Note 17 — Chapter III

Some old Englishman has written in the MS. over difficult words his interpretation of them; an interpretation frequently of great assistance, but occasionally in itself not a little puzzling. This word lefrenole, however, he much elucidates by annotating it “kex;” in Gloucestershire and in other parts of the country the word is still used to signify the hemlock, and may be found in many old writers. Lygones, in A King and No King, refers to his legs as “withered kexes.” The word was probably occasionally used to denote a candle, and this is the meaning assigned to it here. Langland, in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, says that glowing embers do not serve the workman’s purpose so well,