“ . . . smote him agayne
With myghte and mayn . . .”
And there it is again.
“Might and main.”
This idiomatic expression repeats throughout The Romance of the Sowdone of Babylone and of Ferumbras His Sone Who Conquered Rome, a Middle English romance written around 1420 by an anonymous poet whose doggerel, though lacking in literary quality, has verve.
Modern speakers use mayn only in the idiomatic expression “might and main.” They know that “might and main” is apt for describing an earnest, heavy fight. But they might not know what mayn means by itself.
Mayn is one of those words that people use correctly without knowing what it means!
It means strength.
“Might and main” means “with strength and strength” or “with might and might” . . . the doubled might being needed in dangerous necessity . . . “with all you got.”
Main is never used today to mean strength except in “might and main,” an idiomatic expression more than six hundred years old.
* Orlando Bartro is the author of Toward Two Words, a comical & surreal novel about a man who finds yet another woman he never knew, usually available at Amazon for $4.91.