who explains it “the well-known Sir Guy of romance.” But both Dunbar and
Lyndsay allude to a story concerning the ghost of a person called Guy,
an inhabitant of Alost. There is a Latin tract on the subject, entitled
_De spiritu Guuidonis_, of which various translations into English are
extant in MS. One of these is now before me, in verse, and consisting
of 16 closely written 4to pages: _Here begynnyth a notabyll matere and
a gret myracule don be oure lord ihesus cryst and shewyd In the ȝeer
of his incarnacion MCCCXXIII._ [printed Latin tract now before me has
MCCCXXIIII.] _and in the xvi day of decembyr in the Cete of Aleste.
Whiche myracule ys of a certeyn man that was callyd Gy. and deyde and
aftyr viii days he apperyd to his wyf aftyr the comaundment of god. of
whiche apperyng she was aferd and oftyn tyme rauysshid. Than she toke
conseyl and went to the ffreris of the same cete and tolde the Pryor
ffrere Iohnn goly of this mater, &c._ As _Gaunt_ is the old name of
Ghent, and as Alost is about thirteen miles from that city, perhaps
the reader may be inclined to think,—what I should greatly doubt,—that
Skelton also alludes to the same story.
Page 122. v. 71. _olyfaunt_] i. e. elephant.
v. 72. _pykes_] i. e. pickaxe. “_Pykeys._ Ligo. Marra.” _Prompt. Parv._
ed. 1499.
—— _twybyll_] “_Twybyll_ writis instrument. Bisacuta. Biceps.” _Prompt.
Parv._ ed. 1499. “Twybill or mactok. Marra. Ligo.” _Ibid._ “Bipennis ...
a _twyble_ or axe, a twall.” _Ortus Vocab._ ed. 1514. (in the earlier ed.
fol. n. d. W. de Worde, the English explanation is less full). “_Twyble_
an instrument for carpentars _bernago_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la
Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. lxxi. (Table of Subst.).