The Title
The title refers to the watch over the dead between the death and funeral, known as a wake. "Lyke" is an obsolete word meaning a dead body, and is related to the German word leiche and the Dutch word lijk, which have the same meaning. It survives in modern English in the expression lychgate, the roofed gate at the entrance to a churchyard, where, in former times, bodies were placed before burial, and the fictional undead monster type lich. "Lyke-wake" could also be from the Norse influence on the Yorkshire dialect: the contemporary Norwegian and Swedish words for "wake" are still "likvake" and "likvaka" respectively ("lik" and "vaka"/"vake" with the same meanings as previously described for "lyke" and "wake").
Read more about this topic: Lyke-Wake Dirge
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Eternity is not ours by right; and, alone, unrequited sufferings here, form no title thereto.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)