Allow me, though an entire stranger to you, to thank you for the
pleasure I have derived, in common with all ethnological students, from
your very valuable labours, and especially from the _Geschichte der
Deutschen Sprache_. At the same time I venture, with much diffidence, to
offer a reply to your question which occur in that work at p.
663.:--"Was heisst _lærig_?"
Lye says, "Hæc vox occurrit apid Cædm. At interpretatio ejus minime
liquet." In the Supplement to his Dictionary it is explained "docilis,
tyro!" Mr. Thorpe, in his _Analecta A.-S._ (1st edit. Gloss), says, "The
meaning of this word is uncertain: it occurs again in _Cædmon_;" and in
his translation of _Cædmon_ he thus renders the passage:--"Ofer linde
lærig=over the linden shields." Here then _lærig_, evidently an
adjective, is rendered by the substantive _shields_; and _linde_,
evidently a substantive, is rendered by the adjective _linden_. In two
other passages, Mr. Thorpe more correctly translates _lindum_=bucklers.
_Lind_, which Lye explained by the Latin _labarium_, _vexillum_, that
excellent scholar, the late lamented Mr. Price, was the first, I
believe, to show frequently signified _a shield_; which was, probably
for lightness, made of the wood of the _lime tree_, and covered with
skin, or leather of various colours. Thus we have "sealwe linde" and
"hwite linde" in _Cædm._, "geolwe linde" in _Beowulf_.
All this is superfluous to you, sir, I know--"_Retournons à nos
moutons_," as Maistre Pierre Pathelin says.