Barbour is rather fond of introducing French words; _rybalddale_ occurs in no other author.

_Threllage_ or _thryllage_ may have been coined from _threll_ (English _thrall_), by adding a French suffix.

As to the difficult word _nyt_, see _Nite_ in the _N.E.D._ In addition to the poems, etc., already mentioned, further material may be found in the prose works of Richard Rolle of Hampole, especially his translation and exposition of the Psalter, edited by the Rev.H.R.Bramley (Oxford, 1884), and the Prose Treatises edited by the Rev.G.G.Perry for the Early English Text Society.

Dr Murray further calls attention to the Early Scottish Laws, of which the vernacular translations partly belong to the fourteenth century.
I have now mentioned the chief authorities for the study of the Northern dialect from early times down to 1400.

Examination of them leads directly to a result but little known, and one that is in direct contradiction to general uninstructed opinion; namely that, down to this date, the varieties of Northumbrian are much fewer and slighter than they afterwards became, and that the written documents are practically all in one and the same dialect, or very nearly so, from the Humber as far north as Aberdeen.