Note 446 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
“The strange phrase and the superstition that arose out of it seem to have been produced by a mistranslation, by the English-speaking population of a considerable portion of Ireland, of two Celtic or Gaelic words, ran, to roar, to shriek, to bellow, to make a great noise on a wind instrument; and rann, to versify, to rhyme. It is well known that rats are scared by any great and persistent noise in the house which they infest. The Saxon English, as well as Saxon Irish, of Shakespeare’s time, confounding rann, a rhyme, with ran, a roar, fell into the error which led to the English phrase as used by Shakespeare.”—Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, 1882, vol. ii. p. 9. “On Some Obscure Words and Celtic Phrases in Shakespeare,” by Charles Mackay.