Abies, which usually means "a fir-tree," is here glossed by
"etspe." But this is certainly a false spelling, as we see by
comparing it with the following glosses in Epinal and Erfurt (Nos. 37,
1006):--"Abies. saeppae--s{ae}pae"; and "Tremulus. aespae--esp{ae}." This
shows that the scribe ought to have explained Abies by "saeppae,"
meaning the tree full of sap, called in French _sapin_; but he
confused it with another tree, the "trembling" tree, of which the
Old Mercian name was "espe" or "esp{ae}," or "aespae," and he miswrote
_espe_ as _etspe_, inserting a needless _t_. This last tree is the
one which Chaucer called the _asp_ in l. 180 of his _Parliament of
Fowls_, but in modern times the adjectival suffix _-en_ (as in
_gold-en_, _wood-en_) has been tacked on to it, and it is now the
_aspen_.

The interpretation of these ancient glosses requires very great care,
but they afford a considerable number of interesting results, and are
therefore valuable, especially as they give us spellings of the eighth
century, which are very scarce.

One of the oldest specimens of Old Mercian that affords intelligible
sentences is known as the "Lorica Prayer," because it occurs in the
same MS. (Ll. 1. 10 in the Cambridge University Library) as the
"Lorica Glosses," or the glosses which accompany a long Latin prayer,
really a charm, called "lorica" or "breast-plate," because it was
recited thrice a day to protect the person who used it from all
possible injury and accident. I give this Prayer as illustrating the
state of our language about A.D. 850.

And the georne gebide gece and miltse fore alra his haligra
gewyrhtum and ge-earningum and boenum be [hiwe]num, tha the _domino
deo_ gelicedon from fruman middan-geardes; thonne gehereth he thec
thorh hiora thingunge. Do thonne fiorthan sithe thin hleor thriga
to iorthan, fore alle Godes cirican, and sing thas fers: _domini
est salus, saluum fac populum tuum, domine, praetende misericordiam
tuam_. Sing thonne _pater noster_. Gebide thonne fore alle
geleaffulle menn _in mundo_. Thonne bistu thone deg dael-niomende
thorh Dryhtnes gefe alra theara goda the {ae}nig monn for his noman
gedoeth, and thec alle soth-fest{ae} fore thingiath _in caelo et in
terra_. _Amen_.{1}

{Footnote 1: I write _hiwenum_ in l. 2 in place of an illegible
word.}

That is:--

And earnestly pray for-thyself for help and mercy by-reason-of the
deeds and merits and prayers of al