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The verb, which originally was weak, became strong in the early modern period by analogy with related class 3 strong verbs such as drinken. Cognate with Englishshink(“to pour”), dialectal Englishskink(“to pour, give as a present”).
Andreas Nicolai de Saint-Aubain, tr. A.F. Wehlburg, Tafereelen uit den tijd van Christiaan II, koning van Denemarken, Volume 1 (Amsterdam 1849), p. 82-83:
Hij zag den reus en kocht hem van zijnen pleegvader [...] want reuzen en dwergen waren in dien tijd zeer gezocht door de voorname heren, en er was niets bijzonders in zijn doen en laten, dat de waardigheid van eenen reus konde benadelen. Aslak [de reus] vond ook spoedig eenen kooper, doch deze verveelde hij zeer spoedig, omdat hij trotsch en zwaarmoedig was, en niet in staat de taal van het land te leeren. Nu schonk zijn heer hem weg aan den Deenschen edelman, heer Hans Bilde, die juist op de terugreis naar Denemarken was.
He saw the giant and bought him from his foster father because giants and dwarfs were in that time much in demand among distinguished gentlemen, and there was nothing special in his habits, that could harm the dignity of a giant. Aslak also soon found a buyer, but he very quickly bored him, because he was proud and melancholy, and not able to learn the language of the land. Now his lord gifted him away to the Danish nobleman, sir Hans Bilde, who was just on his way home to Denmark.
In contemporary German only the regularised forms are used. In older texts one still finds the original forms with Rückumlaut (schankte, geschankt). More rarely there were also secondary strong forms (schank, geschunken).