This last tree is the
one which Chaucer called the _asp_ in l. 180 of his _Parliament of
Fowls_, but in modern times the adjectival suffix _-en_ (as in
_gold-en_, _wood-en_) has been tacked on to it, and it is now the
_aspen_.
The interpretation of these ancient glosses requires very great care,
but they afford a considerable number of interesting results, and are
therefore valuable, especially as they give us spellings of the eighth
century, which are very scarce.
One of the oldest specimens of Old Mercian that affords intelligible
sentences is known as the "Lorica Prayer," because it occurs in the
same MS. (Ll. 1. 10 in the Cambridge University Library) as the
"Lorica Glosses," or the glosses which accompany a long Latin prayer,
really a charm, called "lorica" or "breast-plate," because it was
recited thrice a day to protect the person who used it from all
possible injury and accident. I give this Prayer as illustrating the
state of our language about A.D. 850.
And the georne gebide gece and miltse fore alra his haligra
gewyrhtum and ge-earningum and boenum be [hiwe]num, tha the _domino
deo_ gelicedon from fruman middan-geardes; thonne gehereth he thec
thorh hiora thingunge.
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