This is the advantage of rising early.
The risings in the North, &c.
Some acute remarks of Mr. R. Taylor, in the Introduction to his edition of Tooke's "Diversions of Purley," modify this view. According to these, the -ing in words like rising is not the -ing of the present participle; neither has it originated in the Anglo-Saxon -end. It is rather the -ing in words like morning; which is anything but a participle of the non-existent verb morn, and which has originated in the Anglo-Saxon substantival termination -ung. Upon this Rask writes as follows:—"Gitsung, gewilnung = desire; swutelung = manifestation; clænsung = a cleansing; sceawung = view, contemplation; eorð-beofung = an earthquake; gesomnung = an assembly. This termination is chiefly used in forming substantives from verbs of the first class in -ian; as hálgung = consecration, from hálgian = to consecrate. These verbs are all feminine."—"Anglo-Saxon Grammar," p. 107.
Now, whatever may be the theory of the origin of the termination -ing in old phrases like rising early is
healthy, it cannot apply to expressions of recent introduction. Here the direct origin in -ung is out of the question.
The view, then, that remains to be taken of the forms in question is this:
1. That the older forms in -ing are substantival in origin, and = the Anglo-Saxon -ung.
2. That the latter ones are irregularly participial, and have been formed on a false analogy.