Forms: 1 bǽl, 4– bale; (Sc. 4 baile, 5 belle, 6 baill, bele, 8 beal, 5– bail). [Comm. Teut., though known only in OE. bǽl and ON. bál great fire, blazing pile, funeral pyre:—OTeut. bāl-o(m), cogn. with Skr. bhālas luster, Gr. φαλός shining, bright. In ME. and mod.E. almost exclusively northern, and app. from ON. bál rather than OE. bǽl, which would have given mod. beal, beel. By later writers much mixed up with the preceding word: see 3. Cf. also BALE-FIRE.]
† 1. gen. A great consuming fire, a conflagration; a blazing pile, a bonfire. Obs.
a. 1000. Beowulf, 4633. Befangen bæle and bronde.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, XVII. 619. Thai flaggatis byrnand in a baill.
c. 1420. Anturs of Arth., xv. I brenne as a belle.
1557. in Tottell’s Misc. (Arb.), 266. Such heat … As Priamus towne felt not more flame, when did the bale begin.
a. 1600. Christis Kirk Gr., xxiii. And brane-wode brynt in bailis. [An immense bonfire of faggots and boughs, formerly (until c. 1840) kindled annually in November on the village green of Denholm in Roxburghshire, was called the Bale or Bowa-bale.]
2. spec. a. A funeral pile or pyre. (Long obs., but used by W. Morris.)
a. 1000. Beowulf, 2223. Betst beado-rinca wæs on bæl ʓearu.
c. 1394. P. Pl. Crede, 667. To brenne the body In a bale of fiir.
1876. Morris, Sigurd, III. 305. Far out in the people’s meadows they raise a bale on high … and thereon shall the mighty lie.
b. A signal- or beacon-fire. (Scotch.) arch.
1455. Act. 12 Jas. II. (1597), § 48. The quhilkis … sal make taikenings be bailes burning & fire. Ane Baile, is warning of their cumminge … twa bailes togidder at anis, they are cumming in deed.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, II. vi. (v.) 13. The taknyng or the bail [v.r. bele] of fire.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 151. Richt mony fyre and balis gart burne brycht; And mony blast gart blaw of buglis horne.
1805. Scott, Last Minstrel, III. xxvii. On Penchryst glows a bale of fire, And three are kindling on Priesthaughswire.
3. fig. Sometimes confused with BALE sb.1
1568. Lauder, Lament., 81. My breist in baill it dois combure.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., I. ix. 16. He strove to cloak his inward bale And hide the smoke that did his fire display.
