"Thane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.' The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... "I am ready to do battle again, even with the Thane of Fife—who, to-night, is one Johnson, a fellow of six feet and twelve stone. What is ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... cleared for the Geats, and a thane waited upon them, and all the noble warriors gathered together, and a great feast was held once more in Heorot with song and revelry. Waltheow, Hrothgar's queen, came forth also, and handed the wine-cup to each of the thanes, pledging the king in joyful mood ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... if she be indeed a daughter of Shakespeare's, is the eldest born of that group to which Lady Macbeth and Dionyza belong by right of weird sisterhood. The wives of the thane of Glamis and the governor of Tharsus, it need hardly be said, are both of them creations of a much later date—if not of the very latest discernible or definable stage in the art of Shakespeare. Deeply dyed as she is ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... our first English book-collector. The son of a rich Thane might have looked to a political career; he preferred to devote himself to learning, and would have spent his life in a Roman monastery if the Pope had not ordered him to return to England in company with Theodore of Tarsus. His first expedition was ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... tyl a wicked deth him take Him had leuer asondre (a-sunder) shake And let al his lymmes asondre ryue Thane leaue his ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... lands, a plougher of the desolate places of the "vasty deep," yet withal a lover of home, who trod at times, with bitter longing for his native land, the thorny paths of exile. To him physical cowardice was the unforgivable sin, next to treachery to his lord; for the loyalty of thane to his chieftain was a very deep and abiding reality to the Anglo-Saxon warrior, and in the early poems of our English race, love for "his dear lord, his chieftain-friend," takes the place of that love of woman which other races felt and expressed. A quiet death bed was the worst end to a ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... table was visibly baronial. At the head sat the great Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about him; then on each side came the neighbors of the "old" house, grading down to vassals and retainers—superintendents, cashiers, heads of departments, and the like—at the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... with the fresshe moysture, Man, beeste, and foole, and every creature, Whiche hathe repressed, swaged, and bore doune, The grevous constreinte of the frostes heere; And caused foolis for joye of this saysonne, To cheese their mates, thane by natures loore, With al gladnesse theire courage to restore, Sitting on bowes fresshly nowe to synge, Veere for to save at his home comynge; Ful pleinly meninge in theire ermonye, Wynter is goone, whiche did hem gret ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... tea is given for a debutante it may be a very festive occasion and /decollete/ gowns may be worn. Dark colors are rarely worn and the debutante herself should be a fairy dream in a lovely creation of silk, georgette, crepe-de-thane, or something else ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... nine years before the date of our story, Robert Holt abandoned Stubley for the warmer and more fertile situation of Castleton, about a mile south from Rochdale. It was so named from the castellum de Recedham, wherein dwelt Gamel, the Saxon Thane; which place and personage are described in our first series of Traditions. Castleton was principally abbey-land belonging to the house of Stanlaw. Part of this township, the hamlet of Marland or Mereland, was, at the dissolution of monasteries, granted to the Radcliffs of Langley, and sold by ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... contrivances was attached to each side of the portal of the great avenue which led to the castle. The thief was turned over accordingly to the gardener, as ground-officer, to see the punishment duly inflicted. When the Thane of Glammis returned from his morning ride, he was surprised to find both sides of the gateway accommodated each with a prisoner, like a pair of heraldic supporters, chained and collared proper. He asked the gardener, whom he found watching the place of punishment, as his duty required, whether ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... bent to his slumber, The pillow received the cheek of the noble; And many a martial mere-thane ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... might recall a remote half feudal, half patriarchal age, when, under the smoky rafters of his antique hail, some warlike thane sat, with kinsmen and dependants ranged down the long board, each in his degree. Here, doubtless, Ragueneau, the Father Superior, held the place of honor; and, for chieftains scarred with Danish battle-axes, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... of Belmont The Thane's Daughter Helena; the Physician's Orphan Desdemona; the Magnifico's Child Meg and Alice; the Merry Maids of Windsor. Isabella; the Votaress Katharina and Bianca; the Shrew and the Demure Ophelia; the Rose of Elsinore Rosalind and Celia; the Friends Juliet; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... the bold thane Treasure jewels many, Glittering gold Heavy on the ground, Wonders in the mound And the worm's den, The old twilight flier's, Bowls standing; Vessels of men of yore, With the mountings fall'n off. There was many a helm ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the paughty, feudal Thane, Wi' ruffl'd sark an' glancing cane, Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane, But lordly stalks, While caps and bonnets aff are taen, As ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Castle on our return to Kinghorn. On the left, before descending to the coast, are considerable remains of a castle, called popularly the old castle, or Macduff's Castle. That of the Thane was situated at Kennochquay, at no great distance. The front of Wemyss Castle, to the land, has been stripped entirely of its castellated appearance, and narrowly escaped a new front. To the sea it has a noble situation, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... lethargy, we will come back and fight for our home and lands; if not, I will no longer stay in East Anglia, which I see is destined to fall piecemeal into the hands of the Danes; but we will journey down to Somerset, and I will pray King Ethelbert to assign me lands there, and to take me as his thane." ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... fields, when suddenly, in the midst of a laund, there met them three women in strange and ferly apparel, resembling creatures of an elder world, whom when they attentively beheld, wondering much at the sight, the first of them spake and said, All hail, Macbeth, thane of Glamis (for he had lately entered into that dignity and office by the death of his father Synel). The second of them said, Hail, Macbeth, thane of Cawdor. But the third said, All hail, Macbeth, that hereafter ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... fraud, or at least caprice, in the persons paying; and with either jealousies or mean compliances in such as were competitors for receiving them; it was now ordered by the law of king Edgar[n], that "dentur omnes decimae primariae ecclesiae ad quam parochia pertinet." However, if any thane, or great lord, had a church within his own demesnes, distinct from the mother-church, in the nature of a private chapel; then, provided such church had a coemitery or consecrated place of burial belonging to it, he might allot one third ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... Athelstan, "that the people and their legal condition went according to their merits; and then were the councillors of the nation honoured each one according to his quality, the earl and the ceorl, the thane and the underthane. If a ceorl throve so as to have five hides booked to him, a church, bell-tower, a seat in the borough, and an office in the King's court, from that time forward he was esteemed equal in honour to a thane." Again, the laws of King Edgar relating to tithe ordain ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... "Take Thane with you, and carry Mr. Hazelton's transit to Grizzly Ledge. Mr. Hazelton and I will be ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... desperate struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The hero of the story, a young Saxon thane, takes part in all the battles fought by King Alfred, and the incidents in his career are unusually varied and exciting. He is driven from his home, takes to the sea and resists the Danes on their own element, and ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... that day thai saw, That forouth in Scotland had bene nane. Tymmeris for helmys war the tane, That thaim thoucht thane off gret bewte And alsua wondyr for to se. The tothyr, crakys war, off wer, That thai befor herd neuir er.' 'The Bruce', Booke Fourteene, p. 392. *4* This was in an action in the year 1756. *5* 'Miente de la ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... son of Healfden Sorrowed evermore, Nor might the prudent hero His woes avert. The war was too hard, Too loath and longsome, That on the people came, Dire wrath and grim, Of night-woes the worst. This from home heard Higelac's Thane, Good among the Goths, Grendel's deeds. He was of mankind In might the strongest, At that day Of this life, Noble and stalwart. He bade him a sea-ship, A goodly one, prepare. Quoth he, the war-king, Over the swan's road, Seek he would The mighty monarch, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... dying chief. He fills his hands with costly ornaments and hurries to throw them at his hero's feet. The old man looks with sorrow at the gold, thanks the "Lord of all" that by death he has gained more riches for his people, and tells his faithful thane how his body shall be burned on the Whale ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... more sygnyfyeth To playne vnderstandyng but in euery mane Bothe Sensualyte & Reason applyeth Rather Dethe to flee then with hir to be tane Loo in that poynt accorde they holly thane And in all other they clerely dyscorde Thus is trewly set ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... pity even of his murderers, has been often pointed out. It forms a picture of itself. An instance of the author's power of giving a striking effect to a common reflection, by the manner of introducing it, occurs in a speech of Duncan, complaining of his having been deceived in his opinion of the Thane of Cawdor, at the very moment that he is expressing the most unbounded confidence in the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... lands. He had three daughters, who became his heirs-portioners. To his eldest daughter Marie he left the estates of Auchterarder, Cargill (or Stobhall), and Kincardine in Menteith. She married Sir John Drummond, the seventh Thane of Lennox. Sir John Drummond's eldest daughter was Annabella Drummond, Queen to Robert III. Our present Gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria is a lineal descendant of Marie Montifex of the Castle ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... footsteps lit up hill, meadow and lawn, and kissed away the sparkling dewdrops of bush and hedge, cheering us on our way through the towns of Thane, over the Chilton Hills, on to Great Marlow, Maidenhead and renowned Windsor, where forest and castle thrilled the beholder with admiration for the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... folk talking a-nigh him when he was too little to understand, of a king and his son, and a mighty man turned thief and betrayer. Then his brow cleared, and his eyes shone bright, and he leaned forward to Jack and girt him with the sword, and kissed his mouth, and said: "Thou art indeed my man and my thane and my earl, and I gird thee with thy sword as my ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... jurisdiction of the Lennox; a county full of rivers, lochs, and mountains, "emblematically expressed," says Lord Strathallan, "in the coats of arms then given to him, wherein hunting, waters, hounds, inhabitants wild and naked, are represented." To these gifts was added the office of Thane, Seneschal, or Stuart Heritable of Lennox,—names all meaning the same thing, but ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the antiquities of Strowan. There was a Thane of "Struin" in Strathearn, in very early times, when Thanes were servants of the King, holding their land in fee-farm for a certain "census," or feu-duty. Strowan, like Monzievaird, had a Celtic saint for founder—St. Ronan. He is not to be identified with ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... Frode, the Dane of Avalcomb." The red mouth trembled a little. "He is dead now. He was slain last night, by Norman Leofwinesson, who is Edric Jarl's thane." ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... author gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The hero, a young Saxon thane, takes part in all the battles fought by King Alfred. He is driven from his home, takes to the sea and resists the Danes on their own element, and being pursued by them up the Seine, is present at the long and desperate ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... of commerce, and which it required some liberality of mind in that age to have devised: that a merchant, who had made three long sea-voyages on his own account, should be admitted to the rank of a Thane or Gentleman. This prince died at Gloucester in the year 941 [c], after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his legitimate brother. [FN [b] Brompton, p. 839 Ingulph. p. 29 [c] ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... do we find the fatality in "Hamlet," "King Lear," in "Macbeth"? Is its throne not erected in the very centre of the old king's madness, on the lowest degree of the young prince's imagination, at the very summit of the Thane's morbid cravings? Macbeth we may well pass by; not need we linger over Cordelia's father, for his absence of consciousness is all too manifest; but Hamlet, Hamlet the thinker—is he wise? Is the elevation ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... limited: had it been of any importance, it would have been more specially noticed and protected by his laws. It was otherwise, however, in the reign of Athelstan; for there is a famous law made by him, by which the rank and privileges of a thane are conferred on every merchant, who had made three voyages across the sea, with a vessel and cargo of his own. By another law passed in this reign, the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... your threat," said Vincent, and instantly addressed the stranger. "Buy a watch, most noble northern Thane—buy a watch, to count the hours of plenty since the blessed moment you left Berwick behind you.—Buy barnacles, to see the English gold lies ready for your gripe.—Buy what you will, you shall have credit for three days; for, were your pockets ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... loss; all was profit; and ever since that day it has seemed to me the only manner of doing business worth while. There are, or were, other compensations in a life of trade, which might fire the ambition of a strenuous youth. I remember three voyages made the merchant a Thane in ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... mother of Athelstane "the Unready" (thane of Conningsburgh).—Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... you, my young friend," said he, good-humouredly. "It is a pleasure we lose as we grow older,—that of being sleepy. However, 'to bed,' as Lady Macbeth says. Faith, I don't wonder the poor devil of a thane was slow in going to bed with such a tigress. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Garibaldi), Gatliffe (Geatleof), Goddard (Godheard), Goodliffe (Godleof), Gunnell (Gunhild), Gunner (Gunhere), [Footnote: It is unlikely that this name is connected with gun, a word of too late appearance. It may be seen over a shop in Brentford, perhaps kept by a descendant of the thane of the adjacent Gunnersbury.] Haines (Hagene), Haldane (Haelfdene), Hastings (Haesten, the Danish chief who gave his name to Hastings, formerly Haestinga-ceaster), Herbert (Herebeorht), Herrick Hereric), Hildyard (Hildegeard), Hubert, Hubbard, Hobart, Hibbert (Hygebeorht), Ingram (Ingelram), ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... Thane within reach but he knew his family and connexions, how many of his ancestors had fallen by the sword of the English, how many in domestic brawl, and how many by the hand of the executioner for march-treason. Their castles he was acquainted with from turret to foundation-stone; and as for the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... old Anglo-Saxon story of the bird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall and out at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanes and vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to them concerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding rose and said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side of the hall, "Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anything concerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... this great army of Duffs of Clunybeg and Hatton and Fetteresso and the rest advancing towards me solemnly waving their family-trees. In the van, with his Dunsinane honours thick upon him, marched MACDUFF—MACDUFF, you know, who was also "Thane of Fife, created first Earl, 1057, m. Beatrice Banquo." Then followed a long train of other warriors—General Sir ALEXANDER, who fought in Flanders; Captain GEORGE, who was killed at Trafalgar; Admiral NORWICH and Admiral ROBERT, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... see, some bearing upon the more immediate object of this notice,—that this island is one of the few spots in the vicinity of Edinburgh that has been rendered classical by the pen of Shakspeare. In the second scene of the opening act of the tragedy of Macbeth, the Thane of Ross comes as a hurried messenger from the field of battle to King Duncan, and reports that Duncan's own rebellious subjects and the invading Scandinavians had both been so completely defeated by his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, that the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... many published collections of facsimiles of autographs of different nations. Among those published in England the following may be named:—British Autography, by J. Thane (1788-1793, with supplement by Daniell, 1854); Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned and Remarkable Personages in English History, by J. G. Nichols (1829); Facsimiles of Original Documents of Eminent Literary Characters, by C. J. Smith (1852); Autographs of the Kings and Queens ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... testament as thus dictated too me by sayed testator and wheech was wreeten by me notarie by my h-own han' jus' as dictated, was thane by me not-arie rade to sayed Mr. [Englishman] in an audible voice and in the presence of dthe aforesayed three witnesses, and dthe sayed Mr. [Englishman] diclar-ed that he well awnder-stood me not-arie and persever-ed een diclaring the same too ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Menthorpe, Bryan, Castelfar! Heave, Thorparch Of the Waving Larch, And Spofford's thane, for Gamelbar! Blaise for Gamel, Brame for Gamel, Rougharlington ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... the Meek reigned king of Scotland, there lived a great thane, or lord, called Macbeth. This Macbeth was a near kinsman to the king, and in great esteem at court for his velour and conduct in the wars; an example of which he had lately given, in defeating a rebel army assisted by the troops of Norway ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and on this a lamp was burning. The floor was strewn with fur rugs, and on the walls hung the mounted heads of beasts. These things impressed themselves upon Philip first. It was as if he had stepped suddenly out of the world in which he was living into the ancient hall of a wild and half-savage thane whose bones had turned ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Heorot. In this hall Hrogar and his retainers live in joy and festivity, until a malignant fiend, called Grendel, jealous of their happiness, carries off by night thirty of Hrogar's men, and devours them in his moorland retreat. These ravages go on for twelve years. Bewulf, a thane of Hygelac, King of the Goths, hearing of Hrogar's calamities, sails from Sweden with fourteen warriors—to help him. They reach the Danish coast in safety; and, after an animated parley with Hrogar's coastguard, who at first takes them for ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... sickness so ghastly and dreadful that men called it the Yellow Death, and fled from it as swiftly as they might. But in the dead and dark of the third night a beautiful Child, crowned with roses and bearing in his hand a rose, had come to the dying thane and said: "Now mayest thou see that the best the world can give—call it by what name thou wilt and prize it at its utmost worth—is nothing more than these: wind and smoke and a dream and a flower. But though all have fled from thee and left thee to die ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... to death for minor offences, while a freeman might atone for any crime, even for murder, by the payment of a fine, the amount of the penalty being determined by the rank of the victim. Among the Saxons the life of a king's thane was worth 1200 shillings, while that of a common free man was valued only one-sixth ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... especially a translation from a northern tongue, with its force and backbone, so to speak, into a southern, serpentine, gliding language. You have heard the absurd rendering of that passage from Macbeth where the witches salute him with 'Hail to thee, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!' into such French as 'Comment vous portez vous, Monsieur Macbeth; comment vous portez vous, Monsieur Thane de Cawdor!' A translation must pass through the medium of another mind, and other minds like Shakspeare's are hard ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... Renfrew, we beheld, in all the apart and consequentiality of pride, the house of Kelly overlooking the social villas of Wemyss Bay. My brother compared it to a sugar hogshead, and them to cotton-bags; for the lofty thane of Kelly is but a West India planter, and the inhabitants of the villas on the shore ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... came to Nairn, and thence to the manse of the minister of Calder, Mr. Kenneth Macaulay, author of the "History of St. Kilda," where we stayed the night, after visiting the old castle, the seat of the Thane of Cawdor. Thence we drove to Fort George, where we dined with the governor, Sir Eyre Coote (afterwards the gallant conqueror of Hyder Ali, and preserver of our Indian Empire), and then got safely to Inverness. Next day we went to Macbeth's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Langdon, of New York. Royalty had one room for supper, with its attendant lords and ladies. Lord Rothschild took me down to a long table for a sit-down supper,—there were some thirty of us. The most superb pink orchids were on the table. The [Thane] of —— sat next me, and how he stared before he was introduced! ... This has been the finest party we have been to, sitting comfortably in such a beautiful ball-room, gazing at royalty in the flesh, and at the shades of departed beauties on the wall, by Sir ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is the place, do you not, Mr. Thane? This is Pilgrim Station?" The old gentleman spoke to the younger of the two men in front, who, turning, showed the three-quarter view of a tanned, immobile face and the keen side glance of a pair of dense black eyes,—eyes that saw ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... always in him that side of his nature, so the reader must know that when Nellie Logan came to his office that bright summer morning and found him wrapped in his day-dream of power, she addressed herself not to the Thane of Wheat who should be King hereafter, but to the baritone singer in the Congregational choir, and the wheat king scampered back to the dream world when John ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... lyf, becawse it is nocht ane matter of mowise, be circumspect in all thingis, and tak na feir bot all sall be veill. I hew na vill that ather my brother or yit M.W.R. my Lo. ald pedagog knaw ony thing of the matter, qhill all be done that ve vald hew done; and thane I cair nocht qha get vit, that lufis vs. Qhen ye hew red, send this my letter bak agane vith the berar, that I may se it brunt my self, for sa is the fasson in sic errandis; and if ye please, vryyt our (?) answer ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... of a high hill forming part of the range of Pendle, and commanding an extensive view over the forest, and the wild and mountainous region around it, stands a stern solitary tower. Old as the Anglo-Saxons, and built as a stronghold by Wulstan, a Northumbrian thane, in the time of Edmund or Edred, it is circular in form and very lofty, and serves as a landmark to the country round. Placed high up in the building the door was formerly reached by a steep flight of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... be witches. When these old women heard that Macbeth was coming to the place they went out to meet him, and awaited his coming on a great heath. The first old woman saluted him on his approach with these words: "All hail, Macbeth—hail to thee, thane of Glamis!" ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... have watched his vast creation Loom through its smoke—the spectre-haunted Thane, The Sisters at their ghostly invocations, The jealous ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... elegance. Several edifices are in process of erection that will rank with some of the best in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It has a long and pretentious history, reaching back to the Romans, and dashed with the romance of the wild ages of the country. Oliver Cromwell, or Sledgehammer II., Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor, Queen Mary, Prince Charlie, and other historical celebrities, entered their names and doings on the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... during that time gave orders for collecting forces from his southern and midland counties, and also directed his fleet to reassemble off the Sussex coast. Harold was well received in London, and his summons to arms was promptly obeyed by citizen, by thane, by sokman, and by ceorl; for he had shown himself during his brief reign a just and wise king, affable to all men, active for the good of his country, and (in the words of the old historian) sparing himself ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... until they came to the town of Alton; and then there came against them the men of Hampshire and fought against them. And there was Ethelward the King's high-steward slain, and Leofric at Whitchurch and Leofwin the King's high-steward and Wulfhere the bishop's thane, and Godwin at Worthy, Bishop Elfry's son, and of all men one hundred and eighty; and there were of the Danish men many more slain, though they had possession of the place of slaughter." A mere plundering expedition, we may think, but it foretold with certainty the rule of the Danes in England, ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... just on the border of the Fenland, Saxulf, a thane of Mercia who had acquired great wealth, founded the first and most powerful of the great Benedictine abbeys of this region in the year 655. Around this celebrated religious house has grown the town of Peterborough, now one of the chief railway-junctions in Midland England. ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, "And what art thou to-night?" Tom answered, "The Thane of Ross[26];" (which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character.) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... about the beginning of May, and soon learnt that I was appointed to the post at Lake of Two Mountains. The Montreal department was headed at that time by Mr. Thane, a man of rather eccentric character, but possessed of a heart that glowed with the best feelings of humanity. I was allowed to amuse myself a few days in town, having directions however to call at the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... waiting; for when Stanley Thane Came from his northern home with Dalton Earl, And on the terrace steps met Coralline, Love took the sceptre that his ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... this scene, he is to meet his courtiers at a state-banquet, given in honor of Banquo, he tells them with hardihood. For we must remember that this jealous king is no longer the warrior Thane whom we first encounter upon the 'blasted heath', and whom we afterwards see haunted by horrid visions of 'air-drawn daggers', as he turns his hand to crime. He has gotten far beyond all this. Murders ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... "Thane or Lordling, think no scorn Of the poor and lowly-born. In brake obscure or lonely dell The simple flowret prospers well; The gentler virtues cottage-bred, omitted Thrive best beneath the humble shed. Low-born Hinds, opprest, obscure, Ye who patiently endure To bend the knee and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... laund there met them three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world, whome when they attentivelie beheld, woondering much at the sight, the first of them spake and said; 'All haile, Makbeth, thane of Glammis' (for he had latelie entered into that dignitie and office by the death of his father Sinell). The second of them said; 'Haile, Makbeth, thane of Cawder.' But the third said; 'All haile, Makbeth, that heereafter shall be King of Scotland.' ... Afterwards ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... lhord, thet y-kend [conceived] is of the Holy Gost, y-bore of Marie mayde, y-pyned [was crucified, lit. made to suffer] onder Pouns Pilate, y-nayled a rode [on a cross], dyad, and be-bered; yede [went] doun to helle; thane thridde day aros vram the dyade; steay [rose, ascended] to hevenes; zit [sitteth] athe [on the] right half of God the Vader almighti; thannes to comene He is, to deme the quike and the dyade. Ich y-leve ine the Holy Gost; holy cherche ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... sleep. He stood long at the window of his cell in a dreamy reverie. The story of the last Thane of Michelham, as related in the Andredsweald, had often been told around the camp fires, and although he was only in his thirteenth year when he left them, it was all distinctly imprinted in his memory. Oh! how strange it ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... we walked to the old castle of Calder (pronounced Cawder), the Thane of Cawdor's seat. I was sorry that my friend, this 'prosperous gentleman', was not there. The old tower must be of great antiquity. There is a draw-bridge,—what has been a moat—and an ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... his sermon, he schew the great luif of God towardis his Church, whome it pleaseth to foirwarne of dangeris to come so many yearis befoir thei come to pas. 2. He breavelie[479] entraited the estait of the Israelitis, who thane war in bondage in Babylon, for the most parte; and maid a schorte discourse of the foure Impyres, the Babyloniane, the Persiane, that of the Greakis, and the fourte of the Romanes; in the destructioun whairof, rase up that last Beast, which he affirmed to be the Romane Church; ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... bestowed on the chiefs of his army. We have little information of the way in which this change was carried out, but in many cases certainly the possessions held by a given Saxon thane in the days of Edward were turned over as a whole to a given Norman with no more accurate description than that the lands of A were now to be the lands of B. What lands had actually belonged to A, the old owner, was left to be determined by some sort of local inquiry, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... smash; the old oil reverberes have been replaced by showy gas-lamps, and the sergents de ville would make short work of any roisterers who attempted to take liberties with them. The old Paris of the Restoration and the Monarchy is dead; but the Thane of Cawdor—I mean George Cruikshank—lives, a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... and they are feasted by their host: "Then was a bench cleared for the sons of the Geatas, to sit close together in the beer-hall; there the stout-hearted ones went and sat, exulting clamorously. A thane attended to their wants, who carried in his hands a chased ale-flagon, and poured the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... whole jockey club might not hear, took me back into the room we had quitted, and left me to find, or make whatever acquaintance I could. Pampered and spoiled as I was in the most difficult circles of London, I was beyond measure indignant at the cavalier demeanour of this rustic Thane, whom I considered a being as immeasurably beneath me in every thing else, as he really was in antiquity of birth, and, I venture to hope, in cultivation of intellect. I looked round the room, and did not recognize a being of my acquaintance: I seemed literally ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dust Fell headlong,—and, its work of slaughter done, The gallant sword dropp'd fast a gory dew. Instant, as though heaven's glorious torch had shone, Light was upon the gloom,—all radiant light From that dark mansion's inmost cave burst forth. With hardier grasp the thane of Higelac press'd His weapon's hilt, and furious in his might Paced the wide confines of the ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... may be needed with regard to the sources from which this story of King Eadmund's armour bearer and weapon thane have been drawn. For the actual presence of such a close attendant on the king at his martyrdom on Nov. 20, 870 A.D. we have the authority of St. Dunstan, who had the story from the lips ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... girl, whose father buys Some ruined thane's forsaken hall, Explores the new domain and tries Before the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... in," were inwoven with existing manners and opinions, and all their effects on the passions of terror or pity might be gathered from common and actual observation—might be discerned in the workings of the face, the expressions of the tongue, the writhings of a troubled conscience. "Your face, my Thane; is as a book where men may read strange matters." Midnight and secret murders too, from the imperfect state of the police, were more common; and the ferocious and brutal manners that would stamp the brow of the hardened ruffian or hired assassin, more incorrigible and undisguised. The portraits ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Your face, my thane, is a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time. Macbeth, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... that after a few days the cow-herd asked him who he was, and how he came to be wandering about in that distressed and destitute condition. Alfred told him that he was one of the king's thanes. A thane was a sort of chieftain in the Saxon state. He accounted for his condition by saying that Alfred's army had been beaten by the Danes, and that he, with the other generals, had been forced to fly. He begged the cow-herd to conceal him, and to keep the secret of his ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... saw no one, had in reality been watched by a South-Saxon Thane, who, having counted Ins ships and seen his array, mounted, and, without resting day or night, rode to York, where, as Harold was dining, two days after the battle of Stamford Bridge, he rushed into the hall, crying out, "The Normans ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... all the passages, in which the Thane of Cawdor is mentioned, is very remarkable; in the second scene the Thanes of Rosse and Angus bring the king an account of the battle, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... and pleased to hear the kinship acknowledged. A good family, as families go, though I say it. We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth's time; and to our name since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan. We have a knack, ma'am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the wind. It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to Nairn, a miserable town, but a royal burgh, of which the chief annual magistrate is styled lord provost. In the neighbourhood we saw the castle of the old thane of Cawdor. There is one ancient tower, with its battlements and winding stairs, yet remaining; the rest of the house is, though not modern, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... beautiful anecdote which Mr. Lingard furnishes from Bede of the debate on the conversion of the Northumbrian king, Edwin, we cannot forbear transcribing. The high priest of the heathen rites having spoken—a thane "sought for information respecting the origin and destiny of man. 'Often,' said he, 'O king, in the depth of winter, while you are feasting with your thanes, and the fire is blazing on the hearth in the midst of ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... weird, a thane of the Pictish race, had his dwelling near the giddy cliffs where the young eagles scream to the roar of the dark waters of the Forth. He had a daughter whose beauty was the theme of all tongues. Her fame went over the land like the sound of shells—yea, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... grandame's knee; Or as beside the hearth he sat, Oft sporting with his snow-white cat; Now by the chaplain taught to read, And lisp his Pater and his Creed; Well nurtured at his mother's side, And by his father trained to ride, To speak the truth, to draw the bow, And all an English Thane should know, His days had been as one bright dream— As smooth as his own river's stream! Until, at good King Alfred's call, Thane Egbert left ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... natural as life. You see these two grandees were next- door neighbours, and there had been a feud between the families for seven centuries—a sort of Capulet and Montague affair. One Adelgitha, the daughter of the Thane of Allan-a-dale—there were Thanes in those days, you know—was betrothed to the eldest son of Sir Waldemar de Ballyporeen. This gives me an opportunity of bringing in a succinct little account of the Conquest, which will be beneficial to the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... reappeared as Lady Macbeth with Mrs. Wilkins's scarlet shawl for royal robes, and the leafy chaplet of the morning for a crown. She took the stage with some difficulty, for the unevenness of the turf impaired the majesty of her tragic stride, and fixing her eyes on an invisible Thane (who cut his part shamefully, and spoke in the gruffest of gruff voices) she gave them ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... support him in both of these, it was necessary that he should have a competent estate. Therefore in this service of the king, this attendance on himself, and this estate to support both, the dignity of a thane consisted. I understand here a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... thane lordly treasures in former times have given, while we in the good realm all blissful sate, and had sway of our mansions:— at no more acceptable time could he ever with value my bounty requite. If now for this purpose any one of my thanes would himself volunteer that he from ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... was founded by Offa, Thane of Aescendune, in the year of the Lord 938, and completed by his son and successor Ella, who was treacherously murdered by his nephew Ragnar, and lies buried within these sacred walls. The first prior was Father Cuthbert, my godfather, ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... interruption of his journey, he launched his [v]javelin at poor Fangs, who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal's shoulder and narrowly missed pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the enraged [v]thane. Gurth's heart swelled within him, for he felt this attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his hand to his eyes, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... of Vernon without a sneer, when he and his wife were alone; although he was careful not to say anything uncivil before Lady Palliser. He scoffed at the little lad's position, as if it had been an offence in the child himself—called him the microscopic baronet, the baby thane, laughed with bitterest laughter at any little touch of arrogance which clouded the natural ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... race dates from an elder date than these Norman nobles, who boast their robber-fathers. From the renowned Saxon Thane, who, free of hand and of cheer, won the name of Hildegardis, [Hildegardis, namely, old German, a person of noble or generous disposition. Wotton's "Baronetage," art. Hilyard, or Hildyard, of Pattrington.] our family took its rise. But under these Norman barons we sank with ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time the very genius of disorder and ruin, there existed, nevertheless, potentialities of humanity, order, and enlightenment far exceeding those of the system they displaced. In all their barbarism there was a certain nobility; their courage was unflinching; the fidelity, even unto death, of thane to lord, repaid the open-handed generosity of lord to thane; they honored truth; and even after we allow for the exaggerated claims made for a chivalrous devotion that did not exist, we find that they held their women in higher respect than was usual ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... legal limitations to experimentation, such secrecy occasions no surprise; but that in England the laboratory had secured so complete a degree of security from criticism by concealment of that which we are told needs no concealment gives reason for questionings. One of the Government inspectors—a Dr. Thane—insists that although a physiological laboratory is open to the visits of medical students at any time, it would hardly be possible to permit a similar privilege to physicians not in sympathy with experimentation. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... fortress, which before the invention of gunpowder must have been impregnable. Some of the conspirators were afterwards pardoned. One of the pardons is said to be still in existence; and the reason assigned for granting it is, that the conspirator was within the tenth degree of kin to Macduff, thane of Fife. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... knew that the king would have them abandon their old customs and accept the new faith. But they considered that he had no right to dictate to them; so they turned this summons into one of war, and drew together, both thane and thrall, from all parts ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... the platform around her were Ilse and Marya and Questa Terrett and the birth-control lady—Miss Thane—neat and placid and precise as usual, and wearing long-distance spectacles for a more minute inspection ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the feast came to an end, and all left the hall save Beowulf and his fourteen followers. In their armour, with swords girt on their sides, the fourteen heroes lay down to rest, but Beowulf laid aside all his arms and gave his sword to a thane to bear ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... this gallant knight of Conquest days; and Professor Freeman does not hesitate to dismiss the story of his existence as "pure fable." But if Sir William of Normandy must fall from the family tree, his place is most creditably taken by Godric, a Saxon Thane, who, as a forefather, is at least as respectable as any Norman warrior in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Sin'el, thane of Glamis, and father of Macbeth. He married the younger daughter of Malcolm II. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the larger part of chapter eight of Scott's Ivanhoe. The hero of the novel is a Saxon knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, son of Cedric. Ivanhoe is in love with his father's ward, Rowena, but Cedric wishes her to marry a thick-headed Saxon thane, or lord, called Athelstane. According to Scott, the period was one of unrest. England had come into the possession of the Normans, and the native Saxons hated their new masters. Richard was king. But since he had gone to the Holy Land as a leader in one of ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... "Yet here's a spot. Out damned spot! out, I say!—One, two, why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?—The Thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that; you mar all with this starting.—Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... pride and the sense of animal wellbeing, and satisfied after the battle like a beast who has eaten his fill. But in the fifth act there is a change. This is still the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; here is still the same face which in the earlier acts could be superficially good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. But now the atmosphere of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson |
