(Marmion, vi. 2.)
is a mistake for bratticing, timber-work, a word of obscure origin of which several corruptions are found in early Scottish. It is rather a favourite with writers of "sword and feather" novels. Other sham antiques are slug-horn, Chatterton's absurd perversion of the Gaelic slogan, war-cry, copied by Browning—
"Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"
and Scott's extraordinary misuse of warison, security, a doublet of garrison, as though it meant "war sound"—
"Or straight they sound their warison,
And storm and spoil thy garrison."
(Lay, iv. 21.)
Scott also gave currency to niddering, a coward—
"Faithless, mansworn,[13] and niddering."
(Ivanhoe, Ch. 42.)