Note 1 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
Note the many nouns in Mn.E. that are unchanged in the plural. These are either survivals of O.E. long stems, swine, sheep, deer, folk, or analogical forms, fish, trout, mackerel, salmon, etc.
2. Dissyllables whose first syllable is a prefix are, of course, excluded. They follow the declension of their last member: gebed, prayer, gebedu, prayers; gefeoht, battle, gefeoht, battles.
3. See § 17, Note 1. Note that (as in hwæl, § 27, (2)) æ changes to a when the following syllable contains a: hæbbe, but hafast.
4. The old meaning survives in Shakespeare’s “Rats and mice and such small deer,” King Lear, III, iv, 144.
5. See § 20, (2), (b).
6. See § 27, (2).