Et vn keu le roi le retint,
Purceo qe fort le vist & grant,
Et mult le vist de bon semblant.
Merueillous fes poeit leuer,
Busche tailler, ewe porter.
The last line answers to l. 942 of the English version.
[939.] He bar the turues, he bar the star. The meaning of the latter term will be best illustrated by a passage in Moor’s Suffolk Words, where, under the word Bent, he writes, “Bent or Starr, on the N.W. coast of England, and especially in Lancashire, is a coarse reedy shrub—like ours perhaps—of some importance formerly, if not now, on the sandy blowing lands of those counties. Its fibrous roots give some cohesion to the silicious soil. By the 15 and 16 G. II. c. 33, plucking up and carrying away Starr or Bent, or having it in possession within five miles of the sand hills, was punishable by fine, imprisonment, and whipping.” The use stated in the Act to which the Starr was applied, is, “making of Mats, Brushes, and Brooms or Besoms,” therefore it might very well be adapted to the purposes of a kitchen, and from its being coupled with turves in the poem, was perhaps sometimes burnt for fuel. The origin of the word is Danish, and still exists in the Dan. Stær, Swed. Starr, Isl. staer, a species of sedge, or broom, called by Lightfoot, p. 560, carex cespitosa. Perhaps it is this shrub alluded to in the Romance of Kyng Alisaunder, and this circumstance will induce us to assign its author to the district in which the Starr is found.
The speris craketh swithe thikke,
So doth on hegge sterre-stike.
—l. 4438.