336 Sanct Brydis. The church of Douglas was dedicated to St. Bridget, or Bride, a Celtic Saint.
388 With burdys set. On trestles, as the dinner-table. Cf. note on Bk. II. 96.
403 “Knocked out the heads of the wine barrels.”
410 the Dowglas Lardenere. “The Douglas Larder,” a North English and Scottish form of A.F. lardiner: here with the double meaning of a store of food and a slaughter. For the latter, cf. “The knyghtes of the round table made soche lardare through the field” (Merlin, cited N.E.D.). In the Alexander it is said of the slaughter accomplished by Porrus:
“Of handis and heidis baith braune and blude
He maid ane lardnare quhare he stood” (p. 233, 5).
Dr. Neilson says, “there is nothing corresponding in the French,” and claims that the lines in the Bruce are the source of the “lurid and telling phrase” (John Barbour, p. 56). But this does not follow, as the word occurs in this sense elsewhere (see N.E.D.), and the simple sense of “slaughter” in the Alexander is not quite parallel to the full significance of the word in the Bruce, where the “meile, malt, blude and wyne” fill out the suggestiveness of its use. According to Hume of Godscroft, the Douglas historian, the “wyne-sellar” of line 399 is identified with a cellar “called yet the Douglas Lairder” (History of the House of Douglas, p. 28, ed. 1644).
460 The thrill-wallis. May be “John de Thirlewal, vallet of Sir Adam de Swynburne,” who, “with a barbed horse,” was one of a company hunting Bruce in Glentrool, April, 1307 (Bain, ii., p. 572).
483 Schyr Ingrame Bell. Evidently a misreading of “Ingrame Umphrevell,” as is clear from Bk. VI. 3; not the other way, as Skeat puts it. There was no such person as “Bell.” Umfraville was holding Cumnock Castle on May 18 (Bain, ii., 1931). Later in the year he is at Ayr, July or August, sent there by Valence (ibid., No. 1961).
575 about his hals. Hung from his neck. A two-handed sword too long to be supported by a waist-belt.
642 toym. “Leisure.” Modern Scots toom = empty; not time. The distinction is clearly marked in the Gest. Hystoriale: “But this tyme is so tore (inconvenient), and we no tome have” (644).