A history of the English Language

78.
Scandinavian Influence outside the Standard Speech.
We should miss the full significance of the Scandinavian influence if we failed to 
recognize the extent to which it is found outside the standard speech. Our older literature 
and the modern dialects are full of words that are not now in ordinary use. The ballads 
offer many examples. When the 
Geste of Robin Hood
begins “
Lythe
and listin, 
gentilmen” it has for its first word an Old Norse synonym for 
listen
. When a little later on 
the Sheriff of Nottingham says to Little John, “Say me no we, 
wight
yonge man, What is 
nowe thy name?” he uses the ON 
vigt
(strong, courageous). In the ballad of 
Captain Car
the line “
Busk
and 
bowne,
my merry men all” contains two words from the same source 
meaning 
prepare
. The word 
gar,
meaning 
to cause
or 
make one do something,
is of 
frequent occurrence. Thus, in 
Chevy Chace
we are told of Douglas’ men that “Many a 
doughetë the(y) 
garde
to dy”—that is, they made many a doughty man die. In 
Robin 
Hood and Guy of Gisborne
the Virgin Mary is addressed: “Ah, deere Lady! sayd Robin 
Hoode, Thou art both mother and 
may
!” in which 
may
is a Scandinavian form for 
maid
. 
Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, in the ballad of that name, “
bigget
a bower on yon burn-
brae,” employing in the process another word of Norse origin, 
biggen
(to build), a word 
also used by Burns in 
To a Mouse:
“Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!…And naething now 
to big a new ane.” In Burns and Scott we find the comparative 
worse
in the form 
waur:
“A’ the warld kens that they maun either marry or do waur” (
Old Mortality
), also an old 
word (ON 
verre
) more commonly found in the form used by Chaucer in the 
Book of the 
Duchess:
“Allas! how myghte I fare werre?” Examples could be multiplied, but it is 
sufficiently evident that there is much Scandinavian material in the dialects besides what 
has found its way into the standard speech.