Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Kingis quair

INTRODUCTION.
xli
downward crooked stroke; it closely resembles the German
fj. This seems best expressed by s<?, as in wis£ (12), deuis^
(12), cas^ (16), arys,? (20), &c. It is sometimes preceded by
a second s, as in distress^ (5, 10), doubilness^ (18), pro¬
cess^ (19). The difficulty is, that in some instances it
certainly means sis, as in courszk (108) ; but this usage is
mostly confined to plural substantives.
(/) Some words are systematically abbreviated. Thus y*
stands for J?1, to be printed as ]>at or thzzt, as in stanzas 3,
6, 8, 9, 10, 11, &c. So also ye for ]>e or the ; I print it ‘the’
(187, 197). Also wl for wzt/z (13, 19, 23, 24, &c.). Also qd
for qtiod (139, 142, 169, 172). The symbol & for and is
very common, but as there is no doubt about it, I print
it simply ‘and’; it occurs in st. 23, 33, 35, 71, &c.
Other abbreviated words are thozz (195), gozzr (34, 43, 52,
63), gozz (34, 73, 141), throzz (41). The word ‘present’ is
commonly written pnt, to be read as pmvmt (106). Tytler,
not understanding this, prints ‘ pent,’ which others follow.
The prefix com is denoted in MSS. by a symbol closely
resembling a ‘ q ’; hence Tytler actually prints ‘ qmune ’ (147,
149), and ‘qmonly’ (119), and others follow him ! The in¬
definite article a is occasionally joined to the word follow¬
ing it, as in alyte (49), written a lyte (53). The letter /is
denoted by (capital) I, as in langill (38), lonettis (47),
pape-Iay (no). But the same symbol often means i, as in
Infortune (5), Incidence (7). The letter 3 occurs frequently,
and is best represented by a special symbol. In the present
poem, it is only used for the sound of y initially, but it is
not uncommon for gh in words such as li&t for light, and
the like ; and it is because its use is indeterminate that it
is best to retain it. It occurs in gouth (9), 36(11), 3eris (22),
and the like ; put for youth, ye, yeris.