Obs. rare. Found only in Layamon, in the dat. plural, on (inna, of) comelan, comlen, comela, -le, cumelan, = In (from) tents or (?) temporary coverts.
The later text actually substitutes in one place ‘in teldes’ = in tents; in Wace the word was generally buschement.
c. 1205. Lay., 6630. Þer he hundede on comelan [c. 1275 was an hontinge] wið his hird-iferen, i þon wude of Kalatere. Ibid., 11008. Þat Coel þe king seoc lai an comlen [c. 1275 in comelan]. Ibid., 20272. Þat heo comen bihalues per Baldulf lai on comele [c. 1275 in teldes]. Ibid., 20905. Childric com of comela to Arðure þan kinge. Ibid., 30400. Þer þe king Cadwaðlan wunede on cumelan [c. 1275 comelan].
[Doubtfully conjectured to be identical with OE. cumbol = OS. cumbal, OHG. chumpal, ON. kuml, a word orig. meaning ‘signum,’ sign, token, mark for recognition, but in OE. esp. = military sign, ensign, banner. In composition, the notion was transferred to ‘war’ and its circumstances, as in cumbol-haʓa, ‘war hedge,’ phalanx, cumbol-hete warlike hate, cumbol-wiʓa warrior; so that on cumelan in Layamon, might possibly have come to be ‘in warlike array, in the ranks of war, in camp, in tents.’ But the form of the word suggests that the ON. rather than the OE. was the immediate source of cumel, comel, and a chief sense in ON. was ‘monument, memorial, cairn, or how,’ whence ‘cairn’ simply, and in mod. Icel. ‘a low hay-rick’; and it has been thought possible that a sense ‘temporary shelter,’ or even ‘tent’ might arise in this way.]
