Garth and loft agree perfectly with the O. N. and are not doubtful. With the Gael. gardh cp. O. N. garðr and O. Sw. gardher. The Sco. garth has changed the original voiced spirant to a voiceless one. In Gael. lobht f has become v. Prin is rather doubtful. There is an O. E. prēon from which the Gael. word may have come. The Sco. word prin does not seem to come from either O. E. prēon or O. N. prjónn, but from the Gael. prine. There is a Northern dialectic prēon which may come from O. E. prēon. There is also a pren in Dan. dial. Stoup has the Norse diphthong which has been simplified in Gael. stop. Skep is a little doubtful because of meaning. The loanword sgeap in Gael. has the specialized meaning of "a beehive." This meaning the Sco. word has very frequently, the Norse to my knowledge never. It may be a case of borrowed meaning from Gael. Girth is from the Norse. Girt is probably simply change of th to t, which is also found elsewhere in Sco. Knap may be from either. Mull in Sco. may be native English. The word occurs in L. G. Sker is from O. N. Skarth is anomalous, showing change of f to th. In the Gael. scarbh, f is changed to v as in lobht. Ged is nearer the O. N. Scait could be from either, as also brod. Sco. mask is probably not at all a loanword, and may be from older mex by metathesis of s; cp. O. E. mexfat and Sco. maskfat cited by Skeat, Et. Dict. The Gael. masg is probably not a loanword from the Scand., but from O. E., or perhaps from O. Sco. An O. Nhb. mesk probably existed. Ransack agrees with the Norse word. The spelling runsick found once (Wallace VII, 120), probably does not represent the exact sound, and is, in any case, as ransack to be derived from the O. N. and not through the Gael. Faid, "a company of hunters," has already once been referred to. This cannot possibly come from the O. N. væiðr, for while the spirant ð sometimes becomes d, O. N. v regularly becomes w in Sco. (rarely v). We should expect the form waith, and this is the form we have in Wallace I, 326, in the sense "the spoil of the chase." There is a Gael. fiadhoig, meaning "a huntsman." The first element fiad seems to be the O. N. veiðr with regular change of ð to d (or dh, cp. gardha), and v or w to f which is considered a sign of Gael. influence in Aberdeen Sco., cp. fat for what, fen for when, etc., the development probably being wh > w > v > f. Faid in Sco. is then probably from the Gaelic.
[23. Some Words that are not Scandinavian Loanwords.]
We have spoken in §§ 10, 13, 20 and 22, of a number of words that are to be considered regular Sco. developments of O. E. words. The following words have also generally been derived from the Scand., but must be considered native, or from sources other than Norse:
Blait, adj. backward, must be traced to O. E. blēat, rather than to O. N. blout. O. N. ou, au is always ou or oi in Sco.
Breid, sb. breadth, not Norse bræidde nor Dan. bredde, but native Eng.
Cummer, sb. misery, wail, seems uncertain. It corresponds in form and usage exactly to Norse kummer, but mb > mm is natural and occurs elsewhere in Sco., cp. slummer, "slumber," which need not be derived from Norse slummer or any L. G. word. The usage of the word is peculiarly Scand.
Dead, sb. death. Not Dan.-Norse död, but English "death."
Fald, vb. to fall. Skeat says the d is due to Scand. influence, but cp. boldin from bolna (older bolgna). So d after l in fald may be genuine. Besides the O. N. word is falla, later Dan. falde.
Ferde, ordinal of four, not Norse fjerde. See § 19.
Flatlyngis, adv. flatly, headlong, looks very much like Norse flatlengs and corresponds perfectly in meaning. The Norse word is, however, a late formation, apparently, and -lyngs is a very common adverbial ending in Sco.