b 3. Þat: construe with Lenten.
b 7. him þreteþ, 'chides', 'wrangles' (ON. þrǽta?). See the thirteenth-century debate of The Thrush and the Nightingale (Reliquiae Antiquae, vol. i, pp. 241 ff.), of which the opening lines are closely related to this poem.
b 11. Ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele, 'and look at their winter happiness (?)'. This conflicts with huere wynter wo above; and the explanation that the birds have forgotten the hardships of the past winter and recall only its pleasures is forced. Holthausen's emendation wynne wele 'wealth of joys' (cp. l. 35) is good.
b 20. Miles: a crux. It has been suggested without much probability that miles means 'animals' from Welsh mīl.
b 28. Deawes donkeþ þe dounes. Of the suggestions made to improve the halting metre the best is þise for þe. The poet is thinking of the sparkle of dew in the morning sun; cp. Sir Gawayne 519 f.:
When þe donkande dewe dropeȝ of þe leueȝ
To bide a blysful blusch of þe bryȝt sunne.
b 29-30. 'Animals with their cries (rounes) unmeaning to us (derne), whereby they converse (domes for te deme).' For the weakened sense of deme (domes) see note to V 115.
c 30. Wery so water in wore: the restless lover (l. 21) has tossed all night like the troubled waters in a wore; cp. I wake so water in wore in another lyric of the same MS. It has been suggested that wore = Old High German wuor 'weir'; but the rimes in both passages show that the stem is OE. wār, not wōr.
d 2. the holy londe: because Ireland was par excellence 'the Land of the Saints'.