4037. One clerk wants to watch above, and the other below, to prevent cheating. This incident is not in the French fabliaux. On the other hand, it occurs in the Jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, which is plainly copied from Chaucer.
4049. blere hir yë, blear their eyes, cheat them, as in l. 3865.
4055. 'The fable of the Wolf and the Mare is found in the Latin Esopean collections, and in the early French poem of Renard le Contrefait, from whence it appears to have been taken into the English Reynard the Fox'; Wright. Tyrwhitt observes that the same story is told of a mule in Cento Novelle Antiche, no. 91. See Caxton's Reynard, ch. 27, ed. Arber, p. 62, where the wolf wants to buy a mare's foal, who said that the price of the foal was written on her hinder foot; 'yf ye conne rede and be a clerk, ye may come see and rede it.' And when
the wolf said, 'late me rede it,' the mare gave him so violent a kick that 'a man shold wel haue ryden a myle er he aroos.' The Fox, who had brought it all about, hypocritically condoles with the Wolf, and observes—'Now I here wel it is true that I long syth haue redde and herde, that the beste clerkes ben not the wysest men.'
For the story in Le Roman du Renard Contrefait, see Poètes de Champagne, Reims, 1851, p. 156. For further information, see Caxton's Fables of Æsop, ed. Jacobs, lib. v. fab. 10; vol. i. 254, 255; vol. ii. 157, 179. La Fontaine has a similar fable of the Fox, the Wolf, and the Horse. In Croxall's Æsop, it is told of the Horse, who tells the Lion, who is acting as physician, that he has a thorn in his foot. See further references in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, pp. 147, 197.
4061. levesel, an arbour or shelter formed of branches or foliage. Lev-e is the stem of leef, A. S. lēaf, a leaf; and -sel is the same as the A. S. sæl, sele, a hall, dwelling, Swed. sal, Icel. salr, G. Saal. The A. S. sæl occurs also in composition, as burg-sæl, folc-sæl, horn-sæl, and sele is still commoner; Grein gives twenty-three compounds with the latter, as gæst-sele, guest-hall, hrōf-sele, roofed-hall, &c. In Icel. we have lauf-hús, leaf-house, but we find the very word we require in Swed. löfsal, 'a hut built of green boughs,' Widegren; Dan. lövsals-fest, feast of tabernacles. The word occurs again in the Persones Tale, l. 411, where it means a leafy arbour such as may still be seen to form the porch of a public-house. The word is scarce; but see the following:—
'Alle but Syr Gauan, graythest of alle,
Was left with Dame Graynour, vndur the greues [groves] grene.
By a lauryel ho [she] lay, vndur a lefe-sale
Of box and of barberè, byggyt ful bene.'