Who'd a thunk it?

[steepholm]

Well well. It seems that 'smoulder', 'hostel' and 'foray' had been obsolete in English (and Scots, for those who like to think of that as another language) for centuries, until reintroduced by Sir Walter Scott by way of his fiction. This from the v. interesting Tolkien and the Ring of Words - about Tolkien's time at the OED. Highly recommended for anyone who shares JRRT's view that 'the study of etymology is a voyage into poetry.'