A whussling lass an’ a bellering cow
An a crowing hen’ll du nea dow.
Dree (Sc. Nhb. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der.), to endure, suffer, O.E. drēogan, M.E. dreyen, drien. In a description of the building of the Tower of Babel, given in the Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), are the lines:
Wid corde and plumbe þai wroght so hy,
Þat hete of sune might þai nohut dry.
ll. 2247, 2248.
To dree one’s weird, to endure one’s fate, is a phrase now practically confined to Scotland, though this was not the case in the earlier periods of the language. It occurs, for instance, in Cleanness, a poem probably written by the author of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, who was a Lancashire man:
& bede þe burne [King Zedekiah] to be broȝt to babyloyn þe riche,
& þere in dongoun be don to dreȝe þer his wyrdes.
ll. 1223, 1224.