At first neither promises nor threats had any effect on the prisoners, but at length the elder warrior consented to tell the secret on condition that his two sons should first be put to death before his eyes, alleging his fear, that when he returned to his own country, they might cause him to be put to death for betraying the secret. Though somewhat surprised at his request, the Irish chieftains immediately complied with it, and the young men were slain. Then the old warrior exclaimed, "Fools! I saw that your threats and your promises were beginning to influence my sons; for they were but boys, and might have yielded: but now the secret is safe, your threats or your promises have no effect on me!" Enraged at their disappointment, the Irish soldiers hewed the stern northman in pieces, and the coveted secret is still unrevealed. In the South of Scotland a legend, almost word for word the same as the above, is told of an old castle there, with the exception that, instead of Danes, the old warrior and his sons are called Pechts. After the slaughter of his sons the old man's eyes are put out, and he is left to drag on a miserable existence: he lives to an immense old age, and one day, when all the generation that fought with him have passed away, he hears the young men celebrating the feats of strength performed by one of their number; the old Pecht asks for the victor, and requests him to let him feel his wrist; the young man feigns compliance with his request, but places an iron crow-bar in the old man's hand instead of his wrist; the old Pecht snaps the bar of iron in two with his fingers, remarking quietly to the astounded spectators, that "it is a gey bit gristle, and has not much pith in it yet." The story is told in the second volume of Chambers's _Edinburgh Journal_, first series, I think; but I have not the volume at hand to refer to. The similarity between the two legends is curious and interesting. FRANCIS ROBERT DAVIES. * * * * * ARCHAIC WORDS. (Vol. vii., p. 400., &c.) The following list of words, which do not appear in Mr. Halliwell's _Dictionary of Archaic Words_, may form some contribution, however small, to the enlargement of that and of some of our more comprehensive English dictionaries. It falls in with the desire already expressed in "N. & Q.;" and, if the present paper seem worth inserting, may be followed by another. In some few cases, though the word does appear in Mr. Halliwell's columns, an authority is deficient; instances having as it were turned up, and in rather uncommon sources, which seemed occasionally worth supplying. It must be observed that the explanations given are, in some instances, mere conjectures, and await more certain and accurate interpretation. _Aege_, age. _The Festyvall_, fol. cxii. recto, edit. 1528. _Advyse_, to view attentively. Strype's _Memorials_, under MARY, ch. xxviii. p. 234., folio, or vol. iv. p. 384. edit. 1816.