Notes.--Miss Jackson adds the pronunciation, in glossic
notation. There is no sound of initial _h_. _Scrike_, shriek;
_sid_, seed, i.e. saw; _pecked_, pitched, fallen headlong;
_bruck_, brook; _douked_, ducked; _'out_, hold; _bonk_, bank;
_wham_, home; _wunna_, was not; _winder-rags_, shreds; _djed_,
dead; _toud_, told; _what'n'ee_, what do you; _a nour_, an hour;
_sid_, seen; _lung_, long; _wun_, were.
SOUTHERN (Group 2): WILTSHIRE.
The following well-known Wiltshire fable is from _Wiltshire
Tales_, by J. Yonge Akerman (1853). I give it as it stands in the
Preface to Halliwell's Dictionary; omitting the "Moral."
The Harnet and the Bittle.
A harnet zet in a hollur tree--
A proper spiteful twoad was he;
And a merrily zung while he did zet
His stinge as shearp as a bagganet;
Oh, who so vine and bowld as I?
I vears not bee, nor wapse, nor vly!
A bittle up thuck tree did clim,
And scarnvully did look at him;
Zays he, "Zur harnet, who giv thee
A right to zet in thuck there tree?
Vor ael you zengs so nation vine,
I tell 'e 'tis a house o' mine!"
The harnet's conscience velt a twinge,
But grawin' bowld wi' his long stinge,
Zays he, "Possession's the best laaw;
Zo here th' sha'sn't put a claaw!
Be off, and leave the tree to me,
The mixen's good enough for thee!"
Just then a yuckel, passin' by,
Was axed by them the cause to try;
"Ha! ha! I zee how 'tis!" zays he,
"They'll make a vamous munch vor me!"
His bill was shearp, his stomach lear,
Zo up a snapped the caddlin' pair!
Notes.
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