Talk:Mirie it is while sumer ilast

Notability

I am quite confident of the notability of this song. It is possibly the oldest English secular song, and is well known in the literature. The very long and well-sourced German page must be witness to this. However, I will let someone else review its notability, so I haven't removed the notice. Steepleman (t) 06:02, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Arguments for having an accurate Middle English transcription

First, the current spellings are neither fully standardised nor fully true to the source material, making them arbitrary and confusing. Second, this late appearance of Ƿ is noteworthy, but the current transcription can mislead readers into thinking the text only uses W. Third, there's already a Modern English spelling version of the text shown in the article, so it's redundant to modernise the Middle English spelling section. An inaccurate transcription adds nothing good, prevents nothing bad, and can only lead to confusion and missed opportunities to teach readers about Middle English spelling conventions. Hurlebatte (talk) 06:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Fast(e)/Wast

An interesting theory I've seen several times: the last word may not be not "fast(e)" with the e cut off, as was assumed/inserted, but "wast," which fits the rhyme scheme much better. Published in a book titled "The Genesis of Books" by Matthew T. Hussey, in the chapter titled "The Beginnings of the Middle English Secular Lyric: Texts, Music, Manuscript Context" by Karl Reichl at the University of Bonn. Further reading behind the "fast(e)" decision on Ian Pittaway's blog, which is cited in this article, though the fast/wast change is not reflected. HenriTroppmann (talk) 00:26, 17 October 2025 (UTC)