[Footnote 6: MS. _The_]

[Footnote 7: ? MS. _hard_]

[Footnote 8: The letter between the _b_ and _a_ has had the lower part
marked over. But it must mean a long _s_.]

[Footnote 9: May be _subdied_; the word has been corrected.]




NOTES.


The two first of the three operations of flax-dressing described in
lines 526-529, p. 15,

One of hem knocked lyne,
A-nothyr swyngelyd good and fyne
By-fore the swyngylÌ´lÌ´-tre,
The thyrde did rele and spynne,

must correspond to the preliminary breaking of the plant, and then the
scutching or beating to separate the coarse tow or hards from the tare
or fine hemp. Except so far as the _swingle_ served as a heckle, the
further _heckling_ of the flax, to render the fibre finer and cleaner,
was dispensed with, though heckles (iron combs) must have been in use
when the poem was written--inasmuch as _hekele_, _hekelare_, _hekelyn_,
and _hekelynge_, are in the Promptorium, ab. 1440 A.D. Under _Hatchell_,