hear.  The word “bowssen,” too, is very frequently heard in these parts; it is a provincialism for a stall or shed where oxen are kept.  “Boose” is the word from which it originally sprang.  A very expressive phrase in common use is to “quad” or “quat”; it is equivalent to the word “squat.”  Other words in this dialect are “sprack,” an adjective meaning quick or lively; and “frem” or “frum,” a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon “fram,” meaning fresh or flourishing.  The latter word is also used in Leicestershire.  Drayton, who knew the Cotswolds, and wrote poetry about the district, uses the expression “frim pastures.”  “Plym” is the swelling of wood when it is immersed in water; and “thilk,” another Anglo-Saxon word, means thus or the same.

A mole in the Gloucestershire dialect is an “oont” or “woont.”  A barrow or mound of any kind is a “tump.”  Anything slippery is described as “slick”; and a slice is a “sliver.”  “Breeds” denotes the brim of a hat, and a deaf man is said to be “dunch” or “dunny.”  To “glowr” is to stare—­possibly connected with the word “glare.”

Two red-coated sportsmen, while hunting close to our village the other day, got into a small but deep pond.  They were said to have fallen into the “stank,” and got “zogged” through:  for a small pond is a “stank,” and to be “zogged” is equivalent to being soaked.

“Hark at that dog ‘yoppeting’ in the covert!  I’ll give him a nation good ‘larroping’ when I catch him!” This is the sort of sentence a Gloucestershire keeper makes use of.  To “larrop” is to beat.  Oatmeal or porridge is always called “grouts”; and the Cotswold native does not talk of hoisting a ladder, but “highsting” is the term he uses.  The steps of the ladder are the “rongs.”  Luncheon is “nuncheon.”  Other words in the dialect are “caddie” = to humbug; “cham” = to chew; “barken” = a homestead; and “bittle” = a mallet.

Fozbrooke says that the term “hopping mad” is applied to people who are very angry; but we do not happen to have heard it in Gloucestershire.  Two proverbs that are in constant use amongst all classes are, “As sure as God’s in Gloucestershire,” and, “’Tis as long in coming as Cotswold ‘berle’” (barley).  The former has reference to the number of churches and religious houses the county used to possess, the latter to the backward state of the crops on the exposed Cotswold Hills.  To meet a man and say, “Good-morning, nice day,” is to “pass the time of day with him.”  Anything queer or mysterious is described as “unkard” or “unket”; perhaps this word is a provincialism for “uncouth.”  A narrow lane or path between two walls is a “tuer” in Gloucestershire vernacular.  Another local word I have not heard elsewhere is “eckle,” meaning a green woodpecker or yaffel.  The original spelling of the word was “hic-wall.”  In these days of education the real old-fashioned dialect is seldom heard; among the older peasants a few are to be found who speak it, but in twenty years’ time it will be a thing of the past.