd to the holy gost.
For euer (s)he bare in hert fulle stylle
The gospelle of the vtaus of the towolthe-day
How the holy gost spake seynt Jon tylle
“This is my sone” the fader dede fay;
For in a downe likeness he come doune when he spake …
(S)he was so vertuose & so fulle of grace
& so meche godenesse (s)he had in herre delyte,
That y haue nouther wytte ny space
All here godenesse for to wryte.
Here voys was fulle clere in syngynge,
& wryte (s)he couthe & purtrey also,
Fulle parfite (s)he was in selke worchynge,
& fulle welle enbroudre & leyge golde therto.
Tunyculus & chesepulus (s)he made mony one
t
& mantillus, enbroudrid w golde fulle redde,
t
& mitrus y-cowchud w mony a ryalle ston;
Bot of worldlycheclothus of pryde(s) hene toke hede.
Worldelyche clothus (s)he wolde none worche
To fader ny brother by no maner wey,
Bot in plesaunce of god & holy chirche
Fast (s)he wolde worche euery dey.
Harp (s)he couthe & syng welle therto,
& carff welle ymagus, & peyntede bothe—
Suche virtuose werkus (s)he wolde welle do
t
Fulle sotelyche w -owte ony wothe.…
A bedde (s)he hadde ryzt welle y-dyzt
t
W ryche clothus of ryzt gode aray,
Bot seldon (s)he lay there-in ony nyzt,
Bot on an harde borde welle ofter (s)he lay.
(S)he went y clothud fulle honestly
In ryalle clothyng to yche monus syzt,
Bot an harde hayre fulle securlye
Was nexst here flysshe both day and nyzt,
This hard hayre (s)he wered hurre body nexst
Vnder a curtull of purpur byse
t
Enbroudrid w golde, as saythe the text,
t
W other clothus aboue that were of grette pryse.…
Bot seynt Adelwolde, that holy mone,
Spake to that mayde vpon a day
& sayde that he herde neuer of non
That went to Paradys one that aray;
“Ny thy heuenelyche spouse, douzter, quod he,
Delytede hym neuer zet in such clethynge,
Bot in lowenesse, in mekenesse & in charite,
& not in ryalte of clothus weryng.”
That mayde mekelyche ouswered hym tho
& sayde: “ holy fader, vnder suche clothus of honeste,
Zyf hit were plesyng to zov to take hede therto,
Mowe ben virtwys werkus gret pleynte.…
Jhesu, holy fader, that vs dere bouzt,
Take not only hede to monnys clothynge,
But also to bothe his hert & thouzt,
& also to his gode worchynge.…
Ther nys non virtwe that god louythe more
Then mekenes, whoso wolle take hede;
By-cause of pryde monnys sawle was lore,
Tylle goddus sone was for vs dede.…
Some of St Edith’s miracles are related in this poem, described in the simple, unvarnished style which might be used by a Wiltshire cottage woman today. She tells how St Edith “hadde in a tyme in her seruyse” a maid who kept her clothes and her room. One night the girl put away the clothes, and took a taper which “stood brenning” by the altar, to light her at her work. When she had finished, she blew out the light, “but the wicke held stylle the snytte”. The maid put the taper down beside St Edith’s clothes.
The snotte fast brende, the clothys cauzt hete
& by-gonne to brenne ful fast.
This mayde layde herre doune to slepe,
Bot sone after (s)he rosse vp sore agast:
For when (s)he begon to slombre & slepe,
The flauour of that feyre (s)he tastede sone,
& vp (s)he starte & begon to crye & wepe—
The ladyes werone a-slepe tho euerychone.
The feyre a-bouzt the auter gon brenne
Alle the clothus falle sone a-way.…
The ladyes a-wokon & reson vp fast,
The feyre woxe euer more & more;
The ladyes werone alle fulle sore agast,
For drede leste they weron for-lore.
They besedone hem fast this feyre to quenche,
t
Euery lady w alle hurre myzt;
Bot euer to god cryede that wenche
To stanche that feyre that was so leyzt.…
Seynt Ede hurre-self (s)he stod fulle stylle
& of goddes help (s)he nad no douzte; …
She stood with her foot among the burning clothes and never flinched, and as she stood there the fire was “staunched anon and left his light”.
The ladyes comen rennynge tho on yche a syde,
To se the myracle that there was y-do;
The furnyd mantylle the mayde forth tho leyde
t
& alle the tother clothus w hit also.
& alle the pepulle that sey that syzt,
Anon they felle doune to the grounde
& thongedone heylyche god of myzt
& also seynt Ede in that stounde, …
Synt Ede stode stylle & sayde ryzt nouzt.
This Wilton chronicle tells many more miracles wrought by Saint Edith and at last it tells how, when Canute came to the throne in 1016 (thirteen years after her death), he would not believe that, as the legend said, her body had not yet perished.
Bot then sone after dyede Edmunde Hyronesyde,
u
Ryzt as y tolde zo ryzt, now here byfore.
Tho Knoude was made hole kyng of alle Englonde w gret pride,
& regnede nyentene zere & sumwhat more.
Bot Knowde was zet no trewe cristen-mon
Ny leuede no-thynge on criston lawe,
& the seyntes of Englonde he hated ychone
Ny set by non of hem an hawe.
Bot sone after that he was made kynge,
He come to Wyltone, & the bysshop of Canterbury
come w hym eke,
& mony a nother gret lordyne;
For he hulde his householde there the whysson-weke.
…
“Wollede ze fouchesaue now thedur to go
And se how hole hurre body there zet Ieythe—
& (s)he leyze in the vrthe zet threttene zere & more;
& when (s)he was take vp of the vrthe, (s)he was as
wholle
And as freysshe as (s)he was ony tyme that day
byfore—
The sothe of this ze mowe welle se, zyf ze wolle.”
“Gowe alle thedur, quod the kyng, wollewe go,
To loke wherre hit be so as tolde the knyzt!
For y nelnot byleue that hit is redyly so,
t
/> Bot zyff y se hit verylyche w myn owne syzt.”
Forthe went the kyng tho thederwarde anone,
And bysshoppus and lordus & abbotes y-fere;
And to the chirche they come ryzt sone
& founden the chest alle-redy there.
The bysshop toke tho a sencere in his honde
And sensede that body, there hit lay,
& sayde: “my lord, wolle ze come heder & nere
stonde
u
& se that hit is very trewe that y dude zo say!”
Then come the kyng and stode hym fast by.
& the bysshop toke vp the lede of the chest anone:
& the kyng that mayde sawe howe hole (s)he there
leyze.
& to lawe hurrer to scorne the kyng tho bygone.
Bot tho that mayde rerede vp hurre body euery whytte
And gederede to-gedere hurre lymmys tho zeke
& made a sygne as thow (s)he wolde the kygne haue
smytte
t
W hurre fust vndur his cheke.
And when the kyng sawe that mayden do so,
He was alle assmayhydde & dredde hurre tho fnlle
sore
& fell doune to the grounde ded asswo—
Was he neuer so sore agast that tyme byfore.
The bysshop toke vp the kynge & comforde hym w
alle his myzt,
And sayde: “syre kyng, haue ze no drede
Bot trust welle god, the whyche made bothe day &
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