If one was to research the etymology of Mercy (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=mercy) they would find it comes from the latin mercedem via the french mercit/merci. Merci has become a word of thanks in French having been superceded by misericorde.

    What the etymology does not mention is the English word it replaced. For those who like to keep the Lingua Franca to a modest minimum then mercy can be relaced with mildhearted. This word comes from the Anglo-Saxon mildheort (merciful) and mildheortnes (mercy, pity). In Middle English this became Mildheartedness or Mildheartness.

   Notes:

* The Anglo-Saxon plural was mildheorta (mercies).

* Pity may have also been rendered as mildheortnisse

“Afterward a boy-child was born to Shield

a cub in the yard, a comfort sent

by God to that nation. He knew what they had THOLED.”

     Seamus Heaney in his superb verse translation of Beowulf chose to use his rich Belfast dialect when translating the original Anglo-Saxon. English is a rich and diverse language taking words from all over the world to fill the gaps or simply because they sound better. But, we have also a large vocabulary of lost words from our Anglo-Saxon (Jutish and Frisian) past. These words sometimes linger on in places you would not expect and Thole has been on active duty in Belfast long after it died out in the land of its birth.

     Thole means to endure or suffer. In the poem it means to suffer. Tholed = suffered. Thole is a perfectly good English word replaced by the anglo-french Suffir… Suffer. Which itself comes from Old French  Sufrir. This term replaced the Old English Tholian and Throwian.

     Thole has developed from Tholian. The past-tense form is Tholed. We say Suffering so it would make sense that we are Tholling though we might go for Thollering. Tholes would compliment suffers.

Summary:

Thole – To suffer, endure.

Tholling – Suffering, enduring

Tholes – suffers, endures.

Tholed – suffered, endured.

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