Robert Falconer :: FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:

1 (return)
[ In Scotch the ch and gh are almost always guttural. The gh according to Mr. Alexander Ellis, the sole authority in the past pronunciation of the country, was guttural in England in the time of Shakspere.]

2 (return)
[ An exclamation of pitiful sympathy, inexplicable to the understanding. Thus the author covers his philological ignorance of the cross-breeding of the phrase.]

3 (return)
[ Extra—over all—ower a'—orra—one more than is wanted.]

4 (return)
[ Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur. Atque animum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illuc. Ã†neid: IV. 285]

5 (return)
[ This line is one of many instances in which my reader will see both the carelessness of Ericson and my religion towards his remains.]

6 (return)
[ Why should Sir Walter Scott, who felt the death of Camp, his bullterrier, so much that he declined a dinner engagement in consequence, say on the death of his next favourite, a grayhound bitch—'Rest her body, since I dare not say soul!'? Where did he get that dare not? Is it well that the daring of genius should be circumscribed by an unbelief so common-place as to be capable only of subscription?]

7 (return)
[ Amongst Ericson's papers I find the following sonnets, which belong to the mood here embodied:

Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am I
Thrust out at sudden doors, and madly driven
Through desert solitudes, and thunder-riven
Black passages which have not any sky.
The scourge is on me now, with all the cry
Of ancient life that hath with murder striven.
How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven!
How many a hand in prayer been lifted high
When the black fate came onward with the rush
Of whirlwind, avalanche, or fiery spume!
Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tomb
Beneath the waves; or else with solemn hush
The graveyard opens, and I feel a crush
As if we were all huddled in one doom.

Comes there, O Earth, no breathing time for thee?
No pause upon thy many-chequered lands?
Now resting on my bed with listless hands,
I mourn thee resting not. Continually
Hear I the plashing borders of the sea
Answer each other from the rocks and sands.
Troop all the rivers seawards; nothing stands,
But with strange noises hasteth terribly.
Loam-eared hyenas go a moaning by.
Howls to each other all the bloody crew
Of Afric's tigers. But, O men, from you
Comes this perpetual sound more loud and high
Than aught that vexes air. I hear the cry
Of infant generations rising too.]

8 (return)
[ This sonnet and the preceding are both one line deficient.]

9 (return)
[ To these two sonnets Falconer had appended this note: 'Something I wrote to Ericson concerning these, during my first college vacation, produced a reply of which the following is a passage: “On writing the first I was not aware that James and John were the Sons of Thunder. For a time it did indeed grieve me to think of the spiritual-minded John as otherwise than a still and passionless lover of Christ.”']

Note from John Bechard, creator of this Electronic text.

The following is a list of Scottish words which are found in George MacDonald's “Robert Falconer”. I have compiled this list myself and worked out the definitions from context with the help of Margaret West, from Leven in Fife, Scotland, and also by referring to a word list found in a collection of poems by Robert Burns, “Chamber's Scots Dialect Dictionary from the 17th century to the Present” c. 1911 and “Scots-English English-Scots Dictionary” Lomond Books c. 1998. I have tried to be as thorough as possible given the limited resources and welcome any feedback on this list which may be wrong (my e-mail address is JaBBechard@aol.com). This was never meant to be a comprehensive list of the National Scottish Language, but rather an aid to understanding some of the conversations and references in this text in the Broad Scots. I do apologise for any mistakes or omissions. I aimed for my list to be very comprehensive, and it often repeats the same word in a plural or diminutive form. As well, it includes words that are quite obvious to native English speakers, only spelled in such a way to demonstrate the regional pronunciation.

This list is a compressed form that consists of three columns for 'word', 'definition', and 'additional notes'. It is set up with a comma between each item and a hard return at the end of each definition. This means that this section could easily be cut and pasted into its own text file and imported into a database or spreadsheet as a comma separated variable file (.csv file). Failing that, you could do a search and replace for commas in this section (I have not used any commas in my words, definitions or notes) and replace the commas with spaces or tabs.

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