A Suffolk dragon...

There are a number of dragons in the folklore of Suffolk and Essex, all attested around the early years of the 15th century.  The Suffolk black dragon from Bures, which is said to have fought a red-mottled black dragon from Essex, and fled the scene.  Another dragon which appeared near the River Stour in Wormingford made a nuisance of itself devouring wayfarers until killed either by Sir Bertram de la Haye or Sir George Marney [there are two legends] both of whom bear names currently reflected in in local villages [Layer de la Haye and Layer Marney].  Previous to this, a dragon in Bures was shot at unsuccessfully by militia from Colchester, and may have been the dragon killed subsequently by Sir Bertram [or Sir George].

Where, you may ask, are you going with this, Sarah?
Where I'm going is to explain to you that I've agreed to write an anthology of modern fairy tales with author Giselle Marks [who has guest blogged for me regarding her regencies] and I'm writing one story into which this information falls.  Find the facebook page for the anthology here

So, I have the opening of my story, which I want to share with you all, because I want to check if the archaic speech I've given her is clearly understandable [I wrote it in Middle English and ruthlessly culled most of it] to give the flavour of 1435ish without being too OTT.  And also I want to advertise the anthology when it comes, which should be at the back end of summer...

Oh, and I have named her Tanduistla, a Latinised version of, so far as I can put it together, Brythonic Celtic for Lady Dark Flame. This will come out later in the story.  -istl is a name ending in Medieval Welsh and Cornish female names. 

Lady Darkflame

She woke up and stretched, stifling a scream as the wound in her armpit pulled. 

It was festering, and the poison struck into her, burning, aching, sickening her to her very stomach. However, she could not afford to give in to the pain; soon her baby would be waking, hungry, and in need. She must go and feed herself, and then she could feed the infant who had consumed all her energies to care for,  ignoring the pain to return to her offspring.

She cautiously stretched her limbs one at a time, and dragged herself off her couch, to make her painful way out into the light.

The light hurt her too after so long; and as she attempted to set off to search for food, she knew that she was doomed to failure.  Dizziness filled her head, and she collapsed on the ground with a little cry. 

 Davy heard the cry and climbed over the stile to see if someone was hurt.  What he saw took his breath away.  A cynical eight-year-old  is not readily impressed, but Davy had to pause for a moment to collect himself before he turned and called.

“Dad!  Dad, come quickly, and bring your vet kit!” he called.  “You got a patient!”

He gave a high pitched giggle that was half nervous; he could not prevent it from escaping.

Richard Marney looked suspiciously at his son.

“What kind of practical joke are you trying to pull, young Davy?” he said.  “Your giggle did rather give it away,” he added apologetically.  It was a shame to quench the lad’s high spirits since his mother had left them for a richer man.

“It’s not a joke, Dad, there is a patient for you, but… but it’s a patient who’s rather outside your normal patients,” said Davy.  The note of urgency in his tone convinced Richard to pick up the case he always kept in the car, and hurry over towards the style.   Davy had already moved forward and was saying,

“It’s ok, my Dad is a vet, and he treats me, and there’s nothing he can’t do!”

Richard wished that this was true, and wondered if he would be treating some female hiker who had hurt herself.  He had trained long enough that he was quite capable of treating humans as well as animals, but some women might throw a hissy fit if confronted with a doctor who was a vet, not a human doctor.

He climbed the stile and gasped.

Davy was approaching the huge, black, reptilian creature with absolute confidence.  It was not a crocodile.  It had wings.  It…

There were no such things as dragons.  It must be a puppet, a hoax.

The stench from the infected wound came to Richard on the light breeze. 

That did not smell like a hoax.

“Here comes Dad,” said Davy.  “You need to let him see the wound, Mr Dragon.”

The dragon opened its eyes.

“Mistress,” she said, in a hissing sort of voice.

“Ooh, you can speak?” Davy was enchanted.

“I wis your sspeech is strange; dis iss the passage of time, I trow,” said the dragon.

“I know some Latin,” said Davy. “Nihil titillandum draco dormiens.”

“Thaet is wise rede, youngling,” the dragon panted, puffs of small flame coming from her nostrils. She hated to trust; but the boy showed no fear or hatred, and nor did the man.  Perplexity was the main scent from him.  She had to trust.  What a ‘vet’ might be, she could not guess, but the boy had, if she had understood him correctly, told her to show the man her wound.  She rolled onto her left side and raised her right arm.

“That’s very nasty, Mistress Dragon,” said Richard, deciding that politeness was always a good policy to any intelligent beast with six inch teeth who could breathe fire.  However unlikely this situation seemed.  “How came you by this wound?”

The dragon hissed, agitated, and smoke billowed.

“I was sore attacked by thaet murrain, Sir George Marney,” she said.  “His despite hath laid sore curse  upon thaet wound.”

“I know that story,” said Davy.  “Some people say the dragon – you – were killed by Sir Bertram de Haye!”

“Thaet was my mate,” said the dragon. “Yt was some turns of thaem seasons before.   Thus had I need to mate wid thaem Essex dragon.”

“I know a story about the Suffolk Black dragon fighting the Essex Red,” said Davy.

“Yt was a rough wooing,” said the dragon.

“You have a young one then?” asked Richard, who was busy cleaning the wound. Keeping her talking would keep her mind from the pain.

“My babe iss still in ye  schelle” said the dragon.  “Dis wound I, thou wilt not heal wid all the erbes in thy care, yt be cursed.”

“But that same George Marney is my ancestor, so I may remove the curse he laid,” said Richard, thinking it easier than holding forth about the wonders of antibiotics.  “I will fetch food for you and for your baby when it hatches.”

“Thaet one of Marney’s blode should be so good heartens me,” said the dragon.  “And I will learn thy language presently , as I learned that of the last time of waking.”

Why Matilda [or Maud] is sometimes known as Maud [or Matilda]

 This refers to the confusion often felt by British children learning about the First British Civil War, also known as ‘The Anarchy’ between Stephan and Matilda in the 12^th Century.  Matilda is also known as Maud, which was the subject of much hilarity in the tongue-in-cheek history book ‘1066 and all that.’

To understand WHY Matilda is sometimes called Maud necessitates a look into the development from the original name that gave rise to both.  This was Mechtild or Machtild, [Machtildis in the Latinised form]  in use several centuries before The Anarchy, being a Germanic name brought by the Franks when they annexed Gaul and gave it their name – France. 

Machtilde is plainly the forerunner of Matilda, it is not hard to see the small changes, the loss of the gargle in the middle to bring it into a recognisable state.  But why Maud? That requires the acceptance that the French don’t speak like we do, and the mass of the Gaulish people somewhat usurped the Frankish names in the same way that the English usurped the Norman French names and over time changed them.

The Norman French, being Viking in origin, also had a different way of pronouncing things and quite cheerfully imported Mactilde along with all its variants.  One of which had been treated to the French way of speaking from the front of the mouth, losing not only the gargle but the hard ‘t’ in the middle of the word,  and going via Mahild to Maheld, and not liking much to pronounce ‘ld’ either [cf Baldwin which is Bauduin in Old French] came up with the most common form of the name in most of France in the middle ages, Maheut.  Remember the French may put an ‘h’ in, but they do not bother to use it.  And remember too that the English had the habit of stuffing a ‘d’ on the end of words whether it seemed necessary or not. 

So, the version of this the Normans brought was Mahaut , pronounced more or less like a cat mew, Maauw.  Stick the excrescent ‘d’ on and you have Maud, pronounced, as it was then in the continental way of pronouncing au, or as close as I can get, Mowd. In early Norman documents the form 'Mald' also appears,

as the English also have a habit of introducing excrescent ‘l’, or in this case, I suppose, re-introducing it, the gentle reader should not be surprised that one of the pet names for Maud was Mould. 

Norman versions of the name Matilda: Mathilde, Maltilde, Mactilde, Matill, Mautild, Mahalt, Mahaud, Mahild, Mald

By 1499, the English had managed to do this to it: Mat(h)ilde, Maud,Maddy, Tilly,  Mathild, Mactildis, Mechtilda, Mazelina, Mahalt, Mahald, Mahaud, Mald, Molde(en), Mauld, Moude, Motte, Till(ot)

This is going to form part of an appendix on Norman names in the big name book, which is growing all the time.  I WILL get there... tracking down source books is what's holding me back right now.

A few thoughts on Norman French and its effects on modern English

I have a Norman French dictionary out of the library.  It’s not a brilliant or extensive dictionary, being a 1978 reprint of the 1779 dictionary by Robert Kelham, and it’s faithfully printed with long ‘s’ too, but it is better than nothing.  The more up-to-date version, taking advantage – I presume – of the collating of documents begun in Directoire France costs £75 so that ain’t about to be flying off my wishlist and into the post.  I can only assume that the county library felt the same way, and since I’m the second person ever to have taken this book out, one can see their point.

Anyway, so much for the drivel about me getting out a dictionary to try to translate the professions given in the Paris 1292 census for my name book, other than to note that there are signal differences between the early French in the dictionary and the later French in the census, which stands between it, and modern French.  I thought that was interesting in its own way, because it is a bit like using an Old English dictionary to translate Chaucer… except for the fact that I read Middle English reasonably happily and Old English with a lot of swearing.  I managed to extrapolate quite a lot. 

So, on to the meat of this essay.  I found a few words that fascinated me, and thought I’d share.  We are all familiar with the fact that French has influenced English, but what I wanted to look at are a few words which have changed, sometimes significantly, in French.

One thing I have noticed is a simple change of letter, Acrire in Norman French is now Ecrire, to write; boteau, a boat is now bateau,  and so on.  Sometimes letter order changes too; furmage is cheese in Norman French which is fromage in modern French.  This  all tends to indicate a degree of change in the pronunciation which I find interesting, but mindful that I have weird interests I shall pursue it no further than a brief mention here!

Oriel:  ear.  Modern French, Oreille.  I therefore wonder if an oriel window was thus named because it stuck out like an ear, and the spelling remained in English for the window while the word in French changed.  This was the word which first caught my attention, and I went on a quick search to see if there were others.

Alm: soul.  Modern French âme, esprit.   Did this influence alms for the poor, alms houses being initially places whereby a rich man could make the eye of his needle bigger as it were by buying his soul into heaven?

Barat: fraud, deceit.  Modern French, tromperie, fraude.   From which I am certain derived that crime which requires a nation of sailors to invent, barratry, which means, for those people of less larcenous turn of mind than a mystery writer, insurance fraud perpetrated by selling a cargo on the sly and scuttling the ship to claim any insurance on it, perhaps by destroying a leaky old tub declared well-found.  Lloyds of London did not invent insurance, the Lombards did insure cargoes and ships in the middle ages.

Bote: aid, help, advantage.  Modern French, aide, benefice.  I know bote is a purely Medieval word but it was a vital one for the peasantry who might be granted house-bote or fire-bote to gather wood in the lord’s woodland to mend their house or burn on the fire.

Covynes: secret meeting places.  No modern French single word equivalent that I can find.  Presumably this became the root for covens, and was attached purely to witches.  A note in passing though, is that the word ‘covine’ which is an Old French word I just happen to have in my mental lexicon, means a fraud, and which I postulate comes from the same root. 

A note in passing, it is from Norman French that the now OLD spellings of such words as connexion, confexion and complexion arise; these, whilst still correct English in England connexion and confexion at least is now passing for the American spelling connection and confection. Confexion has, indeed, disappeared.   Interestingly our 1779 lawyer translates ‘conexes’ as ‘connections’ although Jane Austen was using the spelling with an x in it. 

Coste: collateral.  Modern French has collatéral  or coût , but we still use ‘cost’ for collateral damage – “the cost in human lives is incalculable” in journalese.

Glebe:  a piece of land, used unchanged in English for the piece of land belonging to the church.

Hobyns: hobbies.  Le hobby as well as le passe-temps is still used in modern French but what amazed me was to see ‘hobby’ used in 1779, as I was under the impression that this was a later word, and that ‘avocation’ was more correct until the mid 19^th century.  Further research has revealed that hobby-horse is attested to be used for an avocation in the 1670’s, and supposedly was shortened to ‘hobby’ in 1816.  However, with the use of the word in 1779,  perhaps this pushes the use of the word back further.  Fascinating!  Unless of course my author meant the falcon called a hobby… but my English dictionary gives the Old French derivation of that as ‘hobé’.  I think by 1779 a reference to the small sturdy horse which is also called a hobby would probably be sufficiently obsolete that my dictionary writer would feel obliged to explain it.   An interesting paradox.  My personal feeling is that a lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn, like Mr Kelham, who uses a modish spelling like ‘connection’ is likely to be in touch with the most up-to-date use of words, so perhaps hobbies, meaning avocations, really is the meaning here. 

Humblesse: humility. Modern French humilité; modestie.  The word humble would appear to so derive.  The derivation of ‘to eat humble pie’ is a little less obvious, since this refers to a pie made of the offal of deer, known as ‘umbles’.  Eating umble pie was to be eating far from the most choice cuts.

Another interesting note, Robert Kelham has ‘moultons’ translated as ‘weathers’ by which he must surely mean ‘wethers’.  Moulton is sufficiently close to the modern French word ‘mouton’ for sheep, and a wether is a castrated male sheep kept for the wool.  Un Owaille is given as ‘a sheep’, and with the male article, but it is not hard to see where ewe comes from.

Prigner: to take. Modern French, prendre.  I include this one for the Georgette Heyer fans who love her cant,  and my Felicia and Robin fans to demonstrate the origins of the cant phrase‘a prigger of purses’ a pickpocket.  To prig was to steal…

Verek: wreck. Modern French navire naufragé, épave.  Verek to wreck is not a big leap when v and w were often interchangeable. 

Well, this is a bit of a gallimaufry, but I hope enjoyable for all that. 

None so Blind, Regency Romance, is published!

Lovely but blind Penelope Eltringham’s surprise meeting with the shocking Lord Shawthorpe leads to a misunderstanding that angers both of them.

Despite this poor beginning, Penelope finds herself inexplicably drawn to him.

Under the aegis of her grandmother, heiress Penelope finds her blindness no drawback during her season in London, thanks in great part to the help of the dashing, if maybe dangerous, Lord Shawthorpe.  Guy, Lord Shawthorpe,  must overcome Penelope’s grandmother’s suspicions of his intentions if he hopes to win the hand of the girl who has so surprisingly captivated his heart.

And there's not a trace of Austen in sight, nor any inspiration drawn from Heyer.  This is entirely independent... 

Find it on Amazon.uk here or amazon.com here