12645, 12669, 12676. _sevene hundred wynter ... thritty wynter ... two and thritty wynter._ Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers always counted duration of time by _winters_ and _nights_; for so many years, they said so many winters, and so many nights for so many days. This form continued long in popular usage, and still remains in our words _fortnight_ and _se'nnight_. 12663. _Gobelyn._ Goblin is a name still applied to a devil. It belongs properly to a being of the old Teutonic popular mythology, a hob-goblin, the "lubber-fiend" of the poet, and seems to be identical with the German _kobold_. (See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 286.) _Gobelin_ occurs as the name of one of the shepherds in the Mystery of the Nativity, printed by M. Jubinal in his Mystères inédits, vol. ii, p. 71. It occurs as the name of a devil in a song of the commencement of the fourteenth century, Political Songs, p. 238:-- Sathanas huere syre Seyde on is sawe, Gobelyn made is gerner Of gromene mawe. 12679. _to warne Pilates wif._ This is an allusion to a popular legend prevalent at this time that the devil wished to hinder Christ's crucifixion, and that he appeared to Pilate's wife in a dream, and caused her to beseech her husband not to condemn the Saviour. It was founded on the passage in Matthew xxvii, 19. Sedente autem illo pro tribunali, misit ad eum uxor ejus, dicens: Nihil tibi et justo illi: multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum. The most complete illustration of the passage of Piers Ploughman will be found in Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, p. 308, "Pilate's Wife's Dream." 12691. _And now I se wher a soule | Cometh hiderward seillynge, | With glorie, &c._ With this beautiful passage may be compared a very similar one in the Samson Agonistes of Milton:-- But who is this, what thing of sea or land? Female of sex it seems, That so bedeck'd, ornate and gay, _Comes this way sailing_ Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim. 12753. _y-lik a lusard._ In the illuminations of manuscripts representing the scene of the temptation, the serpent is often figured with legs like a lizard or crocodile, and a human face. 12759. Matth. v, 38. 12781. Matth. v, 17. 12801. _thorugh a tree._ Some of the medieval legends go still farther, and pretended that the tree from which the wood of the cross was made was descended directly from a plant from the tree in Paradise of which Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit. 12805. Psal. vii, 16. 12840. Psal. l, 6. 12876. 2 Corinth. xii, 4. 12886. Psal. cxlii, 2.