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Comment by lstamour | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. The table of contents is rewritten in modern cursive, though I can't read everything even there.

  Contents
  The Hunttinge of the Hare.
  A Mock Sermon.
  ...

From there we can flip forward to the actual content and ... yep, can't read it. Honestly the only reason I know it says "huntinge of the hare" centred at the top is because I read it in the table of contents.

I can tell it's English, but that's about all I can tell, and that only because I can read some of the words, but not all of them. :) Maybe I can send the image to GPT-4 for transcription and translation. (lol)

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I think the table of content is modern. It says "rebound in 1964" after all.

This is what seems to be the first page of the text https://digital.nls.uk/early-manuscripts/browse/archive/1341...

I recognize latin characters in what my classmates called "gothic font" in highschool. But I can't recognize the language.

It's definitely English (modulo several centuries of spelling and words that have fallen away). Many words are recognizable but I can't read a whole sentence either - except maybe "But myself tho me to blame". Lots of conventions have changed: you really would need to study and practice to be able to make it through this, but not to the extent of learning a whole other language from scratch.

"What's the deal with Hare Hunting?" funky hurdy gurdy bass line

Looks like a Gothic font with spelling differences, I think the first line translated is something like:

> (something) tale I will now tell

Except the spelling is like:

> (something) take y wyll yow tell

I can also read what seems to be "me to blame" on the 6th line.

Here's the best I can do with the first bit, several edits later:

  A letyll tale y wyll yow tell
  y troye hit wyll lyke yow well 
  þat ye shall habe gud game ooooo
  Bot were(?) it was y dar? not say
  for appyr.??ly a nod? day
  hit myght t?ne me to blame ooooooo
  ?ow take gud hede evrython(?)
  how a yomon come rydyng alon
  hafull fayre way he fond ooooooo
  he lokud be syde hym lyght glydand
  he fond a hare full fayr syttand
  a pon a falow lond ooooooooo
  he markyd wyll wher the fatt þ
  þkyd to the town as fast as he myght go
  þ way þen con he ha? ooooooo
  þ fyrst mon þt he mett wt all
  was a husbond hyght honkyn of þ hall
  a gud mon and a twwe(?) oooooooo
  ...

We have letyll = little, wyll = will, troye = trust(?), hit = it, lyke = like, yow = you, habe = have, gud = good, yomon = yeoman, rydyng = riding, lokud = looked, be syde = beside, hym = him, fayr = fair, syttand = seated/sitting, etc.

I think the y with dot over is "I", while the þ with a dot is "the" or "thou" etc. I'm not entirely sure what all the abbreviations are supposed to be.

* * *

Edit: there's apparently a full transcription at http://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2010.009 though it's not easy to accurately transcribe something like this so full of abbreviations, old spellings based on old pronunciations, archaic glyphs like ſ and þ, letters like u and v which have since diverged, etc.

Any idea why so many lines end in ooooooo?

You can look at the manuscript. I don't think it's really supposed to be letters – more like a decorative doodle – but I'm not sure what the deal is: https://digital.nls.uk/early-manuscripts/browse/archive/1341...

Perhaps "pause for audience laughter"?

It's every third line in this poem/song so maybe you're right about leaving a gap for the music or something.

Maybe its literal, like a bunch of people saying OOOOOohhhhhh..

The paper is archived here: https://sci-hub.ru/https://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2010.009

The first three stanzas translated by gpt4:

A little tale I will tell you,

I trust it will please you well,

At it, you shall have good fun.

But where it was I dare not say,

Perhaps another day,

It might turn me to blame.

Now pay good heed everyone,

How a yeoman came riding along,

He found a very fair way.

He looked beside him light gliding,

He found a hare very fair sitting,

Upon a fallow land.

He marked well where she sat then,

He rode to the town as fast as he could,

The way then did he pursue.

The first man that he met with,

Was a husband named Howkin of the hall,

A good man and a true.

The yeoman said with laughing cheer,

'Does any gentleman dwell here,

Good man, as God save you?

Over there I have found a hare sitting,

If you have any greyhounds, bring them with you,

A chase there shall you have.'

If you take a screen capture then paste it into google image search then select the text or translate button - it also detects the English characters, but still makes very little sense to me.

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