Maint ostour veisies et maint falcon voler.”
p. 2, l. [50]. shope, literally “shaped:” he shope him, “he got himself ready, he planned, devised, intended.” The phrase is of frequent occurrence in Chaucer.
p. 2, l. [52]. bawson, badger. For the use of badgers, see Skeat’s note to Specimens of English Literature, p. 383.
p. 2, l. [56]. Alaunts, a kind of large dogs of great strength and courage, used for hunting the wolf, the bear, the boar, &c. Cf.
“Aboute his chare wente white alauntz
Twenty and mo, as grete as any stere,
To hunte at the lyoun or at the bere.”
Chaucer, ed. Morris, II. 66/1290.
According to Diez (Etymol. Wörterb., I. 12, s. v. “alano”) alaunts means “Albanian dogs.” Lymmeris, “blood-hounds.” Halliwell quotes the following passage: “A dogge engendred betwene an hounde and a mastyve, called a lymmer or a mongrell.” Lymmer is the French limier, O.Fr. liemier, which etymologically means a dog that a courser leads by a lime, i. e. a thong or leash. Lime is the same word as French lien, a leash; Latin ligamen. Lymmer is preserved in Modern English limer, a “lime-hound.”