| French _babord_] three days.
| Then was he so far north as | the whale-hunters furthest | fareth.
In this passage it is easy to see that the variations which make it into modern English are for the most part of a very simple kind.

Some of the words are absolutely identical, as _his_, _on_, _he_, _and_, _land_, or _north_.

Others, though differences of spelling mask the likeness, are practically the same, as _sae_, _saede_, _cwaeth_, _thaet_, _lang_, for which we now write _sea_, _said_, _quoth_, _that_, _long_.

A few have undergone contraction or alteration, as _hlaford_, now _lord_, _cyning_, now _king_, and _steorbord_, now _starboard_.

_Stow_, a place, is now obsolete, except in local names; _styccemaelum_, stickmeal, has been Normanised into _piecemeal_.