24. 'Of shallows with the shealings chalky white'. (64)


#Sheal# is a homophone, 1. a shepherd's hut or shanty; 2. a peascod
or seed-shell. Of the first, _shiel_ and _shieling_ are common forms;
the second is dialectal; _E.D.D._ gives #shealing# as the husk of
seeds. If this be the meaning in our quotation, the appearance described
is unrecognized by the present annotator.

25. 'Dull streams
Flow flagging in the undescribed deep fourms
Of creatures born the first of all, long dead'. (67)


#Fourm#, explained as a 'hare's lurking place', commonly called
_form_, widely used and understood because the lair has the shape or
form of the animal that lay in it. But perhaps it was originally only
the animal's seat or form, as we use the word in schools. _Form_ has so
many derivative senses that it would be an advantage to have this one
thus differentiated both in spelling and sound.

26. 'Toadstools twired and hued fantastically'. (68)


Though the word #twired# is not explained in Mr. Blunden's glossary
and the meaning is not evident from the context, we guess that he is
using it here of shape, in the sense of 'contorted', which would range
with the quotation from Burton (given in some dictionaries) 'No sooner
doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he ... slickes his