Lesnesse of zennes [_remission of sins_]; of vlesse [_flesh, body_]
arizinge; and lyf evrelestinde. Zuo by hyt [_so be it_].

A few remarks may well be made here on some of the peculiarities of
Southern English that appear here. The use of _v_ for _f_ (as in
_vader_, _vram_, _vlesshe_), and of _z_ for _s_ (as in _zone_, _zit_,
_zennes_) are common to this day, especially in Somersetshire. The
spelling _lhord_ reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began with
_hl_, one of them being _hl{-a}fweard_, later _hl{-a}ford_, a lord;
and this _hl_ is a symbol denoting the so-called "whispered _l_,"
sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to the _l_, and still
common in Welsh, where it is denoted by _ll_, as in _llyn_, a lake.
In every case, modern English substitutes for it the ordinary _l_,
though _lh_ (= _hl_) was in use in 1340 in Southern. The prefix _y-_,
representing the extremely common A.S. (Anglo-Saxon) prefix _ge-_, was
kept up in Southern much longer than in the other dialects, but has
now disappeared; the form _y-clept_ being archaic. The plural suffix
_-en_, as in _haly-en_, holy ones, saints, is due to the fact that
Southern admitted the use of that suffix very freely, as in
_cherch-en_, churches, _sterr-en_, stars, etc.; whilst Northern
only admitted five such plurals, viz. _egh-en_, _ey-en_, eyes
(Shakespeare's _eyne_), _hos-en_, stockings, _ox-en_, _shoo-n_, shoes,
and _f{-a}-n_, foes; _ox-en_ being the sole survivor, since _shoon_
(as in _Hamlet_, IV iv 26) is archaic. The modern _child-r-en_,
_breth-r-en_, are really double plurals; Northern employed the more
original forms _childer_ and _brether_, both of which, and especially
the former, are still in dialectal use. _Evrelest-inde_ exhibits the
Southern _-inde_ for present participles.

But the word _zennes_, sins, exhibits a peculiarity that is almost