name is well known to readers of 'St. Ronan's Well.' Of St. Ronan scarcely anything is known. The fullest account that can easily be found is the following:—
'Ronan, B. and C. Feb. 7.—Beyond the mere mention of his commemoration as S. Ronan, bishop at Kilmaronen, in Levenax, in the body of the Breviary of Aberdeen, there is nothing said about this saint.... Camerarius (p. 86) makes this Ronanus the same as he who is mentioned by Beda (Hist. Ecc. lib. iii. c. 25). This Ronan died in A. D. 778. The Ulster annals give at [A. D.] 737 (736)—"Mors Ronain Abbatis Cinngaraid." Ængus places this saint at the 9th of February,' &c.; Kalendars of Scottish Saints, by Bp. A. P. Forbes, 1872, p. 441. Kilmaronen is Kilmaronock, in the county and parish of Dumbarton. There are traces of St. Ronan in about seven place-names in Scotland, according to the same authority. Under the date of Feb. 7 (February vol. ii. 3 B), the Acta Sanctorum has a few lines about St. Ronan, who, according to some, flourished under King Malduin, A. D. 664-684; or, according to others, about 603. The notice concludes with the remark—'Maiorem lucem desideramus.' Beda says that 'Ronan, a Scot by nation, but instructed in ecclesiastical truth either in France or Italy,' was mixed up in the controversy which arose about the keeping of Easter, and was 'a most zealous defender of the true Easter.' This controversy took place about A. D. 652, which does not agree with the date above.
311. Tyrwhitt thinks that Shakespeare remembered this expression of Chaucer, when he describes the Host of the Garter as frequently repeating the phrase 'said I well': Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3. 11; ii. 1. 226; ii. 3. 93, 99.
in terme, in learned terms; cf. Prol. A. 323.
312. erme, to grieve. For the explanation of unusual words, the Glossary should, in general, be consulted; the Notes are intended, for the most part, to explain only phrases and allusions, and to give illustrations of the use of words. Such illustrations are, moreover, often omitted when they can easily be found by consulting such a work as Stratmann's Old English Dictionary. In the present case, for example, Stratmann gives twelve instances of the use of earm or arm as an adjective, meaning wretched; four examples of ermlic, miserable; seven of earming, a miserable creature; and five of earmthe, misery. These twenty-eight additional examples shew that the word was formerly well understood. We may further note that a later instance of ermen or erme, to grieve, occurs in Caxton's translation of Reynard the Fox, A. D. 1481; see Arber's reprint, p. 48, l. 5: 'Thenne departed he fro the kynge so heuyly that many of them ermed,' i. e. then departed he from the king so sorrowfully that many of them mourned, or were greatly grieved.
313. cardiacle, pain about the heart, spasm of the heart; more correctly, cardiake, as the l is excrescent. See Cardiacle and Cardiac in the New E. Dictionary. In Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. vii. c. 32,
we have a description of 'Heart-quaking and the disease Cardiacle.' We thus learn that 'there is a double manner of Cardiacle,' called 'Diaforetica' and 'Tremens.' Of the latter, 'sometime melancholy is the cause'; and the remedies are various 'confortatives.' This is why the host wanted some 'triacle' or some ale, or something to cheer him up.
314. The Host's form of oath is amusingly ignorant; he is confusing the two oaths 'by corpus Domini' and 'by Christes bones,' and evidently regards corpus as a genitive case. Tyrwhitt alters the phrase to 'By corpus domini,' which wholly spoils the humour of it.
triacle, a restorative remedy; see Man of Lawes Tale, B. 479.
315. moyste, new. The word retains the sense of the Lat. musteus and mustus. In Group H. 60, we find moysty ale spoken of as differing from old ale. But the most peculiar use of the word is in the Prologue, A. 457, where the Wyf of Bath's shoes are described as being moyste and newe.