127. a saue: lit. 'have safe', i.e. 'rescue'. Saue is here adj.
128-9. ys: flessh: The rime requires the alternative forms es (as in l. 7) and fles(s). Cp. note to VII 4.
132. Ȝow þar nat aske: 'There is no need for you to ask'; ȝow is dative after the impersonal þar.
156-7. werynes: dos. The rime is false. Perhaps Mannyng wrote: As many body for goyng es [sc. wery], and a copyist misplaced es, writing: As many body es for goyng. If body es were read as bodyes, a new verb would then be added.
169. Note the irony of the refrain. The Letter of Otbert adds the picturesque detail that they gradually sank up to their waists in the ground through dancing on the same spot.
172. Þe Emperoure Henry: Probably Henry II of Germany, Emperor from 1014 to 1024. A certain vagueness in points of time and place would save the bearers of the letter from awkward questions.
188-9. banned: woned. The rime (OE. bannan and wunian) is false, and the use of woned 'remained' is suspicious. Mannyng perhaps wrote bende 'put in bonds': wende (= ȝede l. 191) 'went'; or (if the form band for banned(e) could be evidenced so early) band 'cursed': wand, pret. of winden, 'went'.
195. fal yn a swone: So MS., showing that by the second half of the fourteenth century the pp. adj. aswon had been wrongly analysed into the indef. article a and a noun swon. Mannyng may have written fallen aswone. See Glossary, s.v. aswone.
234. Wyth sundyr lepys: 'with separate leaps'; but Wyth was probably added by a scribe who found in his original sundyrlepys, adv., meaning 'separately',—
Kar suvent par les mains