_Swearing by Swans_ (Vol. ii., pp. 392. 451.).--Though I can give no reason
why the birds of Juno should have been invoked as witnesses to an oath, the
Query about them has suggested to me what may perhaps appear rather an
irrelevant little note.
Cooper, in his _Raven's Nest_, makes Mr. Aristobulus Brag use the
provincialism "_I swanny_;" "by which," observes the author, "I suppose he
meant--_I swear!_" Of course, this has nothing to do with swearing by
swans, more than sounding like it; argument of sound being very different
from sound argument. Mr. Cooper does not seem to have given a thought to
the analysis of the phrase, which is no oath, merely an innocent
asseveration. "I's-a-warrant-ye" (perhaps when resolved to its
ungrammatical elements, "I is a warranty to ye") proceeds through
"I's-a-warnd-ye," "I's-warn-ye" (all English provincialisms,) to its remote
transatlantic ultimatum of debasement in "_I swanny_."