Annotation - Chapter 4, Page 22
From Riddley Walker Annotations
- (22:24) "Thine the han what shapit the black" .... "We all thinet hands"
"Thine" in the second sense seems to mean clasp or entwine; so the song is both speaking to the Creator (whose hand shaped the black) and suggesting that we hold that hand.
Since the word doesn't occur elsewhere in the book, it's hard to say how it acquired this double meaning, though it does sound a bit like "twine". But this may be an example of the kind of folk etymology that happens when a word stops being used except in one specific context. In this case, Riddley's people do not know that "thine" meant "yours"; if they have only ever heard the word in this one phrase, "thine the hand", they may have just assumed it was a verb and made up a reasonable meaning.