SELIM03.pdf 160 Andrew Breeze, Selim 3 (1993): 150-153 A BRITONNIC ETYMOLOGY FOR LUCHE ‘THROW’ IN PATIENCE 230 Luche is an extremely rare Middle English word. It seems known only from line 230 of Patience, where Jonah is tossed into the sea: Tyd by top and bi to thay token hym synne, Into that lodlych loghe thay luche hym sone. That is, ‘Quickly by head and toe they took him then, they pitch him forthwith into that terrible sea.’1 Although editors agree on the translation ‘pitch’, the origin of luche has remained obscure.2OED s. v. lutch says noth- ing on etymology, merely noting the word’s survival in Yorkshire, and citing a definition ‘to lift’ from a Sheffield dialect gloss ary of 1888. MED refers to Old French lochier ‘to shake, hang, nearly fall’ and eslochier ‘to shake down, dislodge’; but it is difficult to accept this, since Middle English normally retains French o in borrowings, as in propre, cofre, supposen, noble, rose, host, rost, and so on. 1 The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, ed. Celia and Kenneth Sisam (Oxford, 1970), 217. 2 Patience, ed. J.J. Anderson (Manchester, 1969), 94; Poetry of the Age of Chaucer, ed. A. C. and J. E. Spearing (London, 1974), 129; The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, ed. M. R. Andrew and R. A. Waldron (London, 1978), 331; Macmillan Anthologies of English Literature: The Middle Ages, ed. Michael Alexander and Felicity Riddy (London, 1989), 302. 161 As no satisfactory etymology for luche ‘pitch, throw’ is known, it is worth investigating a link with Welsh lluch ‘drift (of snow, sand, etc.); cast or throw, fling’; lluchio ‘to throw, cast away, hurl, fling’; and lluwchio ‘to d rift (of snow), drive (of snow), blow a blizzard; cover (with ashes, dust, etc.); hurl, pelt (with stones, etc.).’1 These words are closely associated, lluwch being a natural development in medieval Welsh of lluch.2 The history of the Welsh forms is as follows. The oldest evidence for them occurs in a poem by Cynddelw (fl. 1155-1200) on the warband of Owain Gwyynedd (d. 1170), which includes the line Llary einnyawn lluchdawn llochessid ueirtyon ‘Generous Einion, showering down gifts, harboured poets’.3 Lliw lluch Ionawr ’the hue of a January snowdrift’, in a poem by Gruffydd ap Dafydd ap Tudur (fl. 1285-1300) requesting a bow, is the earliest instance of lluch in the sense ‘drift’; it is odd that the basic meaning ‘a cast or throw, fling’ is unknown before the late nineteenth century, when it is recorded in Gwynedd dialect.4 The verb lluchio is first attested with the sense ‘to throw, cast away, hurl, fling’ in the Welsh Bible of 1588, where 2 Samuel xvi. 13 contains the phrase lychiodd lwÔch iw erbyn ef ‘cast dust at him’ (modified to fwriai lch in the 1620 edition); lluchio in the sense ‘to cover ground with drifts (of snow, dust, etc.)’ appears earlier in a poem by Tudur Aled (fl. 1480-1526) requesting a horse, a powerful ‘lion’ leaving behind it 1 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (Caerdydd, 1950-), 2216, 2217, 2232. 2 Breuddwyd Maxen, ed. Ifor Williams (Bangor, 1907), 15-16; John Morris-Jones, A Welsh Grammar (Oxford, 1913), 118; E. P. Hamp, ‘The Allophones of Medieval Welsh [x]and [ü]’, The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, xvi (1954-6), 284-5; D. S. Evans, A Grammar of Middle Welsh (Dublin, 1964), 1-2. 3 The Poetry in the Red Book of Hergest, ed. J.G. Evans (Llanbedrog, 1911), col. 1393; Llawysgrif Hendregadredd, ed. John Morris-Jones and T.H. Parry-Williams (Caerdydd, 1933), 173. 4 J. G. Evans, col. 1254; O. H. Fynes-Clinton, ‘Words in Colloquial Use in the Bangor District’, The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, i (1921-3), 91-102, at 98; Geiriadur, 2216. 162 llwch o’r rhiw’n lluchio’r heol ‘dust from the slope drifting over the road’.1 Finally, the modified form lluwch ‘driven snow, snow-drift’ occurs in the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym (fl. 1330-60): ‘Not white is the foam of lake or snowdrift (lluwch) … compared with the countenance of my darling, by Mary!’.2 Is it phonetically possible to relate Modern Welsh lluch [lix] and Modern Yorkshire dialect lutch [lutS] ?. There is no problem as regards [l], which in Welsh fully evolved from [l] probably only by the tenth century; while in Old and Middle Welsh the sound represented by u was a long central rounded ü, which developed in late British from a long unrounded u.3 That is in accord with the form of Middle English luche if a loan from Brittonic. As for the ch of Welsh lluch, this indicates an original British -cc-.4 Because the change cc>ch is common to Welsh, Cornish and Breton, it must have occurred before their separa tion, and thus be no later than sixth century.5 The earliest evidence for the change is found in the inscriptions BROHO (…) at Llandysul, twelve miles north of Carmarthen in south-west Wales, and BROHOMAGLI, from near Pentrefoelas, seven miles south-east of Betws -y- coed in north Wales.6 Both inscriptions, containig Celtic *Brocco- ‘foremost, keen’ with ch spelt H, date from the mid sixth century.7 A sense ‘what is blown by the wind, drift’ would easily develop from a word originally meaning ‘throw, hurl’. Hence it is likely that Middle English 1Gwaith Tudur Aled, ed. T. Gwynn Jones (Caerdydd, 1926), 428; Geiriadur, 2217. 2Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym, ed. Thomas Parry (Caerdydd, 1952), 138. 3 Morris-Jones, 13; K. H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh, 1953), 305, 480; D. S. Evans, 1-2. 4 Morris-Jones, 133; Henry Lewis and Holger Pedersen, A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar (Göttingen, 1937), 53. 5 Jackson, 565. 6 V. E. Nash -Williams, The Early Christian Monuments of Wales (Cardiff, 1950), 100, 125 (where ‘Holyhead railway’ should read ‘Holyhead road’). 7 Jackson, 566. 163 luche ‘pitch, throw’ is the result of a loan from Brittonic of the ancestor form of lluch(io) before c. 550, when the geminated stops cc still existed in British; that these were fronted in Primitive Old English (compare the palatalized form crycc ‘crutch’); and then assibilated in late Old English, giving Middle and Modern English [t*].1 In other words, luche and Yorkshire dialectal lutch seem due to English borrowing from Brittonic during the fifth or early sixth century; we may compare loghe ‘sea’ which, also in Patience 230, is certainly a loan from Celtic. Luche and lutch are therefore evidence for early Celtic influence on the Anglo -Saxons, perhaps of a military kind. Since a word meaning ‘throw, hurl, pelt’ has obvious implications for fighting, the English may have learnt the word from British allies or enemies. Andrew Breeze University of Navarre, Pamplona * * * 1 Alistair Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), 174-6, 196-7.