The Welsh manual in the library of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford has a slight variation in the form, and an older spelling:—
"Ich N. take thee N.
to my weddid wyf,
for fayroure for foulore,
for ricchere for porer,
for betere for wers,
in sicknesse and in helthe,
forte deth us departe,
and only to the holde
and tharto ich plygtte my treuthe."[135]
To this may be added the many local examples of the preservation of laws or legal formulæ by means of their form in verse. The most interesting of these, perhaps, is that by which the Kentishman redeemed his land from the lord by repeating, as it was said, in the language of his ancestors:—
"Nighon sithe yeld
And nighon sithe geld,
And vif pund for the were,
Ere he become healdere."
The first verse,
"Dog draw
Stable stand
Back berend
And bloody hand"
justified the verderer in his punishment of the offender. In King Athelstane's grant to the good men of Beverley, and inscribed beneath his effigy in the Minster,
"Als fre
Mak I the
As heart may think
Or eigh may see,"
we have perhaps the ancient form of manumission or enfranchisement,[136] just as we have the surrender by a freeman who gave up his liberty by putting himself under the protection of a master, and becoming his man, still preserved among children, when one of them takes hold of the foretop of another and says:—
"Tappie, tappie, tousie, will ye be my man?"[137]