handsel

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then Hrut held his peace some little while, and afterwards he stood up, and said to Oswif—"Take now my hand in handsel as a token that thou lettest the suit drop".

From The story of Burnt Njal From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga by George Webbe Dasent

Delia: A little handsel to myself would do the both of you no harm at all.

From New Irish Comedies by Lady Gregory

After five minutes she went away from him, as she walked putting away in her stocking the earned money, on which, as on the first handsel, she had first spat, after a superstitious custom.

From Yama: the pit by Bernard Guilbert Guerney

The village where thou livedst was all apprised of the fact; and neighbour after neighbour kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy existence.

From Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

She handselled it, and hastening where he lay, cried in furious fashion, "You are unbound already."

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France

And now this settlement and atonement was handselled and was well kept afterwards.

From The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor by Unknown

When anything is used for the first time it is handselled.

From Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District by Charles Dack

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

From The House of Atreus by E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson) Morshead

The Britons rode hardly upon them, doing them all the mischief they might, for they were passing wroth to see their comrades handselled so despitefully.

From Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut by Eugene Mason

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by William Morris