“to clear up,” O.N. ryethja; bodin, O.N. boethinn (?  See E.D.D.); bud, “bribe,” O.N. boeth; heid, “brightness,” O.N. haeieth; eident, “busy,” O.N. iethinn (ythand is, however, the more common Sco. form); bledder, “to prate,” O.N. blaethra (more commonly blether in Sco.); byrd, “ought,” O.N. burethi; stiddy, O.N. steethi.  I do not think ryde, “severe,” can be derived from O.N. reiethr; and frody, “wise,” is rather O.E. frod than O.N. froethr. Waith, O.N. vaeiethr, has kept the spirant, but faid, a “company of hunters,” has changed it to d. Faid probably comes in from Gaelic.  I have called attention to this change of eth to d in Sco., since many words affected by it have become almost identical in form with their Scand. cognates and have consequently been considered loan-words.  See Sec.23.

  20.  O.E. [-A] AND O.N. AEI.  HOW FAR WE CAN DETERMINE
        SUCH WORDS TO BE OF NATIVE OR OF NORSE ORIGIN.

Certain Eng. dialect words in [-e] corresponding to O.E. [-a] have been considered Scand. loanwords.  We have, however, seen that in the north O.E. [-a] > [-e] just as did O.N. aei (ei).  How many of these words are genuine English and how many are loanwords becomes, then, rather uncertain.  Wall argues that the Norse words were always in M.E. spelled with a diphthong, while the genuine English words were spelled with an a—­thus bain, baisk from O.N. baeinn, baeiskr, but hame, stane, hale from O.E. h[-a]m, st[-a]n, h[-a]l.  If this were always the case we should have here a safe test.  It is, however, a fact that in Scottish texts at least, no such consistency exists with regards to these words.  The following variant spellings will show this:  hame, haim, haym; stain, stane, stayne; hal, hale, hail, hayle; lak, lake, laik, layk; blake, blaik, blayk, etc., etc.  There is, however, another way in which to determine which of such words are loanwords and which are not.  In Southern Scotland in D. 33, and in Northwestern England (D. 31), O.N. aei and O.E. [-a] did not coincide, but have been kept distinct down to the present time (see Ellis’s word-lists and Luik, 220, 221).  In these two dialects O.E. [-a] developed to an i-fracture (see Sec.16.2), while O.N. aei never went beyond the e-stage, and remains an e-vowel in the modern dialects.  Here, then, we have a perfectly safe test for a large number of words.  Those that have in D. 31 and D. 33 an i-vowel or an i-fracture are genuine English, those that have an e-vowel