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

It has been share and share alike for three years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, and here's the handsel of it.

From Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth by Charles Kingsley

Across the downs, on the bluff, stands the Villa Eugénie, the handsel of Biarritz's prosperity; and here about us is the town that grew up to make her court.

From A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

The carpenter of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, likewise, as Pepys said of a new pair of stocks in his neighborhood, took handsel of the stocks of his own making.

From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Alice Morse Earle

"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

Holy peace at length they handselled, Eric must in bonds be laid!

From Eric Brighteyes by Henry Rider Haggard

Harry'll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.'

From The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories by George Gissing

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

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

The full moon handselled with the stars the teeth, like grains of      pearl, That on the laughing face of wine now dance, now      stirless lie.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume III by John Payne

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

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

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