These lines were, no doubt, intelligible to an ordinary Englishman at the time. Gradually they become a little modernised, thus:—
"And so I have all night
Of min-e sweeven swith ythought,
For I wat to ywiss
Agone is all my bliss."
Had these verses been preserved in folk-memory they must have undergone a still further modification as soon as the words sweeven (dream), swith (much), and ywiss (certainty) began to grow obsolete, and we should have the verse modified and mangled, perhaps something in this way:—
"And so I have all the night
Of my dream greatly thought,
For I wot and I wis
That gone is all my bliss."
The words "I wot and I wis," in the third line, represent just about as much archaism as the popular memory and taste will stand without rebelling. Some modification in the direction here hinted at may be found in, I should think, more than half the manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy to-day, and just in the same sense as the lines,
"For I wot and I wis
That gone is my bliss,"
are Layamon's; so we may suppose,
"Dubthach missi mac do Lugaid
Laidech lantrait
Mé ruc inmbreith etir Loegaire
Ocus Patraic,"[16]
to be the fifth century O'Lugair's, or
"Leathaid folt fada fraich,
Forbrid canach fann finn,"[17]