There are also a few Charters extant in the Mercian dialect, but the
earliest contain little else than old forms of the names of persons
and places. There are, however, some later Charters, from 836 to 1058
in the Mercian dialect, which contain some boundaries of lands and
afford other information. Most of these relate to Worcestershire.
But the most interesting Mercian glosses are those to be found in
the Rushworth MS., which has already been mentioned as containing
Northumbrian glosses of the Latin Gospels of St Mark, St Luke, and St
John. For the Gospel of St Matthew was glossed by the scribe Farman,
who was a priest of Harewood, situate on the river Wharfe, in the West
Riding of Yorkshire; whose language, accordingly, was Mercian. In my
_Principles of English Etymology, First Series_ (second edition,
1892), p. 44, I gave a list of words selected from these glosses, in
order to show how much nearer they stand, as a rule, to modern English
than do the corresponding Anglo-Saxon forms. I here repeat this list,
as it is very instructive. The references, such as "5.
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