[Transcriber’s note:  Footnote 151 refers to the paragraph beginning on line 1797.]

2.  In musi “mice” the long u was colored by the following i to long ue.  This change also was regular; lusi “lice” became luesi, kui “cows” became kuei (later simplified to kue; still preserved as ki- in kine), fulian “to make foul” became fuelian (still preserved as _-file_ in defile).  The psychology of this phonetic law is entirely analogous to that of 1.

3.  The old drift toward reducing final syllables, a rhythmic consequence of the strong Germanic stress on the first syllable, now manifested itself.  The final _-i_, originally an important functional element, had long lost a great share of its value, transferred as that was to the symbolic vowel change (o:  oe).  It had little power of resistance, therefore, to the drift.  It became dulled to a colorless _-e_; foeti became foete.

4.  The weak _-e_ finally disappeared.  Probably the forms foete and foet long coexisted as prosodic variants according to the rhythmic requirements of the sentence, very much as Fuesse and Fuess’ now coexist in German.

5.  The oe of foet became “unrounded” to long e (our present a of fade).  The alternation of fot:  foti, transitionally fot:  foeti, foete, foet, now appears as fot:  fet.  Analogously, toeth appears as teth, foedian as fedian, later fedan.  The new long e-vowel “fell together” with the older e-vowel already existent (e.g., her “here,” he “he").  Henceforward the two are merged and their later history is in common.  Thus our present he has the same vowel as feet, teeth, and feed.  In other words, the old sound pattern o, e, after an interim of o, oe, e, reappeared as o, e, except that now the e had greater “weight” than before.

6. Fot:  fet, mus:  mues (written mys) are the typical forms of Anglo-Saxon literature.  At the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period, say about 1050 to 1100 A.D., the ue, whether long or short, became unrounded to i. Mys was then pronounced mis with long i (rhyming with present niece).  The change is analogous to 5, but takes place several centuries later.

7.  In Chaucer’s day (circa 1350-1400 A.D.) the forms were still fot:  fet (written foot, feet) and mus:  mis (written very variably, but mous, myse are typical).  About 1500 all the long i-vowels, whether original (as in write, ride, wine) or unrounded from Anglo-Saxon ue (as in hide, bride, mice, defile), became diphthongized to ei (i.e., e of met + short i).  Shakespeare pronounced mice as meis (almost the same as the present Cockney pronunciation of mace).