[Footnote 46: Such marvels _shall_ happen.] [Footnote 47: Wherefore the dark dead sea it is called ever more. For _its_ deeds of death endure there yet.] [Footnote 48: And as it is cursed of kind and _its_ properties also, The clay that clings thereby are corrosives strong.] [Footnote 49: I will speak with the spirit, And of _its_ woe will I wit (know), If that I may _its_ bales (grief) abate.] [Footnote 50: So I got up by break of day and set out; and went straight till I well nigh came within two miles of the town, when, as the devil would have it, a horse was standing at an ale-house door; and my calf (the devil bore out _its_ eyes for me) took the horse for _its_ mother, and would suck her.] [Footnote 51: Three specimens of the East-Midland dialect have come to light since writing the above. Harl. MS. 3909; Troy Book, ed. Donaldson, E. E. T. Soc.; The Lay-folks Mass-Book, ed. Simpson, E. E. T. Soc.] GRAMMATICAL DETAILS. I. +Nouns.+ (1) _Number._--The plurals generally end in _-es_ (_eȝ_), _-s_. _Yȝen_ (eyes), _trumpen_ (trumpets), are the only plurals in _-en_ that occur in the poems. In Robson’s Metrical Romances we find _fellun_ (fells, hills,), _dellun_ (dells), and _eyren_ (eggs), in Liber Cure Cocorum. The plurals of _brother_, _child_, _cow_, _doȝter_ (daughter), are _brether_, _childer_, _kuy_, and _deȝter_. (2) _Gender._--The names of inanimate things are in the neuter gender, as in modern English. The exceptions are _deep_ (fem.), _gladnes_ (fem.), and _wind_ (masc.). (3) _Case._--The genitive singular (masc. and fem.) ends in _-es_ (_-eȝ_), _-s_, but occasionally the inflexion is dropped; as, “Baltaȝar thewes,” the virtues of Balshazzar.[52] If “_honde_ myȝt,” “_honde_ werk,” “_hellen_ wombe,” are not compounds, we have instances of the final _-e_ (_en_) which formed the genitive case of _feminine_ nouns in the Southern English of the fourteenth century. In the phrases “_besten_ blod” (blood of beasts), “_blonkken_ bak” (back of horses), “_chyldryn_ fader” (father of children), “_nakeryn_ noyse” (noise of nakers), we have a trace of the genitive plural _-ene_ (A.S. _-ena_). [Footnote 52: In the romance of “Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyȝt” we find “_blonk_ (horse) sadele,” “_fox_ felle” (skin). In _blonk_ an _e_ has probably been dropped.] II. +Adjectives.+ (1) _Number._--The final _e_, as a sign of the plural, is very frequently dropped. _Pover_ (poor), _sturn_ (strong), make the plurals _poveren_ and _sturnen_. In the phrase, “þo syȝteȝ so _quykeȝ_”[53] (those sights so living), the _-eȝ_ (= _-es_) is a mark of the plural, very common in Southern writers of the fourteenth century, and employed as a plural inflexion of the adjective until a very late period in our literature. The Article exhibits the following forms: SINGULAR. PLURAL. Masc. Fem. The. tho.[54] tho.