To verify these views we want not a general dictionary of the Scottish language taken altogether, but a series of local glossaries, or at any rate a vocabulary, 1st, of the northern; 2ndly, of the southern Scottish.
Between the English and Lowland Scotch we must account for the likeness as well as the difference. The Scandinavian theory accounts for the difference only.
[§ 189]. Of the following specimens of the Lowland Scotch, the first is from The Bruce, a poem written by Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, between the years 1360 and 1375; the second from Wyntoun; the third from Blind Harry's poem, Wallace, 1460; and the fourth from Gawin Douglas's translation of the Æneid, A.D. 1513.
The Bruce, iv. 871—892.
And as he raid in to the nycht,
So saw he, with the monys lycht,
Schynnyng off scheldys gret plenté;
And had wondre quhat it mycht be.
With that all hale thai gaiff a cry,