9 th S. I. MAR. 12, '98.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
215
2. Mid.E. sibreden; Stratmann's 'M.E.
] )ict.,' p. 546 ; sybrede, ' Prompt. Parvulorum,'
]. 545 (see Way's note, where a false and
i npossible etymology is given).
3. Later, sibbered, sibberedge ; Ray's ' Glos-
has the misses the
whereby " beat " was pared off by the hand.
The process is thus referred to in Fitzher-
bert's ' Book of Husbandry,' 1534, ed. Skeat
p. 17:
"And in some countreys, if a man plowe depe, he shall passe the good grounde, and haue but lyttel corne : but that countrey is not for men to kepe husbandry vppon, but for to rere and brede catell
4. Spelt sibrit, Sir Thos. Browne ; see the
?ame reference.
5. See
Cornewayle, and in som places of Deuonshyre.
from A.-S. sibb, correctly, yet actually fails
to understand the suffix -rede, though it is
1. -red, and occurs both i]
6. Explained in my larger 'Etymological
Dictionary,' s.v. ' Gossip.'
7. Explained, s.v. ' Sibred,' with two quota-
etymology, in the
During a recent perusal of the Court Rolls
^ or Q Sheffield i h ave sometimes
iicu wini mattock land." Thus in 1626 the jury found that William Bullos died seised (inter alia)
de et in uno alio messuagio, et octo acris terre
fact that some doubt still remains is
somewhat strange. I think it is high time
to give up paying any regard whatever to
ridiculous suggestions like si quis sciverit,
which are unsupported by evidence, and
phonetically impossible. There is no longer
any reason for troubling ourselves with re-
futing such wild guesses, which have long
ceased to command admiration. We have
got beyond the period when guesses were
most esteemed when they were most inge-
nious, i.e., when they demanded very much
from our credulity, and required miracles of
phonetic change. The blessed word "cor-
ruption " no longer accounts, as it once did,
for surgical operations upon language.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
Mattock land quondam Johannis Osgathorpe, cum
pertinenciis, infra socam de Sowthey tent' per
copiam rotlor' curie predicte, ac de et in duabus
parcellis terre vocate Infurland et Streete place,
nuper libere tent'."
( 9 th
the of dispersion (J
and the German
?uestion in vain in ' N. & Q.' years ago, and
have never been able to make out its
meaning. It is, however, of frequent occur-
rence both in the Sheffield Court Rolls and
elsewhere. " Infurland " is, perhaps, equiva-
lent to "foreland." The verb scale, in the
sense of to pare land, appears to be given in
Halliwell, who says that in Norfolk to " scale
in " is to plough in with a shallow furrow.
The Greek o-KaAAeti/, to clear the surface of
the ground, to hoe, and <r/caAt's, a hoe, may
be compared. In hilly country the Romans
used the sarculum, or hoe, instead of a plough
/T)1C 4 XT TT * -.1- *-r-!-C-! 1 f\ jti l *7O\ C5, 1_
scalinga means pared land, or land which
was pared with a beat-axe, mattock, or
paring-spade.
Land treated in this way was sometimes
said to be floated* which means pared, and
is identical with fleeted, skimmed, used in
the phrase " to fleet milk." In my ' Sheffield
Glossary' (E.D.S.), p. 169, I have given
an account, too long to be quoted here,
the paring-spade and the way in which
used. It was, in fact, a breast-plough,
I for the same purpose as a beat -axe,
the
- Compare fleyland in Prof. VinogradofFs ' Vil-
linage in England,' p f 170.
that the mediaeval Latin scalinga
"particularly to land brought under
^"^h upon a hillside." The "plough,"
was a breast-plough, hoe, or mat-
tock.
According to Prof. Skeat, " mattock " is a tic origin. Was it used by an ^eople on English hillsides? In SoutH Yorkshire it occurs as a surname.
S. O. ADDY.
In a charter referring to Hinksey, in Berkshire (Birch, 'Cartularium Saxonicum,' No. 1002; Kemble, 'Codex Diplomatics, ' No. 1216), a pond or river-course (lacu) is said to be on a scalinga. This proves that a scalinga
