_Pilled-garlick_ was a term applied to a person whose hair had fallen off by disease; see Todd’s _Johnson’s Dict._ in v.
v. 69. _hocupy there no stede_] i. e. occupy there no place, stand in no stead,—avail nothing.
v. 70. _Syr Gy of Gaunt_] So our author again, in his _Colyn Cloute_;
In _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (which, as already shewn, strongly resembles the present pieces _Against Garnesche_ in several minute particulars) we find—
and at p. 37 of the same vol., in _The Droichis Part of the Play_, attributed to Dunbar,—
So too Sir D. Lyndsay in his _Epistill to the Kingis Grace_ before his _Dreme_,—
“And sumtyme, lyke _the grislie gaist of Gy_.”
who explains it “the well-known Sir Guy of romance.” But both Dunbar and Lyndsay allude to a story concerning the ghost of a person called Guy, an inhabitant of Alost. There is a Latin tract on the subject, entitled _De spiritu Guuidonis_, of which various translations into English are extant in MS. One of these is now before me, in verse, and consisting of 16 closely written 4to pages: _Here begynnyth a notabyll matere and a gret myracule don be oure lord ihesus cryst and shewyd In the ȝeer of his incarnacion MCCCXXIII._ [printed Latin tract now before me has MCCCXXIIII.] _and in the xvi day of decembyr in the Cete of Aleste. Whiche myracule ys of a certeyn man that was callyd Gy. and deyde and aftyr viii days he apperyd to his wyf aftyr the comaundment of god. of whiche apperyng she was aferd and oftyn tyme rauysshid. Than she toke conseyl and went to the ffreris of the same cete and tolde the Pryor ffrere Iohnn goly of this mater, &c._ As _Gaunt_ is the old name of Ghent, and as Alost is about thirteen miles from that city, perhaps the reader may be inclined to think,—what I should greatly doubt,—that Skelton also alludes to the same story.
Page 122. v. 71. _olyfaunt_] i. e. elephant.
v. 72. _pykes_] i. e. pickaxe. “_Pykeys._ Ligo. Marra.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499.
—— _twybyll_] “_Twybyll_ writis instrument. Bisacuta. Biceps.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499. “Twybill or mactok. Marra. Ligo.” _Ibid._ “Bipennis ... a _twyble_ or axe, a twall.” _Ortus Vocab._ ed. 1514. (in the earlier ed. fol. n. d. W. de Worde, the English explanation is less full). “_Twyble_ an instrument for carpentars _bernago_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. lxxi. (Table of Subst.).