N.A.M. Oosterlee

By N.A.M. Oosterlee, The Medieval Skald, Blog Entry III

“Lyke Wake Dirge¹—

This æ nighte, this æ nighte.

I shall be grateful for information concerning this “Lyke Wake Dirge”. What is its date? In The Songs of the North, it is said to belong to the North of England. How should “nighte” and “lighte” be pronounced? I have been told that it is a Scots ballad, in which case these words would be pronounced, I should imagine, “nicht” and “licht”. Where are there any notes on the ballad? I have found it in several collections, but without notes on it, except in one collection, which classed it among supernatural ballads, and said it voiced a belief common to Asiatic and European people” (Rankine, 1916).

After over a hundred years, I finally found this stuffed and confused reference entry of this seemingly worried individual. In this blog’s entry, I want to dedicate my attention towards this ’supernatural’ ballad. Does it, indeed, come from an ancient tradition and mythology? My narrative shall be following each single one of Rankine’s stated questions that are enlisted above.

What is its date?

At first glance, I was genuinely thrilled and amused by observing its language. While plunging through the online archive of the university’s library, the results of gathering some intel were rather slim in quantity on this poem’s research. I must say that I did not know anything about its existence as well until fairly recently. Although the poem did not obtain the public spotlight, the place of its origins might provide us with another interesting historical event on the British Isles. Why? Well, looking at the poem’s lyrics, I immediately see that this language dates from the Late Middle English period. Significantly, this poem was created within the gradual shift towards present-day English. I first guess this poem was written during the late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Although it is given the title of the Scottish Lyke-Wake Dirge, I am not convinced to address it particularly towards ‘Scottish’ origin. Differences between English and Scottish orthography are becoming problematic to distinguish as time passes on: “The standardisation of English is often taken to begin in the fifteenth century… Scholars who focus on geographical variation may consider written English to be largely ‘standardised’ by 1500; at the same time, written language continues to be highly variable well into the seventeenth century” (Stenroos, 2013).²

Whereas the Middle Scots Selden MS, whose texts are approximately outlined to the entire decade of 1470-80, demonstrate verses with distinctive Scottish spelling features, this presumed ‘Scottish’ ballad does not have any of these. According to T.W. Machan, recurring Middle Scots features are: “<quh> for <wh>, <su> for <sw>, <ʒ> for <g> or <y>, <cht> for <ght>, and word-final <is> for <es> and <it> for <ed>” (Machan, 2016). Another intriguing feature of the poem is the scribe’s usage of the inflectional suffix (-e) for some nouns (e.g., nighte, Christe, saule, etc.). Traditionally, this lingual custom once served a greater purpose in Old English than in later stages of the language. Old English was a synthetic language which depended massively on morphological case inflexions at the end of lexemes. Whereas in Present-day English, we can easily distribute our words through the employment of syntactical formulae, speakers of Old English need to assign cases through the use of morphological affixes to demonstrate a correlation and ‘make sense’ between the sentence’s words. While still appearing at times in Middle English, this intermediate stage in the language is known as the one where English makes its shift from a synthetic to an analytic language. As a result, there are still some instances where these suffixes occur in Middle English texts. However, they do not happen to be in them as they grammatically would in Old English: “… final -e as a singular adjectival grammatical marker in Late Middle English appeared intact only as a result of the complex interaction between syntax, morphology, and the requirements of the speech rhythm” (Minkova, 1990).³ While a grammatically inflected adjectival is mentioned here, it may as well be true for this poem’s nouns. Middle English dialects are also hard to distinguish at times: “Middle English has traditionally been defined as a set of ‘dialects’ in the sense that the language is characterised by a high degree of variation, and a considerable number of linguistic variants can be identified as regionally marked” (Williamson, 2012).⁴

The Legacy of Vikings in Northern England & Scotland

The Northern part of England and many Scottish grounds were once ruled under the name of the Danelaw Area. If this poem, indeed, hails from the North, I can examine the place’s lingual history to find some help in this investigation. As the name implies, this was an area where some of the emigrated Scandinavians had their domination and ‘homestead’ in both respected England and Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remains to be one of the greater sources of Viking activity:

“886:

…Ðy ilcan geare gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburh, ⁊ him eall ængelcyn to gecyrde ⁊ butan Dæniscra manna hæftnede wæs, ⁊ he þa befæste þa burh æþelrede ealdorman to healdenne.”⁵

“That same year King Alfred repaired London; and all the English submitted to him, except those who were under the bondage of the Danish men; and then he committed the town to the keeping of Ethered the ealdorman” (Giles, 1914).⁶

This excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle denotes the aftermath of one of the more famous battles between the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian forces: “The Battle of London”. Although it has nothing to do with Northern England here, the Chronicle refers to a place which is not serving any English hands at all, but rather they are dominated by foreign Danish ones. The manner of this message seems to be alluding to the idea that the Southerners completely lost their connection with the Anglo-Saxons living among the borders of the Danelaw Area. Returning to Lyke Wake Dirge, I want to demonstrate where this poem originates from. The Northern dialect of Middle English, which directly hails from the once-Danish habitat, is generally accepted to be the dialect which harbours the most Nordic features above all the others. This is, of course, also logical due to its previous inhabitants and their bilingual communities. When quickly scoping the poem’s lyrics, there are two words which immediately stood out to me, and those are the ones of the compound noun “whinny-muir” and the deviated form for ‘bones’; “bane”. The rest of its vocabulary remains fairly intact to ‘standard’ grammatical words or Germanic lexemes. There are some instances where there are Latin loan words (“to pass” and “Purgatory”) and Old French ones (‘to receive’, and ‘brig’), but in contrast to other Middle English works, the text displays a lot more words that find their origin from Germanic languages. Whether this will aid in determining the poem’s time and location of composition, must be taken into some pondering thought at the least. To establish the two noticeable nouns’ etymologies, I consulted the Middle English Compendium (MEC), and that is where I stumbled upon some interesting findings concerning the two nouns. The first one “Whinny-muir” is a compound noun which consists of the digestible noun parts “whinny” and “muir”. The first noun derives from the verb “to whine” which, according to the MEC, could either originate from Old English and Middle Dutch bearing the meaning of “to weep” or from Old Norse associating it to the concept of “to wail”. Before strolling down any further, I would like to take a brief moment to contemplate the difference semantically between the two verbs. Weeping is a far less condition to be in than wailing. Whereas the former can be done subtly and without making a lot of noise, the latter is associated with a louder performance of expressing pain and torment. When regarding the context of the poem, the act of wailing seems more likely than it is with someone’s weeping. This should mean that the poet meant the Old Norse connotation. The second part of the compound noun is ‘muir’. The MEC relates the deviated word form with “mīre” which stems from the Old Norse/Icelandic “myrr”; meaning ‘bog’ or ‘marsh’. As an epic compound noun, they will then unite as “wailing bog/marsh” with both lingual particles finding their root in Old Norse. The other word that caught my attention was ‘bane’. Present-day English speakers might immediately connect this word to the modern ‘bane’ which means a state of “a cause of continuous trouble or unhappiness”.⁷ However, it would be peculiar to burn someone to the state of bane; although hell is often depicted as this. The songwriter is hinting towards the bones which make up our physical skeletons. Middle English is known to be quite varied in orthography due to it being based on phonology. The Old Norse word for ‘bones’ is ‘bein’, which is exactly how you would pronounce ‘bane’ today. By having some Old Norse interventions in the author’s text, it seems more likely that this text originates from the former Danelaw Area in England and Scotland.

Supernatural Ballad; ‘Exotic’

The little information that I have received concerning this ‘ancient’ song of the dead is marking its design and narrative as ‘pagan’ and ‘from another time’. After multiple readings and hearings of its lyrics, I want to stress that there is nothing exotic or pagan about the song. Naturally, both these terms are there to cause dispute; for they are generally subjective to any given individual. However, the song’s lyrics are foretelling the medieval catholic belief of the soul’s transfer to the afterlife. In specific, this is true for ‘Christian’ souls; for the song mentions ‘Purgatory’ and the cleansing of one’s sins through fire and endeavours on plains of grave grief and sorrow. There once was a poet whom I will now recite:

“They did not sin. And if they have some worth,

That is not enough, since they were not baptised:

Baptism is essential in your faith” (Dante, Inferno IV, lines 34-6).

When someone offers the conversational topic of Purgatory, it is fairly easy to find yourself talking about Dante’s The Divine Comedy (1321 A.D.). Within his epic, Dante divides the afterlife into three chunks for the passed souls to wander about: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradise. As a product of medieval Christianity, Dante mentions that one layer of the abyss eternal and fixed is for the souls ‘burning’ there: the Inferno. Deceased people who did not turn to Christianity in their lives will forever be condemned to that place of horror and vice. Ironically, Dante also decided to place every Ancient Greek in there such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Achilles, Odysseus, etc. Luckily, there is a solution for those who trust in Christ and his Father:

“Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and that fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abides which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he, himself, shall be saved; yet, so as by fire” (Corinthians 3: 13-15).

In Lyke Wake Dirge, it is this topic of “Purgatory” which takes the central stage. If you gave kindness to humanity the fire shall make you stronger, but if you have lived a greedy life this fire shall torch it away. It is the idea that Purgatory is inevitable for mankind; for a human being shall always carry out some sin. After the flames have extinguished all the individual’s sins, the soul is ready to depart from Purgatory onto Paradise. Purgatory is then an intermediate stage. The topic of the poem is not anything new and exotic, but it rather draws much from Christian theology.

Possible Location

Although I have questioned the claimed Scottish origin of the lyric, I must return to this for I have found another detail which can aid in determining the location of the composition:

““The extremes would be works written primarily in either Scots or some form of English and arrayed between them is what might be called the interlinguistic marches: works written in a language neither entirely Scots nor entirely English that somehow depends on and elides any easy distinctions between the varieties… An array of ballads suggest this transitional space had its own culture, apart from what might be called distinctively Scots or English sentiments, which themselves traversed the border in an array of literary genres, narratives, texts, and motifs” (Machan, 2016).

This will then also account for the poem’s ‘oddness’ and deviation from other Middle English dialects. Thus, although the specific location remains unclear because of the text’s cross-linguistic features amongst the various Middle English dialects, I dare to say that we are dealing here with a piece of literature from the North of Britain with a rough dating of the early sixteenth century.

Works cited

Cambridge, Cambridge Online Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org, Cambridge University Press.

Carroll, R., &, Prickett, S., The Bible: Authorised King James Version, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Dante, A., The Divine Comedy, a new translation done by J.G. Nichols, Alma Classics, 2012.

Giles, J.A., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; edited, from the Translation in Monumenta Historica Britannica and other versions, London, G. Bells and Sons, LTD., 1914.

Lewis, R.E., et al., Middle English Dictionary, Arbor, A: University of Michigan Press, 1952-2001. Online edition in Middle English Compendium. Ed. McSparran, F., et al., Arbor, A: University of Michigan Library, 2000-2018, <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/&gt;.

Machan, T.W., Dialect Boundaries and Dialect Translation: The Case of Middle Scots and Middle English, Anglia, vol. 134, no. 4, p. 617-638, 2016.

Minkova, D., Adjectival inflection relics and speech rhythm in Late Middle and Early Modern English, Adamson, S., Law, V.A., Vincent, N., and Wright, S., editors, Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987, 313-336, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Peter, S., More About Brittany: its Customs, its People, and its Poems: The Departure of the Soul: Soul. Body. Soul. Body. Soul. Body. Soul. Body. Soul. Body. Soul., Scottish Lyke-Wake Dirge, Ann Drouk-Rans: or, The Rupture. 1873. In Catholic world (1865) (Vol. 18, Issue 103, p. 111-). American Periodicals Series III.

Rankine, R.L., Lyle Wake Dirge, Notes and Queries, Volume s12-I, Issue 14, 1 April 1916, Page 268, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s12-I.14.268e

Stenroos, M., Identity and Intelligibility in Late Middle English Scribal Transmission: Local Dialect as an Active Choice in Fifteenth-Century Texts, Scribes as agents of language change 10, De Gruyter, 2013.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Manuscript D, Worcester Chronicle, British Library, London, Cotton Tiberius B. iv.

Williamson, K., Chapter 31: Middle English Dialects, p. 480-505, English historical linguistics: an international handbook. Volume 1, De Gruyter Mouton, 2012.

1. This is the poem as is found in MORE ABOUT BRITTANY: ITS CUSTOMS, ITS PEOPLE, AND ITS POEMS: THE DEPARTURE OF THE SOUL SOUL. BODY. SOUL. BODY. SOUL. BODY. SOUL. BODY. SOUL. BODY. SOUL. S. PETER. SCOTTISH LYKE-WAKE DIRGE. ANN DROUK-RANS: OR, THE RUPTURE. (1873). In Catholic world (1865) (Vol. 18, Issue 103, pp. 111-). American Periodicals Series III.
   Scottish Lyke-Wake Dirge
   “This æ nighte, this æ nighte,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   Fire, an’ sleet, an’ candle-light,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “When thou from hence away art paste,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   To whinny-muir thou comest at laste,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “If ever thou gavest hosen or shoon,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   Sit thee down an’ put them on,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “If hosen an’ shoon thou never gavest nane,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   The whinnes shal prick thee to the bare bane,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “From whinny-muir when thou mayest passe,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   To Brig o’ Dread thou comest at laste,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “If ever thou gavest meate or drinke,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   The fire shall never make thee shrinke,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “From Brig o’ Dread when thou mayest passe,
   Every night an’ alle,
   To Purgatory fire thou comest at laste,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule.
   “If meat or drink thou never gavest nane,
   Every nighte an’ alle,
   The fire will burn thee to the bare bane,
   An’ Christe receive thy saule”. ↩
   
2. Stenroos, M., Identity and intelligibility in Late Middle English scribal transmission: local dialect as an active choice in fifteenth-century texts, Scribes as agents of language change 10, De Gruyter, 2013. ↩
3. Minkova, D., Adjectival inflection relics and speech rhythm in Late Middle and Early Modern English, Adamson, S., Law, V.A., Vincent, N., and Wright, S., editors, Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987, 313-336, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ↩
4. Williamson, K., Chapter 31: Middle English: Dialects, P. 480-505, English historical linguistics: an international handbook. Volume 1, De Gruyter Mouton, 2012. ↩
5. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Manuscript D, Worcester Chronicle, British Library, London, Cotton Tiberius B. iv. ↩
6. Giles, J.A., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; edited, from the Translation in Monumenta Historica Britannica and other versions, London, G. Bells and Sons, LTD., 1914. ↩
7. Cambridge Online Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org, Cambridge University Press. ↩