Edward F. Rimbault.

    [We are indebted also to Trebor, E.W.D., J.F.M., and F.P. for
    replies to this Query.  They will perceive that Dr. Rimbault had
    anticipated the substance of their several communications.]

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AELFRIC’S COLLOQUY.

I must trouble you and some of your readers with a few words, in reply to the doubt of “C.W.G.” (No. 16. p. 248.) respecting the word sprote.  I do not think the point, and the Capital letter to saliu in the Latin text, conclusive, as nothing of the kind occurs in the A.-S. version, where the reading is clearly, “swa hwylce swa, on watere swymmath sprote.”  I have seen the Cottonian MS., which, as Mr. Hampson observes, is very distinctly written, both in the Saxon and Latin portions; so much so in the latter, as to make it a matter of surprise that the doubtful word saliu should ever have been taken for salu, or casidilia for calidilia.  The omission of the words sprote and saliu, in the St. John’s MS., would only be evidence of a more cautious scribe, who would not copy what he did not understand.

Your correspondent’s notion, “that the name of some fish, having been first interlined, was afterwards inserted at random in the text, and mis-spelt by a transcriber who did know its meaning,” appears to me very improbable; and the very form of the words (sprote, saliu, supposing them substantives), which have not plural terminations, would, in my mind, render his supposition untenable.  For, be it recollected, that throughout the answers of the Fiscere, the fish are always named in the plural; and it is not to be supposed that there would be an exception in favour of sprote, whether intended for sprat or salmon.  Indeed, had the former been a river fish, Hulvet and Palsgrave would have countenanced the supposition; but then we must have had it in the plural form, sprottas.  As for the suggestion of sprod and salar, I cannot think it a happy one; salmon (leaxus) had been already mentioned; and sprods will be found to be a very confined local name for what, in other places, are called scurfes or scurves, and which we, in our ignorance, designate as salmon trout.  In the very scanty A.-S. ichthyologic nomenclature we possess, there is nothing to lead us to imagine that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had any corresponding word for a salmon trout.  I must be excused, therefore, for still clinging to my own explanation of sprote, until something more specious and ingenious shall be advanced, but in full confidence, at the same time, that some future discovery will elucidate its truth.

S.W.  Singer.

Feb. 19. 1850.

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REHETING AND REHETOURS.

As Dr. Todd’s query (no. 10. p. 155.) respecting the meaning of the words “Reheting” and “Rehetour,” used by our early English writers, has not hitherto been answered, I beg to send him a conjectural explanation, which, if not conclusive, is certainly probable.