Orm's Ormulum.—A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a metrical paraphrase of those parts of the Gospels used in the church on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes his metrical explanation and application of the Scripture.
He says:—
"Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum
Forrði ðatt Ormm itt wrohhte."
This book is named Ormulum
For that Orm it wrote.
There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date of the Ormulum is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215.
The Ancren Riwle.—About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Three young ladies who had secluded themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the Ancren Riwle (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much religious consolation.
The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the thirteenth century:—
"ße, mine leoue sustren, ne schulen habben no best bute kat one… ße schulen beon i-dodded four siðen, iðe ßere, uorto lihten ower heaued… Of idelnesse awakeneð muchel flesshes fondunge… Iren ðet lið stille gedereð sone rust."
Ye, my beloved sisters, shall have no beast but one cat… Ye shall be cropped four times in the year for to lighten your head… Of idleness ariseth much temptation of the flesh… Iron that lieth still soon gathereth rust.
The keynote of the work is the renunciation of self. Few productions of modern literature contain finer pictures of the divine love and sympathy. The following simile affords an instance of this quality in the work:—