"The varry bobby-o." BOBBY, smart, neat, tidy. BODE, a price, or sum bid-an offer at a sale. Germ. bot, licitatio et pretium oblatum; which Wachter derives from bieten, offerre. BODWORD, an ill-natured errand. An old word for an ominous message. Su.-Got. and Isl. bodword, edictum, mandatum. BOGGLE, BOGGLE-BO, a spectre or ghost, a nursery bug-bear.— North. and Dur. Celtic, bwg, a goblin. Welsh, bogelu, to affright-bugul, fear. In West, and York. the word is BOG GARD, or BOGGART. BOGGLE about the stacks, a favourite pastime among young people in the country villages, in which one hunts several others between the stacks in a corn yard. The diversion was formerly called barley break, or barley brake, and was once an attractive amusement for persons of both sexes "in life's rosy prime." At e'en, in the gloaming, nae younkers are roaming, Flowers of the Forest. BOILING, the entire quantity, the whole party. A metaphor from brewing; as batch is from baking. BOKE, to belch. Sax. bealcan. Dut. boken. See BowK. BOLDON BUKE, BOLDON BOOK, an ancient survey of all the lands within the County Palatine of Durham, held in demesne, or by tenants in villenage; taken in the year 1183 by order of Bishop Hugh Pudsey. This ambitious prelate, styled by Lambarde, "the joly Byshop of Durham," exercised all the state of a sovereign in his own Palatinate, in which there were many royal rights; and probably it was in some degree in consequence of these exclusive privileges, that, when the Conqueror's General Census, or Domesday Book, was made, the bishopric of Durham was not included; though the bishop's property, as a tenant in capite, in other counties, is specifically mentioned in that great national record. The Boldon Book, therefore, forms a valuable Supplement to Domesday; and is of great importance to the See of Durham, having been frequently appealed to and admitted as evidence, on the part of succeeding Bishops, to ascertain their property and seigneurial rights. Besides its value to the topographer, it is highly interesting to the antiquary and historian. It tends greatly to elucidate the English tenures, manners, and customs of the twelfth century; and contains many words which are not to be found in Du Cange, or any of his continuators. This venerable record probably derived its name from Boldon, a village and parish near Sunderland, in the diocese of Durham, where either it was compiled, or according to the census of whose inhabitants other property within the Bishopric was regulated. BOLE-HILLS, a provincial term for heaps of metallic scoria, which are often met with in the lead mine districts. They are the remains of a very ancient mode of smelting lead. It seems clear that the Saxons, as well as the Romans, worked mines in different parts of our island, and frequently made use of lead in works of ecclesiastical magnificence. BOLL, BOLE, the usual corn measure in the north-in some places, two bushels; in others, six. It is common in Scotland, where it varies in quantity, in different sorts of grain; but, I believe, utterly unknown in the south of England. BOLL, BOLE, the body or trunk of a tree. Su.-Got. bol. BO-MAN, a hobgoblin or kidnapper. V. Todd's John. bo. BONDAGER, a cottager, or servant in husbandry, who has a house for the year, at an under rent, and is entitled to the produce of a certain quantity of potatoes. For these advantages he is bound to work, or to find a substitute, when called on, at a fixed rate of wages, lower than is usual in the country. In Northumberland much of this work is performed by the female part of the family, or by children. Swed. bonddrång, a farmer's man, a young peasant. This bondage service, the expediency of which economists have doubted, may be referred to the villenage tenure of a more barbarous period. In the ancient feudal ages, the land was generally cultivated by three sorts F of persons-the small allodial tenants, who, though originally freemen, and capable of disposing of their estates, sometimes elected, for the sake of protection, to become the vassals of their more powerful neighbours-the villeins, who held on condition of performing such servile works as the lord required, or their tenure was burthened with-and the serfs, or villeins regardant, who were literally slaves attached to the soil, and, together with their wives and children, transferred with it by purchase. In cases of great povery and distress, it seems that it was not uncommon for freemen in this country to sell themselves as slaves. Thus, in 1069, Simeon of Durham relates that there was a dreadful famine in England, particularly in Northumberland and the adjacent provinces, and that some sold themselves into perpetual slavery, that they might in some way sustain a miserable life. Many modes by which a man, in a state of villenage, might acquire his freedom, are enumerated by Glanville, and in The Mirror. Before writing was much known, the enfranchisement was accompanied by great publicity and ceremony; but when it became common, the act was done by deed. The form for the eman cipation of serfs is minutely described in the laws of the Conqueror; and various later grants and manumissions may be seen in Madox's Formulare Anglicanum, p. 416, et seq. One of these is remarkable-being an enfranchisement of two villeins for the soul of the Abbot of Bath. To use a quotation that has been applied elsewhere with greater effect "I would not have a slave to till my ground, BONNY, beautiful, pretty, handsome, cheerful. Dr. Johnson derives this northern word from Fr. bon, bonne, good. If this be the etymon, it may have passed to the Scotch from the French; with whom, before the Union, the inhabitants of Scotland were closely connected. Through this channel our border country has derived much of its language. Bonny, however, has been viewed by some as allied to Gael. boigheach, boidheach, pretty. The word is of frequent occurrence in the plays of Shakspeare, who appears to have understood it in all its different meanings. We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot, A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue. Match to match I have encountered him, Richard III. 2 Henry VI. Then sigh not so but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny. Much Ado about Nothing. BOODIES, the same as BABBY BOODIES; which see. BOOMER, Smuggled gin. So called from a place in Northumberland, where that staggering test of loyalty-the payment of imposts-is impenetrable. BOON, a service or bonus, done by a tenant to his landlord, or a sum of money paid as an equivalent. The remains of the ancient bondagium, or villenage servitude; from Sax. bond, bonds or fetters. BOON-DAYS, days works, which the tenants of some manors are obliged or bound to perform for the benefit of their lord gratis. Vast quantities of land in the northern counties, particularly in Cumberland, are held under lords of manors by customary tenure, subject to the payment of fines and heriots, and the performance of various duties and services on the boon days. Spelman, vo. precariæ, refers to "BIDEN DAYS, quod Sax. Dies precarias sonat, nam bidden est orare et precari ;" and gives a curious extract from the Great Book of the Monastery of Battel, where the custom is plainly set forth. BOOR, BOUR, the parlour, or inner room through the kitchen, in country houses, in which the head person of the family generally sleeps. It is undoubtedly to be referred immediately to Sax. bur, which bears exactly the same sense. The analogy between this term, and Isl. bur, a little dwelling, from bouan, to dwell, is striking. Spenser uses bower, for a lady's apartment. Fair Rosamond's bower, at Woodstock, is familiar to every reader. BOORDLY, BUIRDLY, stout, strong, robust; also stately, noble looking. BOORLY, rough, unpolished-boorish. Teut. boer. Sax. bure, a boor. BOOR-TREE, or BOUR-TREE, the elder tree. I have heard this explained as the boor's tree-growing in cottage-garths, hedges, &c. But see BUR-TREE. BOOT, BOTE, or BUTE, something given to equalize an exchange, or in addition. In the former edition of this work, I gave old Fr. bote, help, advantage, as a probable derivation. Booty, to play booty, i. e. partially, unfair, (with a reference to H. Tooke, But or Bot,) has been since suggested to me; as has also Sax. butan, to add-that which is added. But I think, on further consideration, that the word has been adopted from the Saxon expression to bote, compensationis gratiâ, insuper, ex abundanti. BOOTED BREAD, bolted bread, brown bread made of bolted or sifted meal, and better than the common household breadsometimes with a mixture of rye. Boot may be derived from Germ. beuteln, to sift. BOOTHER, BOODER, or BOWDER, a hard flinty stone, rounded like a bowl. Sc. boulder-stane. V. Todd's John. boulder, and bowlder-stones. BORROWED-DAYS, BORROWING-DAYS, the three last days of March. March borrowed of April Three days, and they were ill: The one was sleet, the other was snow, The third was the worst that e'er did blow. Northern Popular Rhyme. These days being generally stormy, our forefathers, as my |