_Lines on the Institution of the Garter_ (Vol. viii., p. 182.).--A. B. R.
says, "as also from the proverbial expression used in Scotland, and to be
found in Scott's _Works_, of 'casting a leggin girth,' as synonymous with a
female 'faux pas.'" I may mention to your correspondent (if he is not
already aware) that the expression is taken from Allan Ramsay's
continuation of _Christ's Kirk on the Green_ (edit. Leith, 1814, 1 vol. p.
101.):
"Or bairns can read, they first maun spell,
I learn'd this frae my mammy;
And _coost a legen girth_ mysell,
Lang or I married Tammie."
and is explained by the author in a note, "Like a tub that loses one of its
bottom hoops." In the west of Scotland the phrase is now restricted to a
young woman who has had an illegitimate child, or what is more commonly
termed "a misfortune," and it is probable never had another meaning.
_Legen_ or _leggen_ is not understood to have any affinity in its etymology
to the word _leg_, but is _laggen_, that part of the staves which projects
from the bottom of the barrel, or of the child's _luggie_, out of which he
sups his oatmeal _parritch_; and the _girth_, _gird_, or hoop, that by
which the vessel at this particular place is firmest bound together. Burns
makes a fine and emphatic use of the word _laggen_ in the "Birthday
Address," in speaking of the "Royal lasses dainty" (_Cunninghame_, edit.
1826, vol. ii. p. 329.):
"God bless you a', consider now,
Ye're unco muckle dantet:
But ere the course o' life be thro'
It may be bitter santet.
An I hae seen their coggie fou,
That yet hae tarrow't at it;
But or the day was done, I trow,
The _laggen_ they hae clautet."
which means, that at last, whether through pride, hunger, or long fasting,
the appetite had become so keen, that all, even to the last particle of the
_parritch_, was _clautet_, _scartit_, or scraped from the bottom of the
_coggie_, and to its inmost recesses surrounded by the _laggen girth_. Of
the motto of the garter, "Honi soit qui mal y pense," I have heard a
burlesque translation known but to few, in "_Honeys sweet quo' Mally
Spence_," synonymous with Proverbs, chap. ix. verse 17: "Stolen waters are
sweet, and bread _eaten_ in secret is pleasant."