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Dream Words in Old and Middle English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edward C. Ehrensperger
Edward C. Ehrensperger*
Affiliation:
Wellesley College
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Extract

In Middle English, or rather beginning with Old English and coming down to about 1500, including all works listed by J. E. Wells in his Manual of the Writings in Middle English, there are approximately 553 dream references. By dream references are meant actual dreams or remarks made about dreams which throw light on the attitude of the time toward dreams. Repeated references to the same dream are counted as a single reference. Of these references, 59 occur in Old English and 494 in Middle English. Old Norse is even richer than Middle English in dream references, no less than 530 being found. The large number of dream references in Old Norse is all the more significant in view of the smaller bulk of Old Norse literature in comparison with Middle English.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 1931 , pp. 80 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931

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References

page 80 note 1 It is of course impossible to present lists of all these dream references here, but they will be supplied to anyone interested.

page 80 note 2 Many of the forms in Middle English are participles.

page 80 note 3 Dates of works dealt with in this paper are taken from Wells' Manual referred to at the beginning. In some cases, always indicated, other authorities are followed.

page 80 note 4 Other examples in Layamon occur in lines 1823, 11575, 22886, 23945. Another example is found in “On God Vreisun of Ure Lefdi” line 27 (EETS, Or. Ser. 29) where the verb dreamed is used in the sense of rejoice.

page 80 note 5 Ed. Richard Morris, EETS, Or. Ser. 7.

page 80 note 6 The Lay of Havelok, Clarendon Press, 2nd ed. 1915, p. xxv.

page 80 note 7 Cf. for example the use of drem in the Old English sense in line 1339: “Saber wep and made drem.”

page 80 note 8 Ed. EETS, Ext. Ser. 59, p. 614.

page 80 note 9 The Testament of Love, ed. Skeat, Oxford Chaucer, VII, 4.

page 80 note 10 Festial of John Mirk, EETS, Ext. Ser. 96, p. 196, ll. 18 and 34.

page 80 note 11 Gospel of Nicodemus, EETS, Ext. Ser. 100, p. 197.

page 80 note 12 Cotton Vespasian A III. Göttingen Un. Lib. Theol., 107; Trinity College Cbg. R 38; Fairfax 14. From a study of the dream language of the Cursor Mundi manuscripts it is quite clear that dialect influences had nothing to do with the development of dream language.

page 80 note 13 “Sir Aldingar” (Child, Engl. and Scot. Pop. Ballads, No. 59) has two of the sweuen forms; “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” (No. 118) has one.

page 80 note 14 Webster's Unabridged Dict. under Dream.

page 80 note 15 Acting perhaps on this suggestion of Vigfusson, O. F. Emerson in his History of the English Language, p. 154, says that the modern word dream is due to Norse influence. E. Bjorkman in his Scandinavian Loan-words in Middle English, p. 11, refers to Emerson's statement, and merely asks: “Is it possible to explain M.E. drem ‘dream’ through Scandinavian influence?”

page 80 note 16 Printed from MS. Arundel 292 in Rel. Ant. I, 240.

page 80 note 17 See Vigfusson's Dictionary under swefn.

page 80 note 18 This idea was first suggested to me by Professor F. N. Robinson of Harvard.