Scrout, a drudge, a servant girl that does the lowest kind of work, such as scrubbing the floors, &c. Slade, to bask, "The cat and dog are slading before the fire." Stelsh, the wood pillar to which a cow is fastened in the bay. Stope, to leave a farmer's service, having obtained from him more than one's due. "Jack is a bad un, he stoped his master", i. e., left his master's employment, having raised more than his wages. Soundly. This word is used in many senses in these parts. The following examples will show how it is employed: "He feathers me soundly," said by the father of a young man who had been long ill, and was the while supported by his parent, a labouring man. "I fretted soundly," spoken by a man who grieved after a certain thing which he had done. "I'll stick to it soundly, so as to finish it afore night." "How is Mr. Parry ?" "Well hur's bin very bad, but hur's getting on soundly now." Sight, a quantity, "Oh, you may take them all, I've a sight of them at home.' Swag, to sway to and fro. Tend, attend, watch, wait upon. "John tends the cow this morning for fear she'll get into the wheat, and William is tending the baby." "I to the lords will intercede, not doubting Their favourable ear, that I may fetch him -Samson Agonistes, 920-5. Trouseket, an open cart for carrying branches of trees, etc. Tast, taste, "Let's tast it, boy." Tast rhymes with fast. This pronunciation of taste was very common in the south of Montgomeryshire from twenty to thirty years ago. It is still so pronounced by those who use the word when speaking Welsh, and it can also be met with in secluded districts by those who speak English. "Ne scarse good morsell all his life did tast."—F. Queene, c. iv, 28. Trigg, sb., a small trench indicating the boundary between two townships, parishes, etc.; the wedge-like space between two furrows. A person describing the feats of a favourite dog said, "We had been out some time and I lost my old dog, but going to the top of a bank I saw the old thing course a hare in a fallow, but he was too old to catch her, for every time he was upon the hare she squatted in the trigg and the poor old dog passed over her." Two men, the one an Englishman, and the other an English speaking Welshman, meeting on the hill between Carno and Trefeglwys, spake thus to each other, "Please tell me where's the mere, for I should like to know what parish I am in.". The answer was, "Oh, you have not passed the trigg, you are still in the parish of Trefeglwys." Trigg, v. a., to mark out by cutting away the sod. The place from which the sod is taken is called the trigg. This word has been ventilated in Bye-Gones. Idloes writes thereon as follows: "Trig or Trigg (July 29, 1874). In the neighbourhood of Llanidloes this word is used to signify a small gutter, trench, or other mark which serves as a boundary, generally between two sheep walks. The word frequently crops up in the disputes among the sheep farmers: I coursed his sheep cos they crossed the trig,' was an expression used a short time ago in a local county court. In Salopia Antiqua (p. 600), trig is defined as a small gutter, but nothing is said regarding its use. Halliwell quotes Mr. Hartshorne's explanation. I believe the word is also used as a verb-trig it out, to mark it out." Oswald says: "I am not aware that 'trig' is ever used to signify 'neat' on the borders of Wales. When we mark out ground for sale, we 'Trig it out', i.e., put pegs in the ground to show the extent of each lot....Bye-Gones, reprint, 1874, p. 90. Vessel, abbreviation of universal, "What have you there, John?" "I have nothing in the vessel world.” In Thoresby's letter to Ray, 1703, published by the English Dialect Society, he gives varsall in his list of Yorkshire words thus: Varsall, adj., universal."-Eng. Dia. Society, No. 6, p. 108. Whimpering, pining away, in a dying state; applied to persons and plants. When spoken of women it implies that they are fading away of grief. Wenten, went. This old form of the perfect of the verb to go is found in Wiclif's Bible. "And to tweyne of him wenten in that day into a castel."-St. Luke, xxiv, 13. (To be continued.) A HISTORY OF THE PARISH OF MEIFOD. BY THE REV. R. WYNN EDWARDS, M.A., VICAR OF THE PARISH AND CANON RESIDENTIARY OF ST. ASAPH. THE name of this parish, its derivation, and meaning, have been discussed by the late Rev. Walter Davies, bard and antiquary, in the following passage of his topographical notice of this parish :1 "The most common names of parishes, in some parts of Wales, are compounds of Llan, a village church, or place of meeting, prefixed to the name of the adopted patron saint of the place, as Llan Wynnog, the Church of Gwynnog, etc.; Meifod, therefore, it is more than probable bore its present name previous to the introduction of Christianity. Many conjectures have been offered as to the origin of the name, to refute which would be only wasting time and paper......Fortunately for Meifod, Dr. O. Pughe has inserted it in his Welsh-English dictionary, in its simple state, with the explanation that it signifies a champaign place of settlement." The term Meifod, however, with the meaning here assigned to the word Mai, is unsuited to the locality. It is not easy to see how settlers migrating westward from the plain or champaign country round Shrewsbury, (Pengwern,) would affix the name Meifod, in its assigned meaning of champaign abode, to their new dwelling place in Dyffryn Meifod, i. e., Meifod 1 The writer of the following sketch wishes here to acknowledge his great indebtedness to the author of the "Topographical Notice of the Parish of Meifod," by G. M. (Gwallter Mechain), published in the Cambrian Quarterly in the year 1829, from which much of the information in this History of the Parish of Meifod has been obtained. Valley, inclosed, as its very limited level is, between ranges of hills less than a inile apart. Dyffryn rhwng deu-fryn difor" are the words of Gwallter Mechain, in his Cywydd on Dyffryn Morganwg, where he specially objects to the description of Morganwg as a Dyffryn, alleging as his reason that the term Dyffryn is not applicable to a champaign district. Two other meanings of the word Mai have been suggested as rendering it a more suitable appellation for Meifod. Lewis Morris, whose authority is perhaps greater as a bard and antiquary than as a philologist, writes: "Meifod is plainly, without any conjuration, compounded of two ancient British words, Mai and Bod, which signify the month of May, and habitation', which is as much as to say 'summer quarters." But this word Mai may be otherwise interpreted. The Rev. D. Silvan Evans writes thus: "It appears to me that we have two distinct words under the form Mai. Mai, meaning the month May, is of course from the Latin, and is only used in reference to that month. The other Mai, contrary to the preceding, is a feminine noun, and may be possibly related to magus, which we find in the names of so many places in Gaul. This mai appears to me to signify a field, from the idea of its being inclosed, rather than from the notion of openness, and gware y fai, the game of prison bars, seems to corroborate this view, as a prison suggests the idea of inclosure. In South Wales the following expression is not uncommon, yr oedd yntau yn y fai, he too had a hand in the affair', meaning apparently that the person alluded to was within the inclosure when a certain (more or less discreditable) transaction took place. From a field viewed as an inclosure the word gradually came to signify field in general, and, like its English equivalent, the ground where a battle was fought, and lastly the battle or action itself. Viewing the subject in this light, I should be disposed to take Meifod to mean an abode on the flat inclosure, or the abode on the |