~ CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
FROM
eed ee
Date Due
PRINTED IN|U. S, A, (bay CAT.| NO. 23233
Cornell University Library
vp BS. M86 1866
oy
olin
ENGLISH WRITERS.
VOL. 1.—Part I.
VOL. I.—PT. 1.
ENGLISH WRITERS.
VOL. I.—Parrt I. [
CELTS AND ANGLO-SAXONS;
WITH
AN INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE FOUR PERIODS
OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
By HENRY MORLEY,
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 198, PICCADILLY.
1867.
GORA f 7].
UNIVER GT y
o~ I La RARY
[The right of Translation is reserved.] °
UNIVERSITY!
\. LIBRARY |
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CILARING CROSS,
»
CONTENTS OF VOL. 1.
PART I.
INTRODUCTION.
—+o2——
ODhe Four Periods of English Piterature.
Pace
The True History of Literature ., 1
Who can be a Historian of Literature? . 2
The Purpose of this Book.. .. se 3
The Four Periods of English Titeratinre ae 4
The One Mind in them all a 4
Sources of Literature .. 5
In Pagan Time sé 6
In Early Christian Days 6
Under the Normans .. .. 8
Influence of Nation upon Nation 8
In the Outset of Italian Teese 3%. Se GR we as
In the Outset of German Literature .. 2. 2. OU. OU OD
In England under the Early Norman Kings .. .. vo
Foundations of the Early Influence of Italy on ances iiiteraiine a 12
In Activity of Commerce .. 12
In the Liberal and Busy Sense of Tahal and Rovial al Rights 12
Relation to its time of Dante’s ‘ Vita Nuova’ oe y we 44
Relation to all time of ‘the Divine Comedy’ . oe : 17
Transmission of certain Forms of Poetry from the Troubadours through
Dante to: Petrarch «: <. a5 a5 se Ge Se Ge owe oe wa AF
Boccaccio and his. ePecaneriti t sy Tash a. Shae OH dd ai ey 186)
Italian Influence on Chaucer... Se er ae |
The Native and the Foreign Elements in | Chanoer’s 8 Verse wi ae an 28
Dark Days of English Literature .. ae blige “eps EDD
Spread of Petrarchan Poetry, and Rise of Bigbanian, 38 cag Jee. ep 228
Italian Pastoral . es Gea 24:
Influence of Pitas and “of Thalian Pastoral on | English ‘Tikeratiine.
The English Mind under the Italian Manner. Philip Sidney... .. 24
Reflection ‘af Italian Love-conceits in ‘ Astrophel and Stella’ .. .. 26
Spenser and the Italian Romantic Poets .... Ss oe Wat. Sar) AE
Foreign Influences upon Italy. ‘Amadis de Gaul” des WR ol . Gen. 128
ee of the new Taste for Romance. The Pulci. Bojardo. Ariosto 29
The Taste for Quotation .. 0... 6. ee ee eee cee 80
VOL. I.—PT. I. b
vi CONTENTS OF VOL. I.—PART I.
Growing Demand for Allegory. Tasso .. “
Social and Literary Predominance of the Italians ..
The Social Influence of Italy on English Literature .
Secondary Causes of the ee of a Taste for Moncaited Witing
Euphuism .... gy ay
The English Mind under it all, " Out of Decay New Ge
Duration of Lyly’s Popularity... .. 0 1. «1 se
Lyly himself a Practical Englishman .. ..
Influence of Lyly and the Italians on Robert Grane aa
*Love’s Labour ’s Lost ;’ a Jest upon the Fashionable Style ..
Duration of Italian Influence in the Taste for Conceits ..
Ridiculed by Ben Jonson in ‘ Cynthia’s Revels’..
French Euphuism. The ‘Divine Weeks’ of Du Bartas
Great English Reputation of Du Bartas, Its Duration..
Ttalian Influence in France .. .. see 88) ES Sn
Spanish Influence in France allied to fis Tealiae es
Tendency of French eee Conceit to Verbal Criticism. The —
of it ee, cee Be afi) ate ee we
Ronsard 42 «2 =: <2 aa a Sa se 3
Malherbe .. .. se
The Meetings at the Hotel ‘Rambouillet ..
The Précieuses 4. nse
The French Academy :
Settlement of the French Language by the Forty Dictionary ‘Makers .
Advance of French Writers from Verbal to Literary Criticism
Boileau «wwe ieee Sa ae
Influence of Boileau on n English Cltarahize eo ed, he ee
The Period of French Influence on English Titenture » SS ats ie
English Acceptance and Imitation of the French Classical Critics ‘
What the Polite World and French Polished Critics said of rea
Shakespeare endorsed by Pope... .. . .. « we
Under French Influence, the English Mind eh ee de we
Milton endorsed by Addison ..) 2... ck eee wee
Latin English ..
Origin of Literary Style i in the ‘easential difference between Spoken and
Written English .. .. oe
Constant Elements in the Neshientits of English Whiting
Variable Influences on the Mechanism of English Writing
Purpose and Limits of Generalization
The Period of Popular Influence .. oe se Me
Defoe’s Service of the People .. .. 1. 0. Oe
Defoe in the Pillory
Defoe in Newgate sets up ‘ the Hate
Addison in the way of Patronage
Steele represents the People .. .. ..
Decreased Influence of the nese on the Stage
The ‘ Tatler’ 5
Relation of the Tatler’ ‘to ‘he People
CONTENTS OF VOL. L—PART I. vii
Addison, drawn by Steele into co-operation, writes for the People better
than for Patrons. ‘Tatler,’ ‘Spectator, ‘Guardian’ .. .. .. 87
Steele's ‘Hnglishman? 2. <0: se us ee ewes ae, 8
Pope .. .. ee - 91
Development of Binds ‘Wotioit Robinaon Grnsoo” ghd? Gulliver? . 91
Richardson’s ‘Pamela’... 0 6. ww wee tee tee we
Fielding} s «5 we a) Se 4: we we ae 45 ae we ee OB
Tom Jones .. .. Fir: ch se GERD Ae Bd, Ady FOE
The French Taste of the Lesgat ‘Critics bs i Me ae Ge we OT
Samuel Johnson es tT a ee ee ee
Goldsmith’s Influence on Goethe de 8S Be el er ks ie ee 00.
Relations between English and German Literature .. .. .. .. 100
Germany fastens upon ‘Robinson Crusoe’... ws sa ve 102
The Spirit of Milton is Abroad. Gottsched and Hadiner ay ae ae 102
Klopstock .. .. we me » 103
The Revolt wostust Dasperan i in nT or ‘iteratine a ie ‘os “oe 108
The Revolt most Violent in France .. .. .. .. «. «. 108
Goethe: Schiller Be we: RE a ar ee sae AOS
Limits of the German Influence on English Eileratue ie wey cap LOE
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey .. «2 .. 6. we ee 108
Byron... .. se ai See Oe Ge, LO:
Progress of the Popular Teananps on Liters ie ee ae ae LOT
Walter Scott Sag OR en ee ee ee, oe OS
Development of J cuitaialiara aS A ae shy oes a oe, ~ ae OD
Extension of Public Education. Cheap Popular Literature... .. .. 112
‘Of some who have not yet learnt to read or write... .. .« . « 112
Defects that may be signs of oa Growth .. 0 0. 0 6. ee we et 15
The Upward Way .. ww 1k ee ee cee ete we we 11S
BOOK LI.
Period of the formation of the Language.
CHAPTER I.
Prehistoric England .. 0-2 ee ee ee wee tee we we 17
Were the Celts Cimmerians? .. .. 0 -) ee we ee ee we we 118
Were the Celts ea 2 we Ge ae A ee ce ae, BO
Anglo-Saxons .. .. aa Gh a BS ewe cee TDS
The Origin of Language .. we Sec Cite eS Uke Ree Ge BS
Ethnology. Origin of the Huglish ., ot Sh. ew ee Ae ee BE.
he Indo-European Theory... we ee ee we te ne ne we 184
Pedigree of English «. es we we te we we ewe 148
Viil CONTENTS OF VOL. L—PART I
CHAPTER II.
The Oldest Inhabitant Het RB
Stone, Bronze, and Iron Periods .. ..
The Stone Period ..
Cromlechs .. ..
The Bronze Period
Barrows
The Iron Period
The Celtic Britons ..
The Belge (?)
The Gaels
The Cymry a
First Stage in the Formation of aah,
The Celtic Element in English
Celtic in Local Namen -
Celtic in Common English...) ww ww we we
Faint Traces of the Roman Occupation. Latin of the First Period
Twilight before the Dawn of English Literature. Druids
Ancient Literature of the Gaels in Britain
The Oghuim .
Tule ge the Fate of Bailé he Shunt Suchen
Poets’ Staves... oe Be gh
Old Gaelic oarese in teatime. i
Of History among the Ancient Gaol sit, yal
Of a Battle Fought on the Plain of Moytura... ats
The First Appearance of the Gaedhels in Erin
The Origin of the Boromean Tribute ;
The Tale of the Cattle-Spoil of aig
Old Gaelic Poetry .. .. .. es
Fionn, Oisin, and the Peniats i
Fergus Finnbheoil
Caeilte McRoran ae
Gaelic Tales in Prose and Verse .. ‘
The Celtic Influence on English teutiare
The Fenian Tales ..
Materials for a Study of the Ola Gaclia Tarwsace aid Tikaatase
CHAPTER III.
The Cymry we
Germanic Settlements in Britis pstiea A.D. 449 .
Pressure of the Cymry and the Saxons on the Gacle in oT or
North Wales .
Pressure of the Sacenk on ‘the Cymry. The Recs of ‘Sik Seftlaments
Connexion of the Ancient Literature of the Cymry with the Anglo-
. 197
Saxon Conquests
Pace
. 149
.. 150
. 161
.. 152
. 154
« 154
-» 156
. 156
. 157
. 159
.. 160
« 162
.. 162
. 163
. 164
. 167
. 168
.. 170
. 171
we Dd
. 173
. 173
» 174
ve 14
. 175
. 177
- 178
.. 180
. 181
.. 183
« 184
« 185
- 187
188
191
- 193
193
195
197
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.—PART I
The Bards of Urien
Taliesei
century, fresh successes of the Gaels and Picts caused paces
aid to be invoked by the Cymry from Roman legions, North Wales.
by which they were helped in the year 418, only to fall again
into extremity, and send by ambassadors to Rome in 446 “the
Groans of the Britons.” The Romans had no thought to spare
from their own troubles; and it is said to have been by the
advice of Vortigern that the Cymry made common cause with
the intruders from the south-east, the Saxons, against the
1 Lib. xii. cap. 21. 2 ¢O’Curry MS. Mat, of Trish Hist.,’ p. 230,
3 Ammianus Marcellinus, bk. xxvii. cap. 8.
02
196 CYMRY AND SAXONS IN NORTH WALES. Bx. I. Cn, IIL.
Gaedhels and the Picts. Then, with the landing of Hengist and
Horsa ascribed to the year 449, success began to crown the
work of forcing the Gaedhels in Western Britain to return to
Erin. Very remarkable illustration of this is afforded by the
recurrence five-and-twenty times in Wales, and twenty times
out of the five-and-twenty in North Wales, of the name Gwyddel
(for Gaedhel) attached to places which may have been remain-
ing strongholds held by the Gaels after their main body had
been cast out by the Cymry, with the added pressure of the
Saxon. The old name of Holyhead was Cernig y Gwyddel;
and there are three other Gwyddels in Anglesey, four in Caer-
narvon, four in Merioneth, six in Cardigan—one of them,
Cefn y Gwyddel (the Ridge of the Gael), having near it, not far
from the sea, a farm still called Lletty ’r Cymro (the Quarters of
the Cymry). All the sites indicate pressure from the east
towards the sea, and are in old passes, morasses, or places at
which a last stand could be made. The Anglesey “ Gwyddels”
are among the low grounds of the western side, intersected and
partially cut off by creeks and quicksands. In Caernarvonshire,
two are at the utmost, point of the wild promontory of Lleyn, to
which we can well imagine the Gwyddelod to have been beaten
back step by step; a third is at the entrance of the wild defen-
sible pass of Llanberis. In Merionethshire, two are at the foot
of the Cader Idris chain of mountains, protected on the north by
the estuary of the Mawddach, and on the west by the marshes and
the sea; another is among marshes at the mouth of a valley
leading to Cader Idris, the Montgomeryshire stronghold; and
two others, in Cardiganshire, are on the skirts of the Plinlimmon
group. That in Radnorshire, and two of those in Cardiganshire,
stand at the entrance of gorges leading into the savage region of
mountain and moorland, then and long afterwards clothed with
impenetrable forests, between the Wye, the Tywg, and the
Taifi. The Gwyddels in Cardiganshire and one in Pembroke-
shire are close upon the western coast. Twll y Gwyddel, in
Glamorganshire, lies also in a mountain pass.’ To the list of
five-and-twenty I may add one Gwyddel more, a Gwyddelwern
1 ‘Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd.’ By the Rey. William Basil Jones.
London and Tenby, 1857.
4.D. 449-547, PRESSURE OF SAXONS ON THE CYMRY. 197
in Denbighshire, between the hills three miles to the north of
Corwen.
The names, too, are significant. The old name of Holyhead,
Cerrig y Gwyddel, meant Gael Stones. There are Gael Moun-
tains, Gael Ness, Gael Moor, Gael Pass, Gael Ridge, Gael
Knoll, Gael Mead, Gael Grove, Gael Alderwood, Gael Hole,
Gael’s Cots, Gael Church, two Gael hamlets, a Gael-town, a
Gael port, and in two places the Gael’s Walls.
But their German allies soon began to overwhelm the Cymry ;
and after the deposition of Vortigern, the struggle of the 5, cure of
Cymric Celts was to resist the occupation of their land theSexonsen
: the Cymry.
by successive warrior bands of Anglo-Saxon colonists. 72s 7c"
of six settle-
Six settlements by invasion, spread over a period of a ™™*
century, are recorded upon the authority of the Saxon Chronicle,.
which was not brought into its present form until after the death
of Bede, and of Bede’s ‘ Ecclesiastical History,’ dedicated to a
king who reigned in Northumberland between the years 729 and
737. Of these settlements, the first, under Hengist,and Horsa,
is said to have been of Jutes, the next three were of Saxons, the
last two of Angles.. They were settlements :—
1. Of Jutes, landing a.p. 449, under Hengist and Horsa, at
Ebbsfieet, in the Isle of Thanet. Six years later*they estab-
lished the kingdom of Kent.
2. Of Saxons, landing a.p. 477, under Zilla, in Sussex, which
they made the kingdom of the South Saxons.
3. Of Saxons, landing a.p. 495, under Cerdic, in Hampshire,
where they established the kingdom of the West Saxons (Wessex).
4, Of Saxons, landing a.p. 530, leader unnamed, in Essex.
5. Of Angles, who landed in Norfolk and Suffolk during
Cerdic’s reign in Wessex.
6. Of Angles, landing a.p. 547, under Ida, on the south-
eastern coast of Scotland, between Tweed and Forth.
It is the stir of battle in the conflict of the Cymry with these
last comers that animates the oldest literature of the Connexion of
the ancient
Cymric Celts. Against Ida and his Angles, Urien etl,
Rheged led the warriors of Britain, and the praise of yith ine |
Urien was sung by many bards who received gifts from conquests.
his hand. Urien fought not only against Ida, but after Ida’s
198 URIEN. Bx. I. Cu. TI.
death against his sons and grandsons, and was treacherously
slain by Morcant, another Cymric chief, while besieging Theo-
doric, the son of Ida, on his extreme seaward border in the
island of Lindisfarne, which is off the coast near the mouth of
the Tweed. Ida died in 560; his son Adda, reigning eight
years, succeeded him, and then followed the four years’ reign of
Ethelric, the son of Adda, before the accession of Theodoric,
the son of Ida, who reigned seven years. Urien, therefore, did
not survive the year 579. The contest with Ida, the Angle,
ended in the formation of the great Anglian kingdom of
Northumbria; and the original territory of Urien probably was
in the country of the Cumbrian Britons, lying between the vale
of the Clyde and the Ribble, with the sea for western boundary,
and the eastern boundary varying with the fortune of war, since
it touched the Anglian or Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia.
These Cymry of the Scottish Lowlands, Cumberland, Westmore-
land, and North Lancashire, were called also neighbours to the
Otadini, who had occupied the shores of Northumberland, from
Flamborough Head to the Frith of Forth. Overpowered by the
Angles, some of the Cymry at last withdrew from Cumberland
to Wales, while others remained, living quietly under the new
rule, or mathtaining among the hills for the next century or two
an acknowledged independence.!
Urien’s district of Rheged (a gift), placed by Sir Francis
Palgrave in the forests south of Scotland, is assigned
by traditions that make Urien a nephew of King Arthur,
to Glamorgan; and the country is said to have been given to
Urien for his valour in driving certain Irish Gaels from Gower,
in Glamorgan, back to Anglesea. He appears, accordingly, in
French Arthurian romances, as Sir Urience of Gore. The
Cymric bards of the sixth century stand foremost in connection
with the wars of Urien and of the Strathclyde Britons —
Llywarch Hen, who was bard and prince; Aneurin, who was
bard and warrior; and Taliesin, who was bard alone. To each
of the latter poets has been given in posthumous honour the
name King of Bards. But if we are now to judge them by the
Urien.
1 Bede’s ‘ Hist. Eccles.,’ lib. v. c. 28.
A.D, 547-579. TALIESIN. 199
few remains of each that are not clearly spurious, Aneurin and
Taliesin were excelled by Llywarch Hen.
Taliesin (Shining Forehead) was in the highest repute in the
middle of the twelfth century, and he was then and
afterwards, unless we except Merlin, the hero of the
greatest number of romantic legends. He is said to have been
the son of Henwg the bard, or Saint Henwg, of Carlleon-upon-
Usk, and to have been educated in the school of Cattwg, at
Llanveithin, in Glamorgan, where the historian Gildas was his
fellow pupil. Seized when a youth by Irish pirates while fishing
at sea in a coracle of osier covered with leather, he is said, pro-
bably by rational interpretation of a later fable of his history, to
have escaped by using a wooden buckler for a boat; so he came
into the fishing weir of Elphin, one of the sons of Urien. Urien
made him Elphin’s instructor, and gave him an estate of land.
But once introduced to the court of that great warrior-chief,
Taliesin became his foremost bard, followed him in his wars, and
sang his victories. He sings victories over Ida at Argoed about
the year 547, at Gwenn-Estrad between that year and 560, at
Menao about the year 560. After the death of Urien, Taliesin
was the bard of his son Owain, by whose hand Ida fell. After
the death of all Urien’s sons, Taliesin mourned the past in
Wales, dying, it is said, at Bangor Teivy, in Cardiganshire, and
he was buried under a cairn near Aberystwith. Taliesin is
named by Aneurin in the ‘ Gododin’—“TI, Aneurin, will sing what
is known to Taliesin, who communicates to me his thoughts, or
a strain of Gododin before the dawn of the bright day.” Whence
it is to be inferred that Taliesin had achieved high fame as a con-
temporary bard when Aneurin produced that chant of deadly
conflict with the Angles. Christianity was at this time taking root
among the Cymry. Saint David was a contemporary of Aneurin.
and Taliesin; and one of the few poems ascribed to the latter
bard, which are not obviously of later origin, is one said to be
“dedicated in praise of baptism.” But the poems which seem
to be most unquestionably songs of Taliesin, handed down with
more or less of subsequent change or addition from the days of
Urien, are those which celebrate the praise of Urien himself,
and his son Owain, or describe their battles. Take for ex-
ample — where Flamdwyn, the fire-bearer, is supposed to
Talesin. 7
200 TALIESIN. Br. I. Cu. IL.
represent Ida himself—this song’ of a battle fought about the
year 570 :—
“The Battle of Argoed Lhwyfain.
* On Saturday there was a great battle,
From the rising of the sun until the setting.
Fflamdwyn hastened in four divisions
Bent upon overwhelming Rheged.
They reached from Argoed to Arfynyd:
They were splendid only for one day.
Fflamdwyn cried with much blustering,
‘Will they give the hostages, and are they ready ? ’
Owain, standing upon the rampart, answered him,
‘They will not give them; they are not, nor shail be ready !’
Afflicted would have been the hero, Cenen, son of Coel,
If he had given hostages to any one.
Loudly Urien, the chief, proclaimed his will,—
‘Let my kinsmen come together,
And we will raise on the hills our banner,
And will turn against those warriors our faces,
And will lift above the heads of men our spears,
And will seek Fflamdwyn in his army,
And will slay him together with his troop.’
Beeause of the battle of Argoed Llwyfain
There were many dead ;
Red were the ravens through the strife of men,
And hasty men carried the news.
I will divine the year, whose life is on the wane ;
But till I fall into old age
And the painful grasp of death,
May I never smile 7
If I praise not Urien.”
If he praised not Urien, there was neither wine nor bread for
Taliesin. He was a bard, and not a warrior, who lived by and
praised the liberality of the chief, the next good thing after the
valour that gave power of gifts into his hand. “The broad
. spoils of the spear,” says Taliesin, in another of these songs,—
“ The Spoils of Taliesin.
“The broad spoils of the spear reward my song, Delivered before the bright,
smiling hero, The most resolute of chieftains is Urien. No peaceful trafficker
1 This and the other examples of Taliesin I take, with a few changes in the
choice of words to give the sense, from ‘Taliesin; or, the Bards and Druids of
Britain. A Translation of the Remains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an
Examination of the Bardic Mysteries. By D. W. Nash. London, 1858.
A book based on a wholesome scepticism.
A.p. 47-579, TALIESIN. 201
is he; Clamorous, loud-shouting, shrill, mighty, and highly exalted. Every
one knows of the extermination on the side of Merwydd and Mordei. The
chief is very swift to prepare pleasure; When harpers play in hall he is of
peaceful cheer, A protector in Aeron; Excellent his wine, his poets, his
musicians: He gives no rest to his enemies; He is the great strength of the
Briton people. Like a whirling fiery meteor across the earth, Like a wave
coming from Lwyfenydd, Like the sweet song of Gwenn and Gweithen, Like
Mor, the very courteous, is Urien. In the assembly of a hundred war-heroes
He directs and is the leader among princes, He is chief of the people of swift
horses. In the beginning of May in complete order of battle, When his people
send for him, he is coming. Eagle of the land, very keen is thy sight. I have
made a request for a mettled steed, The price of the spoils of Taliesin.”
Other of Taliesin’s songs praise Urien as “the provider of wine,
and meal, and mead.” The issue of one of his battles is looked
to as men would look to the issue of a foray, in abundance “of
calves and cows—milch cows and oxen—and all good things
also.”
“¢ Urien.
“We should not he joyful were Urien slain. He terrifies the trembling
Saxon, who, with his white hair wet, is carried away on his bier and his fore-
head bloody. . . . I have wine from the chief; to me wine is most agreeable.
Doorkeeper, listen! What noise is that? Is it the earth that shakes, Or is
it the sea that swells, Rolling its white head towards thy feet? Is it above
the valley ? It is Urien who thrusts. Is it above the mountain? It is Urien
who conquers. Is it beyond the slope of the hill? It is Urien who wounds. Is
it high in anger, It is Urien who shouts. Above the road, above the plain,
Above all the defiles, Neither on one side nor two Is there refuge from him.
But those shall not suffer hunger Who take spoil in his company, He is the
provider of sustenance. With its long blue streamers His spear was the child
of death In slaying his enemies. And until I fall into old age, Into the sad
necessity of death, May I never smile If I praise not Urien.”
In lines of two or three words each, here run together to save
space, I quote from this bard of the sixth century one illustra-
tion more of the confessed dependence of the ancient poet
upon the favour of a single patron in the warrior-chief, whose
praise he lived by singing :—
* To Urien.
“In tranquil retirement I was prodigal of song; honour I obtained, and I
had abundance of mead, I had abundance of mead for praising him. And fair
lands I had in excess, and great feasting, and gold and silver, and gold and
gifts, and plenty, and esteem, and gifts to my desire, and a desire to give in
my protector. It is a blessing, it is harsh, it is good, it is glorious, it is
glorious, it is good, it is a blessing in the presence, the presence of the bestower.
The bards of the world are certainly rendering homage to thee according to
thy desire. God hath subjected to thee the chiefs of the island, through fear
202 LLYWARCH HEN. Br. I. Cu. III.
of thy assault, provoking battle. Protector of the land, usual with thee is
headlong activity and the drinking of ale, and ale for drinking, and fair
dwelling, and beautiful raiment. On me he has bestowed the estate of
Llwyfenydd, and all my requests, three hundred altogether, great and small.
The song of Taliesin is a pleasure to thee, the greatest ever heard of; there
would be reason for anger if I did not praise thy deeds. And until I become
old and in the sad necessity of death, I shall never rejoice except in praising
Urien.”
The fairy tales of which Taliesin afterwards-became the hero,
Liywaren and the mythological poetry ascribed to him, belong to
a a later chapter in this narrative. We know him here
only as one of the bards of the world, who found in Urien a
munificent rewarder of their songs, and as the bard of the sixth
century, who seems to have been most careful of himself.
Another poet of the same period, who gave all to his country, is
Llywarch Hen (that is to say, Llywarch the Old), a warrior
who sang war, and, suffering with his people, appears by his
remains to have excelled chiefly in pathetic lamentation.
His poems illustrate with peculiar felicity the manners and
feelings of his time ; and in a happy incidental touch we learn
from him how familiar was the daily contact between life and
literature, when he thus pairs, as the two lights of a home, the
bard’s song and the household fire :
“The hall of Cyndyllann is dark to-night—
Without fire, without songs.”
Llywarch was born about the year 490, and educated in the
north of England, among the woods of Argoed, where his father
Elidir was sovereign chief. He went when young to the court of
Erbin, King of Cornwall and Devon. ‘Traditions of the twelfth
century send him to King Arthur's court, and make him for a time
King Arthur’s minister; for they are the days of Arthurian ro-
mance, to which we are now looking back through their contempo-
rary records. There is no touch yet of medieval fancy to convert
them into fairy tale. Llywarch speaks incidentally of Arthur as
chief of the Cymry of the south, confederate against the Saxons.
What Urien was in the north, Arthur was in the south ; and the
young Llywarch’s friend and patron, Geraint, the son of Erbin,
was under King Arthur’s orders. Llywarch followed Geraint
to the battle in which he fell by the hands of the Saxons; and
A.p. 490-580, LLYWARCH HEN. 203,
of the terrible butchery of that day, thirteen times he repeats in
his song that with his own eyes he saw it. Urien afterwards won
the young princely warrior bard to his company, and gave him
a place of honour in his halls. Llywarch was with Urien as
brother in arms at Lindisfarne, where from the year 572 to the
year 579 the Northumbrian chief, Theodoric, was besieged, and
there again, with his own eyes, he saw the head of Urien struck
off by the sword of an assassin. It was Llywarch who carried
Urien’s head in his mantle from that bloody field.
“ The Death of Urien.
“T carry by my hide,” he sings in his chant on the death of Urien—“I
carry by my side the head of him who commanded the attack between the
two hosts of the son of Kenvarch, who lived great of mind. I carry by my
side the head of Urien, who gently commanded the army; on his white breast
a black crow. I carry in my mantle the head of Urien, who gently com-
manded his people; on his white breast the crow battens. I carry in my hand
a head that had no rest; corruption eats into the breast of the chief. I carry
by the side of my thigh a head that was a buckler for his country, a column
in the fight, a war-spear for his free countrymen. I carry by my left side a
head better when living than his mead; that was a citadel for the old men.
. .. » The héad that I carry carried me; I shall find it no more; it will come
no more to my succour. Woe to my hand, my happiness is lost! The head
that I bear from the slope of Pennok has its mouth foaming with blood; woe
to Rheged from this day! My arm is not weaker, but my rest is troubled;
my heart, will you not break? The head that I carry carried me!”
After Urien’s death the power of the Angles overwhelmed
Llywarch’s small principality of Argoed, and he sought asylum
in Wales with Cyndyllann, a Prince of Powys, at his capital of
Pengwern (Shrewsbury). Cyndyllann received such exiles with
open arms, and maintained constant battle with the Saxons. In
battle with the Saxons, fought at Tren (now Tarn), near the
Wrekin, Cyndyllann and two other Cymric chiefs fell in the
year 580. That is the Cyndyllan whose hall was then made
dark, “without fire and without songs.” His house was burnt,
and his whole family was massacred. The Cymry were now
being hunted from the plains, and Llywarch found no better
refuge than a hut of boughs on the banks of the Dee, near Bala.
He says that he had there but a cow for his companion. His four-
and-twenty sons were dead. One of them had in his day rescued
from prison Aneurin, who sang, “ From the unpleasant prison of
earth I am released, from the haunt of death and a hateful
204 LLYWARCH HEN. Bg. I, Cu. I.
land, by Cenau, the son of Llywarch, magnanimous and bold.”
But of all Llywarch’s sons, Gwenn was the dearest to him, and
he was the first who fell under the spears of the Lloegrians. The
poet grieves that he is too old and feeble to avenge him. Of
Peil, his second son, “a hall,” says Llywarch, “could have been
built with the splinters of the bucklers he has broken.” With
melancholy chant the old man passes all too slowly to his grave.
He sees in the night the spirit of his mother ; doubts whether the
God who has not heard his prayers for his sons, now listens to
his grief. He turns again to his superstitions. The grey monks
of the neighbouring monastery of Llanvor then afflict him.
He changes his home to the valley of Aber Kioh, and sits there
on the mountain-side longing for death. He calls himself the
son of sorrow. But the monks of Llanvor follow him to teach
him faith in one who, when on earth, was yet more a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with prief. So at last in the church of
their monastery Old Llywarch, Llywarch Hen, was buried. His
life was one of patriotic struggle, but the temper of his mind was
gentle. In a composition of the tenth century there is attri-
buted to him the courteous precept, “Greet kindly, though
there be no acquaintance.” In the lament over his sons, after
describing the death, at the contest of the ford of Morlas, of his
best. beloved Gwenn, who was strong and large of stature, the
old bard says—
“ Tlywarch’s Lament for his son Gwenn.
“ Let the wave break noisily ; let it cover the shore when the joined lances
are in battle. O Gwenn, woe to him who is too old to avenge you! Let the
wave break noisily ; let it cover the plain, when the lances join with a shock.
O Gwenn, woe to him who is too old, since he has lost you. A man was my
son, a hero, a generous warrior, and he was the nephew of Urien. Gwenn
has been slain at the ford of Morlas. Here is the bier made for him by his
fierce conquered enemy after he had been surrounded on all sides by the army
of the Lloegrians ; here is the tomb of Gwenn, the son of the Old Llywarch.
Sweetly a bird sang on a pear-tree above the head of Gwenn before they
covered him with the turf. That broke the heart of the Old Llywarch.” }
1 The original and translation into French of the poem from which this
passage is taken, and of other poems, will be found, with much valuable
information upon the whole subject, in ‘Les Bardes Bretons: Poémes du VI*
Siécle. Par le Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarqué, Nouvelle Edition.’
Paris, 1860,
A.D, 580. LLYWARCH HEN. 205
It is a curious fact that a tumulus called Gorsedd Wen, within
150 yards of the river Morlais- (which flows into a lake near
Merthyr Tydfil), when opened in 1850, was found to contain
the skeleton of a man six feet seven inches high—the place of
the tomb, its name, and the stalwart size of the warrior there
buried, testifying in favour of the belief that these were the
bones of Gwenn, the son of Llywarch.
We will part with this best poet of his time at the blackened
and roofless hall of Cyndyllan—in his patrimony of Tren (now
Tern Bridge, by Wroxeter)—that he had defended in vain
against the ravaging Lloegrians. The whole poem is long; but
the following passage from it sufficiently represents
“ Llywarch’s Lament for Cyndyllan.
“ The hall of Cyndyllan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without bed—
I must weep awhile and then be silent. The hall of Cyndyllan is gloomy
this night, Without fire, without candle—Hxcept God doth, who will endue
me with patience? The hall of Cyndyllan is gloomy this night, Without fire,
without being lighted—Be thou encircled with spreading silence! The hall of
Cyndyllan, gloomy seems its roof, Since the sweet smile of humanity is no
more—Woe to him that saw it, if he neglects to do good! The hall of
Cyndyllan is without love this night, Since he owned it no more—Ah Death!
it will be but a short time he will leave me! The hall of Cyndyllan is not
easy this night, On the top of the rock of Hydwyth, Without its lord, without
company, without the circling feasts! The hall of Cyudyllan is gloomy this
night, Without fire, without songs—Tears afflict the cheeks! The hall of
Cyndyllan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without family—My overflowing
tears gush out! The hall of Cyndyllan pierces me to see it, Roofless, fireless,
My chief is dead, and I alive myself! The hall of Cyndyllan is an open
waste this night, After being the contented resort of warriors: Elvan, Cyn-
dyllan, and Caeawg. The hall of Cyndyllan is the seat of chill grief this
night, After the respect I had; Without the men, without the women who
there dwelt! The hall of Cyndyllan is silent this night, After losing its
master—The great, merciful God, what shall Ido! The hall of Cyndyllan,
gloomy seems its roof, Since the Lloegrians have destroyed Cyndyllan and
Elvan of Powys.” !
The Lloegrians, whose victories were thus lamented by the
Cymric bards, were the people of Lloegr, the part of ancient
Britain occupied by the Belge;? but the name now applies
1¢The Heroic Elogies and other Pieces of Llywarg Hen, Prince of the
Cambrian Britons: with a Literal Translation.’ By William Owen. London,
1792.
2 Owen's ‘Llywar¢ Hen ;’ Pughe’s ‘ Welsh Dictionary,’ swb voce Lloegr.
206 MERLIN—ANEURIN. Bx. I. Cu. I.
to all England, of which, however, the people have been long
called not Lloegrian, but Saxon.
Myrddhin, or Merlin, is another bard of the sixth century ; but
Merlin ana Of the poems attributed to him, none were written in his
other bards ¢ime.! More associated with fable than even Taliesin,
century. the true history of Merlin seems to be that he was born
between the years 470 and 480, during the invasion of the Saxon,
and took the name of Ambrose, which preceded his surname of
Merlin, from the successful leader of the Britons, Ambrosius
Aurelianus, who was his first chief, and from whose service he
passed, as bard, into that of King Arthur, the southern leader of
the Britons. After he had been present in many battles, on one
disastrous day, between the years 560 and 574, in a field of
horrible slaughter on the Solway Firth, he lost his reason, broke
his sword, and forsook human society, finding peace and conso-
lation only in his minstrelsy. He was at last found dead on the
bank of a river.?- Other bards of this period of active struggle
were Talhaiarn, Kian, Mengant, and Kywryd. All the powers
of the Cymry were knit for decisive strife. Cattle and lands
were being won and lost. In the train of a strong chief there
was hope of safety, hope of gain. In the arms of a strong chief
there was hope of national redemption.
Our recollections of the Cymric bards of the sixth century
Aneurin, must close with Aneurin, in whose poem, entitled, ‘ The
The Godedin. Gododin,’ the old time of struggle in Strathclyde comes
back to us, and we see partly in action the last tumult of the
transfer of power in Britain from the spear of the Celt to the
plough of the Teuton. But we see in this song of the great
strife, when “ the men of Gododin went to Cattraeth,” the tumult,
without indication of the strength that was to come of it there-
after. As to Cattraeth, the poem tells that it was a day’s march
from the starting-point of the Gododin, neighbours of the men of
1 «The Literature of the Kymry: being a Critical Essay on the History of
the Language and Literature of Wales during the Twelfth and two succeeding
Centuries.’ By Thomas Stephens. Llandovery, 1849.
2 ¢Myrddhinn, ou /’Enchanteur Merlin, son histoire, ses ceuvres, son influ-
ence. Par le Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarqué.’ Paris, 1862. In this
volume, aiming to be popular, M. de Villemarqué is more credulous than in
his former books of the antiquity ascribed to poems of a later date.
A.D. 480-580. ANEURIN. 207
Deivyr and Bryneich, Deira and Bernicia, that is to say, Durham
and Northumberland. In the adjoining county of York was a
Roman town of note, called Cataractonium, now Catterick, three
or four miles from Richmond, where an affluent joins the Swale,
and there, perhaps, was fought the great battle celebrated in
Aneurin’s ‘Gododin.”? There it may be that the three hundred
and sixty-three chiefs who were at Cattraeth were all slain, except
three, in battle with the Saxons. The Roman name of Catarac-
tonium only Latinises the British word, now pronounced Catte-
rick, and said to be derived from Cathairrigh, fortified city ; or
Caer-dar-ich, the camp on the water. The churchyard of the
village of Catterick, a mile from the site of the Roman station
and camp, is within an ancient camp of unknown origin, and
ancient burial-mounds are in the neighbourhood. Aneurin,
present in this battle, survived it to be killed by Hiddin, son of
Einigan, with the blow of an axe, according to the Cymric
Triads, one of “the three accursed deeds of Britain.” In the
opinion of the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel,? by whom the
‘Gododin’ has been edited and translated, Cattraeth is iden-
tical, not with Catterick Bridge, but with the Catrail, or rampart
and fosse extending across Teviotdale, for five-and-forty miles from
Galashiels, southward, to Peel-fell in the Cheviots. This was a
rampart raised to check the further progress of the Saxons west-
ward; and, if the fight was here, the word Cattraeth may pos-
sibly mean cad-traeth, the war-tract; or cad-rhaith, the legal
war-fence. But I have little doubt that the true site of
Cattraeth is the Yorkshire Catterick.
When, in the year 547, Ida came to our northern coast with
forty ships, in aid of the Saxons combatant already with the
Cymry, the people of Gododin, Deivyr, and Bryneach (Deira
and Bernicia), on the eastern shore, bordering on Llywarch
Hen’s district of Argoed, were especially liable to depredation,
and most probably already in the power of the Saxon.
1 Stephens’s ‘Literature of the Kymry.’
2 ©Y Gododin: a Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth, by Aneurin, a Welsh
Bard of the Sixth Century, with an English Translation and numerous His-
torical and Critical Annotations. By the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel, M.A.,
Rector of Llangmowddwy, Merionethshire.’ Llandovery, 1852. ° This book is
my chief aid in describing the Gododin.
208 ANEURIN. Bx. I. Cu. II.
At the call of Mynyddawg, Lord of Eiddin, Cymric chiefs
formed an alliance, brought their forces to Hiddin, and were
sumptuously entertained. Hiddin is commonly identified with
Edinburgh. If so, we must look for Cattraeth to the Catrail-
Nobody, I believe, has suggested, obvious as it seems, that the
lands of the Lord of Hiddin were on Wordsworth’s “ life’s
neighbour,” the river Eden, “whose bold rocks are worthy of
their fame.” The Eden, passing through Westmoreland and
Cumberland, flows towards the north-east into the Solway Frith,
and has its source on the opposite side of the same hills from
which the Swale rises to flow by Catterick to the south-west.
The sources of the Eden and the Swale are only two or three
miles distant from each other; and, if the fort of Eiddin that
was the gathering-point of the Cymric allies was among the
fells near the -head-waters of the river, it was but a march for
the heroes of some five-and-twenty miles from thence through
Swaledale to Cattraeth. The host was large. The larger army
of the Saxons gathered in Gododin, and marched westward to
meet at Cattraeth the Britons of the yet unconquered West.
The fight began on a Tuesday, and, like one of the great battles
of the American Civil War, was maintained for a week, the last
four days being most bloody. Aneurin was himself made pri-
soner in a panic of the men with whom he fought, and after-
wards forcibly liberated by a son of Llywarch Hen. After this,
at a conference during the struggle, Aneurin, as bard and herald,
demanded restoration of a part of Gododin as the condition of
peace. The Saxon herald answered him by killing the bard
Owain, and the battle was renewed by the Cymry, and main-
tained so doggedly that of their three hundred and sixty-three
chiefs only three, Cynon, and Cadreith, and Cadlew of Cadnant,
survived with Aneurin. Allusions to protection of corn in-
dicate that the great fight was in the harvest season, and the
date usually assigned to it is the year'570. Aneurin’s poem of
‘The Gododin,’ as it remains to us, consists of ninety-seven
stanzas; and combines with the story of the battle, praise of
ninety of the Cymric chiefs. It is considered that in the whole
poem every chief had his eulogy; and that various detached
pieces which are extant, and which answer to its character, are,
in fact, fragments detached from this old wail over the death of
A.D. 570. THE GODODIN. 209
Cymric heroes upon whom the Saxon set his heel. But we
must advance now to a more thorough perception of the sense
and spirit of
The Gododin.1
The poem opens with a celebration of the hero Owen, who is commonly
identified with Owen, son of Urien, although he is called here the only
son of Marro.
“ He was a man in mind, in years a youth, And gallant in the din of war ;
Fleet, thick-maned chargers Were ridden by the illustrious hero; A shield,
light and broad, Hung on the flank of his swift and slender steed ; His sword
was blue and gleaming, His spurs were of gold, his raiment was woollen. . . .
Thou hast gone to a bloody bier, Sooner than to a nuptial feast! Thou hast
become a meal for ravens, Ere thou didst reach the front of conflict! Alas,
Owain! my beloved friend; It is not meet that he should be devoured by
ravens! '[here is swelling sorrow in the plain, Where fell in death the only
son of Marro. Adomed with his wreath, leader of rustic warriors, whenever
he came Unattended by his troop, he would serve the mead before maidens.
But the front of his shield would be pierced, if ever he heard The shout of
war. No quarter would he give to those whom he pursued; Nor would he
retreat from the combat until blood flowed ; And he cut down like rushes the
men who would not yield. The Gododin relates, that on the coast of Mordei,
Before the tents of Madog, when he returned, But one man in a hundred came
with him.”
With Madog from the coast of Mordei (which might by chance be
Moricambe estuary, like the estuary of the Eden, in the Solway Frith),
came, adorned also with his wreath, Manawyd, his country’s rod of power,
who darted like an eagle to our harbour when induced to join in the
confederation. There came also adorned with a wreath the son of
Isgyran, “ the wolf of the holme, amber beads in. ringlets encircled his
temples; precious was the amber, worth a banquet of wine.” There was
Hyveidd Hir.—The old poet in each case paints the character and gives
the praise before he adds the name as climax to his eulogy.—There was
Hyveidd Hir, the son of Bleiddar Sant of Glamorgan, leader of the
advanced guard that swept down five battalions of the men from the
coasts of Deivyr and Bryneich (Durham and Northumberland). But he
himself was wounded early in the fight. ‘‘ He had not raised the spear
ere his blood streamed to the ground.” ‘The heroes marched to
Gododin,”—two stanzas open thus before the form of opening is changed
to “The heroes marched to Cattraeth.” The march was meant doubtless
for an invasion of the Angles in Gododin, and it appears from the poem
that the Cymry sought recovery of territory. The enemy advanced to
1 In quotations I have adopted the translation of the Rev. John Williams
ab Ithel, occasionally preferring a reading that he gives in a note, or slightly
altering the manner of his English. In the analysis, I have discarded alto-
gether his confusing interpretations of local names, and, accepting the iden-
tification of Cattraeth with Catterick, have made out in my own way its
consistency with other parts of the geography of the Gododin.
VOL. I. P
‘210 ANEURIN. Bx. I. Cu. ITT.
meet them, and the hosts joined battle at Cattraeth. The inland region
immediately behind the coasts of the Deivyr and Bryneich Romanised as
the Otadini, was occupied by a people called by the Romans Gadeni; but
I do not doubt that the Roman name Otadin is itself the Latinised Ododin ;
Ododin, without the prefix of an unessential G, being the Cymric name
given in the text of the MS. to the region upon which the British heroes
marched. Ododin was not a third district, but as in Roman geography,
which always was founded on the native, a common name for the region
occupied by the men of Deivyr and Bryneich. This theory accounts also
reasonably for the title of the poem, which otherwise would seem to have
been named for no obvious reason after a tribe representing but a section
of the enemy.—The heroes marched to Gododin. Sognaw and Gwanar
exulted. They should have gone to churches to do penance, the old and
the young, the bold and the mighty; the inevitable strife of death was
about to pierce them.
“The heroes marched to Cattraeth, loquacious was the host; Blue mead
was their liquor, and it proved their poison; In marshalled array they cut
through the engines of war; And after the joyful cry, silence ensued! They
should have gone to churches to perform penance; The inevitable strife of
death was about to pierce them. The heroes marched to Cattraeth, filled with
mead and drunk, Compact and vigorous; I should wrong them were I to
neglect their fame; Around the mighty, red, and murky blades, Obstinately
and fiercely the dogs of war would fight.”
The son of the bard Kian was there. It seems that he had married
the daughter of a chief of Ododin, refusing dowry with her because he
was arrayed in arms against her father. But this ninth stanza of the
Gododin, in which the death of the son of Kian is celebrated, joined to a
later stanza, the twenty-first, has been translated by Gray with a different
interpretation in his Ode from the Welsh, “the Death of Hoel.”
“The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Their peace was dis-
turbed by those who feared them; A hundred thousand with three hundred
engaged in mutual overthrow; Drenched in gore, they marked the fall of the
lances; The post of war was most manfully and with gallantry maintained,
Before the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous. The heroes marched to
Cattraeth with the dawn; Feelingly did their home friends regret their absence ;
Mead they drank, yellow, sweet, ensnaring ; That year is the point to which
many a minstrel turns; Redder were their swords than their plumes, Their
blades were white as lime; and into four parts were their helmets cloven, Even
those of the retinue of Mynyddawg the Courteous.”
Gelorwydd, the gem of Baptism, was slain and mocked by the enemy;
extreme unction being administered to him, with his own blood for the
oil. Tudvwlch Hir, the son of Kilydd (who is elsewhere called the son
of Prince Kelyddon, and was therefore a Strathclyde Briton from the
woods of Celadon), Tudvwlch, deprived of his lands and towns, marched
with a blazoned standard and strong following, he boasted that he would
scatter abroad the mounted ravagers. He slaughtered the Saxons for
seven days, and in the last day of the fight became their prisoner. “His
valour should have kept him a free man; his memory is cherished by his
A.D. 570. THE GODODIN. 211
fair companions.” Erthai was there also, before whom even an army
groaned. ‘In the van was, loud as thunder, the din of targets. . . When
the tale shall be told of the battle of Cattraeth, the people will utter
sighs; long has been their grief because of the warrior’s absence ;there
will be a dominion without a sovereign and a smoking land.” Godebog
was carried to the grave by his sons. Tudvwlch and Cyvwlch the Tall
drank the bright mead together by the light of torches y though pleasant
to the taste, a fatal foe. Gwarthleo was of the number, young, rich, ever
pressing forward, and there too was the gigantic Gwrueling. In the
early dawn bright was the horn in the hall of Eiddin, pompous the feast
of mead at the meeting of reapers. Men drank transparent wine with
battle-daring purpose. The reapers sang of war, war with the shining
wing ; the minstrels sang of war, of harnessed war, of winged war.
There were three forward chiefs of the Novantee—that is to say from
the opposite shore of Solway Frith, the Novante being the people of
Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, and Ayr—with five battalions of five hundred
men each, three levies each of three hundred knights from Eiddin, or the
banks and estuary of the Eden. Three chiefs from Breitan, on the shores
of Clyde; three from Aeron, which is probably an old form of the name of
Ayr. These then completed the list of the confederate Cymric tribes on the
west coast of the Cymry, from the Frith of Clyde to Solway Frith, whose
chiefs crossing the Solway went up the river Eden, or else marched by land
through Strathclyde to the appointed gathering place in Cumberland.
‘The heroes who marched to Cattraeth were renowned, Wine and mead
out of golden goblets was their beverage, That year was to them one of high
solemnity, Three hundred and sixty-three chieftains, wearing the golden
torques; Of those who hurried forth after the excess of revelling, But three
escaped by valour from the funeral fosse, The two war-dogs of Aeron, and
Cynon the dauntless, And myself, from the spilling of blood, the reward of
my pure song.”
The preceding passage has been thus translated by Gray into English
verse, as the second half of his Ode from the Welsh, “ The Death of
Hoel.”
“To Cattraeth’s vale in glittering row
Twice two hundred warriors go;
Every warrior’s manly neck
Chains of regal honour deck,
Wreathed in many a golden link :
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar, that the bees produce,
Or the grape’s ecstatic juice.
Flush’d with mirth and hope they burn:
But none from Cattraeth’s vale return,
Save Aéron brave, and Conan strong
(Bursting through the bloody throng),
And I, the meanest of them all,
That live to weep, and sing their fall.”
Motionless is the sword of Graid, the son of Hoewgi. The armour of
Buddvan, the son of Bleiddvan the Bold, has been thoroughly washed in
P 2
212 ANEURIN. Bx. I. Cu. II.
his gore. The bards at the Christmas feasts never quitted the court of
Gwenabwy, the son of Gwen; “he was a mighty and fierce dragon, his
land should not be ploughed though it might become wild.” Swift and
fierce to destroy the enemy with fire and sword was Marchten; “ he
would slaughter with the blade, whilst his arms were full of furze.” The
son of Gwddnen came from the south, having taken a strong town,
“along the rampart to Offer, even to the point of Madden, there was no
young offspring that he cut not to pieces, no aged man that he did not
scatter about. His sword resounded on the heads of mothers; he was an
ardent spirit, praise be to him.” The Gododin would not be completely
true without this touch in it of the ancient barbarism of war.
“When Caradawg rushed into battle, It was like the tearing onset of the
woodland boar; Bull of the army in the mangling fight, He allured the wild
dogs by the action of his hand; My witnesses are Owain the son of Eulat,
And Gwrien, and Gwynn, and Gwriad; But from Cattraeth, and its work of
carnage, From the hill of Hydwn, ere it was gained, After the clear mead was
put into his hand, He saw no more the hill of his father. The warriors marched
with speed, together they bounded onward; Short lived were they,—they had
become drunk over the distilled mead. The retinue of Mynyddawg, renowned
in the hour of need; Their life was the price of their banquet of mead.
Caradawg, and Madawg, Pyll, and Ieuan, Gwgawn, and Gwiawn, Gwynn and
Cynvan, Peredur with steel arms, Gwawrddur, and Aeddan; A defence were
they in the tumult, though with shattered shields ; When they were slain, they
also slaughtered ; Not one to his native home returned.”
One chief of Ododin, Gwlyget, joined in the banquet of Mynyddawg,
and went to his death at Cattraeth with the Cymry. “In marshalled
array they went with shout of war, with powerful steeds and dark-brown
harness, with shields, with uplifted javelins and piercing lances, with
glittering mail and with swords.” Morien fell in attack on the Saxon
camp as he carried and spread fire, and as his sword resounded on the
summit he was killed by a stone hurled from the wall of the fort. But
the fort was taken. Terrible within it was the cry of the timid multitude ;
the van of the army of Gododin was scattered. Another fierce attack
was made; a dwarf messenger of the Saxons hastened to the fence; the
Cymry sent forward to meet him their chief counsellor, a hoary-headed
man, mounted upon a piebald steed and wearing the golden chain. The
dwarf proposed a compact, but the Cymry answered for themselves with
a great shout, ‘‘ Let heaven be our protection. Let his compact be death
by the spear in battle.” For this was a life-struggle in which even women
of the Cymry fought among the men.
‘Equal to three men, though a maid, was Bradwen; Equal to twelve was
Gwenabwy, the son of Gwen. For the piercing of the skilful and most learned
woman, Her servant bore a shield in the action, And with energy his sword
fell upon the heads of the foe ; In Lloegyr the churls cut their way before the
chieftain. He who grasps the mane of a wolf, without a club In his hand,
will have it gorgeously emblazoned on his robe. In the engagement of wrath
and carnage, Bradwen perished,—she did not escape. Carcases of gold-mailed
warriors lay upon the city walls; None of the houses or cities of Christians
A.D. 570. THE GODODIN. 213
was any longer actively engaged in war; But one feeble man, with his shouts,
kept aloof The roving birds; ..... My limbs are racked, And I am loaded,
In the subterraneous house; An iron chain Passes over my two knees ; Yet of
the mead and of the horn, And of the host of Cattraeth, I Aneurin will sing
What is known to Taliesin, Who communicates to me his thoughts, Or a
strain of Gododin, Before the dawn of the bright day. The chief exploit of
the North was accomplished by the hero, Of a gentle breast; a more liberal
lord could not be seen ; Earth does not support, nor has mother borne So illus-
trious and powerful a steel-clad warrior! By the force of his gleaming sword
he protected me, From the cruel underground prison he brought me out, From
the chamber of death, from the enemy’s country ; Such was Ceneu, son of
Llywarch, energetic and bold.”
The tide of battle turned against the Cymry. They were forced to
consider terms of agreement. The demand made of the dales beyond the
ridge of Essyd (perhaps Esthwaite Lake), the stabbing of Aneurin’s com-
panion by the Saxon herald, and the uprising of the Cymry to pursue the
traitor, are the next incidents told.
“Together arise the expert warriors, And pursue the stranger, the man
with the crimson robe; The encampment is broken down by the gorgeous
pilgrim, Where the young deer” (collected as provisions for the army) ‘“ were
in full melody. Amongst the spears of Brych thou couldst see no rods
(white flags); With the base the worthy can have no concord; Morial in
pursuit will not countenance their dishonourable deeds, With his steel blade
ready for bloodshed. ‘Together arise the confederate warriors. Strangers to the
.country, their deeds shall be proclaimed ; There was slaughtering with axes
and blades, And there was raising large cairns over the heroes of toil. The
warriors arose, met together, And all with one accord sallied forth; Short were
their lives, long is the grief of those who loved them; Seven times their
number of Lloegrians had they slain; After the conflict their wives raised a
scream ; And many a mother has the tear on her eyelash... .. The soldiers
celebrated the praise of the Holy One, And in their presence was kindled a
fire that raged on high. On Tuesday they put on their dark-brown garments ;
On Wednesday they purified their enamelled armour; On Thursday their
destruction was certain; On Friday was brought carnage all around; On
Saturday their joint labour was useless; On Sunday their blades assumed a
ruddy hue ; On Monday was seen a pool knee-deep of blood. The Gododin
relates that after the toil, Before the tents of Madog, when he returned, Only
one man in a hundred with him came.”
At Catterick a tributary river flows into the Swale; and the next
incident of the Gododin is that ‘‘at early dawn there was a battle at the
confluence of rivers,” where a fire was kindled in front of the fente, and
the dwarf herald seems to have been killed treacherously in revenge for
the treacherous slaying of Aneurin’s companion by the Saxon herald.
The rest is still celebration at length of the deeds of slaughtered chiefs,
the last named being Morien and Gwenabwy.
“ And Morien lifted up again his ancient lance, And, roaring, stretched out
death Towards the warriors, the Gwyddyl, and the Prydyn; Whilst towards
214 BATTLE OF CATTRAETH. Bx. I. Cu. IIL
the lovely, slender, blood-stained body of Gwen, Sighed Gwenabwy, the only
son of Gwen. Because of the wound of the skilful and most wise warrior
Grievous and deep, when he fell prostrate upon the ground, The banner was
pompously unfurled, and borne by a man at his side; A wild scene was beheld
in Hiddin, and upon the battle-field. The grasp of his hand performed deeds
of valour Upon the Cynt, the Gwyddyl, and the Prydyn. He who meddles
with the mane of a wolf, without a club In his hand, will have it gorgeously
emblazoned on his robe. Fain would I sing,—‘ would that Morien had not
died. I sigh for Gwenabwy, the son of Gwen.”
So closes, with a sigh, the song of Aneurin. Chief after chief
he has marshalled in his pride of life and flush of valour, only to
weep for his death in the day when “there was slaughtering
with axes and blades, and there was raising large cairns over the
heroes of toil.’ Llywarch urged all his sons to battle for their
country, and afterwards a childless old man he mourned them all
with Gwenn, the dearest, who fell by the ford at Morlas; “all
slain,” he wails, “by my words,” for it was he who, as voice of
his country, urged them to the fields of death. It was another
Gwen who fell in the deadly and disastrous struggle at Cattraeth,
and over whose “lovely, slender, blood-stained body,” knelt
Gwenabwy, his only son—*“I sigh for Gwenabwy, the son of
Gwen.” Merlin, scared by the horrors of the struggle, passed:
at last from a wild battle-field, with the light of his reason
quenched in blood, to die a homeless wanderer upon a lonely
river-bank. The chiefs of the Cymry may have been too ready
to “quaff the white mead on serene nights,” or on the eve of
battles they may have been plagues to each other with disputes,
forays, and petty discord; it may be that among the men of
Deivyr and Bryneich, on the eastern coast, north and south of
the Humber, there were Cymry, subject to the coast-ravaging
Saxons, who fought with the invaders against their own country-
men ; and the peculiar bitterness with which Cymric poets speak
always of the Bryneich is thought to support this opinion; but
the best mind of the Cymry, as expressed by their poets, had in
these “grievous times assuredly the strongest influence. The
seven days’ battle at Cattraeth, where the Strathclyde Britons
gathered their forces for a last fierce stand, and stood firm to
the death, bore witness to the spirit of a generation that makes
poets. Urien, chief of the confederates among the hills of our
Cymryland of the North—a land stretching beyond the bounds
A.D. 600. CELTIC METRES. 215
of Cumberland and Northumberland into the Scottish lowlands
—had many great successes in his day. When Taliesin first
sang in his halls, the struggle had not become hopeless; but
Taliesin also lived and sang in the last terrible days, when war
was without hope, but all the mind of the Cymry, spoken by
their poets, was bent upon worthy maintenance of the disastrous
strife, and Urien’s camp became the centre of the nation’s songs.
The halls of other chiefs are visited by the bards, and named
with honour. Thus we hear now and then of Arthur, who,
at the head of a south-western confederacy, finally maintained
ground for the Cymry amongst the hills west of the Exe, where
they were the chief occupants of the five south-western counties
in King Alfred’s time.’ Arthur, of whom there is only slight
contemporary record extant, became, for reasons that will after-
wards appear, the British hero of tradition. But before the
Cymry of his own day, Urien was the chief warrior. In a former
page it has been said that, by immigration and invasion, the
Germanic races, of whose literature we shall have next to speak,
had been for centuries establishing themselves upon the culti-
vable lands of Britain. Even now there is to be found no trace
of a sweeping repulse of the whole Celtic population into Wales.
In Wales the Cymry held their own to the last, and thither
many probably withdrew from the dominion of the Saxon. But
in Athelstane’s time Britons and Saxons divided equal rule in
Exeter; and to this day in the north of England, as in the
south-west, the lineage of the short, dark, broad-chested Celt, is
visibly intermixed with the type of the tall, fair-haired Germanic
people. Bede, writing a century and a half after the battle of
Cattraeth, speaks of the Britons of Northumberland, who were
in his day partly free and partly subject to the Angles.
The verse system of the Celts was founded not like that of
the Greeks and Romans upon length and shortness of caitic
syllables, but upon agreements in the sounds of initial fe
and final letters. The old Teutonic verse, as we shall find in
the case of Anglo-Saxon, was based upon alliteration of initials
only. The Gaelic and Cymric Celts used agreement not only of
final consonants, the most simple and ancient form of final asgo-
nance, but also of final syllables. The Cymric verse might close
1 They are called in his will ‘ Wealh Cynn.’
216 MATERIALS FOR STUDY OF CYMRIC LITERATURE. Br. I.
two, three, or even six or more successive lines with the same
syllable. In Gaelic also the same system was followed, but with
more license in the variation of the vowel, while the consonant
remained unchanged. In this assonance, by repetition of the
final syllable, we have the germ of rhyme. It is no more true
rhyme than would be the association of ‘ ship’ with ‘ hardship”
and ‘worship. The Gaels used often a two-syllabled, as sdire,
déire (health and misery), sometimes even a three-syllabled,
assonance, as sdinmiche, déinmiche; that of the Cymry was
almost always one-syllabled; and while the Cymry depended
chiefly for effect upon the assonant ends of their lines, the Gaels
cared more for assonant initial letters, for alliteration. The
Gaels also were more careful than the Cymry to balance with a
rhythmical antithesis the two halves of a verse. There was pecu-
liar again to the Gaelic poetry what Dr. Zeuss, whose Celtic
Grammar is the best authority upon this subject, calls a half-
assonance, where, the vowel being the same, the consonants were
only those of the same class. No distinct rule was kept as to
the length of lines, but they were short, and seven—the measure
of Gray’s partly imitative ‘Death of Hoel, from the Welsh’1—
was very commonly the number of their syllables.
The chief MS. materials for a study of the old Cymric lan-
guage and literature are,—
Latin MSS. or THE 8TH orn 9TH CENTURIES WITH CYMRIC GLOSSES.
1. The Oxford Codex in the Bodleian Library (Auct. F. 4-32), containing a
portion of the treatise of Eutychius the grammarian, with interlinear Cymric
glosses. The Exordium of Ovid’s Art of Love, with Cymric interlinear glosses
from v, 381 to 870. An alphabet ascribed to Nemnivus, with letters resem-
bling what are printed as Bardic Letters, but of different signification, and a
fragment of a treatise on Weights and Measures, partly in British, partly in
Latin. These Cymric remains are of the end of the Sth or beginning of the
9th century.
2. The Second Oxford Codex, also in the Bodleian, is theological, and con-
tains in the middle, from p. 41 to p. 47), a vocabulary of Latin words, with
British interpretations written over or under them. The Cymric is of ancient
form, and the following Latin entry shows that it was written when the
Cymry were resisting their invaders :—‘‘ Humilibus Deus dat gratiam et vic-
toriam. Clades magna facta est, de Saxonibus percussi sunt “multi, de Bri-
tonibus autem rari.”
3. The Lichfield, formerly Llandaff, Codex, or St. Chad’s Book, contains
Latin entries of donations, &c., with many words and sentences in Cymric of
the beginning of the 9th century.
1 Quoted on p. 211,
Cu. IIL. ANNALS AND.OTHER LITERATURE. 217
4. Of the same age is a leaf with Cymric glosses, found by Monius, attached
to the cover of a codex in the Luxemburg Library.
5. A MS. of the Gospels paraphrased by Juvencus, in Latin hexameters,
contains Cymric glosses, also some verses at pp. 48, 49,50. The MS., of the
8th or 9th century, is in the University Library at Cambridge (Ff. 4, 42).
ANNALS AND OTHER LITERATURE.
10TH CENTURY.
The Laws of Howel Dda, compiled in the 10th century. The oldest MS.
is of the 12th.
127H CENTURY :—
The Liber Landavensis, or Book of Teilo, ancient Chartulary of Llandaff
Cathedral, published from MSS. in the libraries of Hengwrt and of Jesus
College, Oxford, by the Welsh MSS. Society, compiled early in the 12th
century.
Ve.tum MS. or tHe Gopopin, apparently of the year 1200, in possession of
Mrs. E. Powell, of Abergavenny.
The Black Book of Caermarthen, in the library of Hengwrt, a 4to of 54
leaves, contains in the early part an elegy on the death of Howel Dda’s grand-
son in 1104, and later, an elegy on the death of a Prince of Powys in 1158.
This book includes the song of the Sons of Llywarch Hen, &c.
147TH CENTURY :—
The Llyfr Coch, or Red Book of Hergest, in the library of Jesus College,
Oxford, a folio of 721 pp. in double columns. At p. 208 is a Brief Chronology
from Adam to a.p. 1818. At p. 499, a Chronological History of the Saxons
to a.D. 1876. In this volume are the oldest known copies of most of the
poems ascribed to Taliesin and Llywarch Hen, beginning at p. 513, and there-
fore written after the year 1376,
Or various DaTEs.
A collection of MSS. formed by Mr. Owen Jones, a furrier in Thames Street,
at his own great expense. The contents of many of them were published in
1801, and subequent year's, in three volumes, as the Myvyrian Archatology of
Wales, giving in part the pith of Welsh literature from the 6th century to the
opening of the 15th. Mr. Owen Jones was assisted in the publication by
Edward Williams, of Glamorgan (otherwise lolo Morganwg), and Dr. Owen
Pughe, The first volume is a collection of 124 pieces of ancient Cymric Poetry,
of which 77 are ascribed to Taliesin ; the second and third volumes are in prose,
and include the Laws of Howel Dda, the Triads, Proverbs, Genealogies of
Saints, Chronicles of Tysilio and Gruffyd ab Arthur. The poetry is arranged
in two parts: 1, works of the Cynveirdd, or earliest, 2, works of the Gogyn-
veirdd, or Bards of the Middle Ages. Besides these published pieces, the
unpublished material of the Myvyrian MSS. alone, deposited in the British
Museum contain 4700 pieces of poetry in 16,000 pages, and 15,300 pages of
prose, forming of prose and verse 100 volumes. The Jolo MSS., or a selection
from the collection made for continuation of the Myvyrian Archaiology by
Iolo Morganwg, were published by the Welsh MS. Society founded in 1837.
218 GILDAS. Cuap. IV.
CHAPTER IV.
GiLDAs, the historian, by Anglo-Saxons called the Wise, is said
to have been a Strathclyde Briton of the sixth century,
a fellow-pupil of Llywarch, and a brother of Aneurin,
if not Aneurin himself. Born in or soon before the beginning
of the century, he was taught first by St. tut, and then studied
for seven years in Gaul, before he dwelt near the present
St. David’s Head, on the coast of Pembrokeshire, and himself
became a teacher. He went to Erin, and there founded monas-
teries among the Irish Gaels. After his return to Britain he
proceeded to Rome, and on his way back when in Brittany
founded the Monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, where its monks
say that he ended his life. Others say that he came again to
England, and died in an oratory near Glastonbury.
To the Gildas of whose life these details are usually given! is
ascribed a very ancient history, written in monastic Latin, ‘De
Calamitate, Excidio, et Conquestu Britannie;’ or, as the text
itself enlarges on the title, “about the situation of Britain, her
disobedience and subjection, her rebellion, second subjection and
dreadful: slavery; of her religion, persecution, holy martyrs,
heresies of different kinds; of her tyrants, her two hostile and
ravaging nations; of her first devastation, her defence, her
second devastation and second taking vengeance; of her third
devastation, of her famine, and the letters to Aetius; of her
victory and her crimes; of the sudden rumour of enemies; of
her famous pestilence; of her counsels; of her last enemy, far
more cruel than the first; of the subversion of her cities and of
the remnant that escaped; and finally, of the peace which, by
the will of God, has been granted her in these our times.” The
history is very ancient, but most assuredly it was not written by
a man who had in his veins the blood of Aneurin. Assuming to
Gildas,
1 The chief authority for details of the life of Gildas is a biography written
in the twelfth century by Caradoc of Lancarvan.
A.D. 449-547, THE ANGLO-SAXON SETTLEMENTS. 219
be one of themselves, this priest uses a tone towards the Cymry
of contemptuous hostility, under the cloak of pastoral and
brotherly reproof. “They are impotent,” says the covert
assailant, “in following the standard of peace and truth, but
bold in wickedness and falsehood. . . . . Britain has kings, but
they are tyrants ; she has judges, but unrighteous ones, generally
engaged in plunder and rapine, but: always preying on the inno-
cent; whenever they exert themselves to avenge or protect, it is
sure to be in favour of robbers and criminals; . . . they are ever
ready to take oaths, and as often perjure themselves; they make
a vow, and almost immediately act falsely; they make war, but
their wars are against their countrymen, and unjust ones.” This
could not have been. said by a Strathclyde Briton in or near the
days of the battle of Cattraeth; but it might well be said, as
Mr. Thomas Wright! considers that it was said, by an Anglo-
Sqxon monk of the seventh century, who gave force to. bis
censure by writing as one who must tell the bitter truth to his
own people.
Through the equivocal Gildas, then, we pass from the Cymry
to the Anglo-Saxons. Who were they? Something has fhe Anglo.
been already said of their strong affinity to the Frisians, ments.
and of their probable relation to the Belge, who were on our
southern coast in Cesar’s time. We have cited also the six re-
corded settlements between the years 449 and 547, first one of
Jutes, then three of Saxons, and then two of Angles. Regarding
these six settlements as mainly representative of the period and
character of Anglo-Saxon conquest and colonisation, we have next
to ask, what is meant by the distinction between Jutes, Saxons,
and Angles?
That there were such settlements we learn, on the authority of
Venerable Bede, and of the Saxon Chronicle, which herein
follows Bede. The statements of Bede correspond also to the
brief narrative in the history of Gildas, written professedly
seventeen, and at latest a hundred, years after Ida landed on our
1 ‘ Biographia Britannica Literaria ; or, Biography of Literary Characters of
Great Britain and Ireland, arranged in Chronological Order. Anglo-Saxon
Period.’ London, 1842.—From this book and the companion-volume for
the Anglo-Norman Period the student of English will obtain some serviceable
information.
220 THE JUTES. Bx. I. On. 1V.
north-east coasts. Bede, born in 673, was studying history in a
Northumbrian monastery, only a centyry and a half after the
landing of Ida. The information upon which he wrote was the
best he could gather, chiefly by inquiry among his neighbours
the monks in the North of England; but also by collecting
record and local tradition from the monasteries of the South,
and consulting, in fact, every accessible record. To the best of
the belief of his own day, he tells us the manner of establishing
the Anglo-Saxon power in this country. Of the Saxon Chro-
nicle the part relating to this early period was probably not put
together till King Alfred’s time, two centuries later than Bede.
Use was then made of the existing records, the ‘ Hcclesiastical
History’ of Bede being among the number. In fact, then, the
account of the six settlements remains to us upon Bede’s single
and safe testimony to the record or tradition extant in his own
day. :
Now, as to the first settlement of Jutes under Hengist and
Horsa (Horse and Mare), who established themselves
in Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, and whom
Bede distinctly believed to have come from Jutland,’ it is to
be observed that Jutland is now occupied by Danes, and that
men from Jutland settling on our eastern coasts in the days of
the Angles were called Danes; but that in this case they are
called “ Jutes,” not “Danes,” and do not seem to have been
Danish. Where there has been a Danish settlement, towns
commonly are found with names ending in ‘by.’ Thus in Lin-
colnshire, within a dozen miles of Great Grimsby, there stand
Foresby, Utterby, Fotherby, Ashby-cum-Fenby, Barnoldby,
Irby, Laceby, Keelby, Grasby, Brocklesby, Ulceby. Yet
throughout this “Jute” region of Kent, Hampshire, and the
Isle of Wight, there is not even one place to be found that has a
name ending in ‘by. There is no clear ground for asserting,
although it has been suggested as one way of conquering this
Jutes.
1 The statement of Bede is as follows :—‘ De Jutarum Origine sunt Can-
tuarii et Vectuarii, hoc est ea gens, qua usque hodie in provincia Occidenta-
lium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam.
.... Porro de Anglis hoc est illa patria, que Angulus dicitur et ab eo tempore
usque hodie manere desertus dnter provincias Jutarum et Saxonuwm per-
hibetur.”—Liecl. Hist., i, 15.
A.D. 449-450, THE JUTES. 221
difficulty, that a Germanic people occupied Jutland in the
middle of the fifth century. But that our invaders of a.p. 449
(or as Bede’s context shows 450), called the Jutes, were Danes
from Jutland, is not only against local evidence; it is also
against fair likelihood that the first ships from Jutland to this
country, instéad of crossing the North Sea, as they afterwards
did, and striking on our eastern coast, should have taken the
trouble to make a long voyage southward, and land nowhere
until they got to Pegwell Bay, where a farmhouse, bearing the
name of Ebbsfleet, now shows where the old port used to be.
The Saxon Chronicle adopts the usque hodie of Bede, in testi-
fying to “that tribe amongst the West Saxons which is yet
called the Jute-kin.” Again, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of
Beowulf, presently to be discussed, as well as in the fragment
on the battle of Finnesburgh, Hengist appears as the name of a
Jute hero. It is noticeable also that with the neighbouring
regions named Hssex, Sussex, and Wessex, after the Saxons of
the East, and South, and West, Kent kept its British name, and
had a peculiar division into six nearly equal lathes, instead
of the usual hundreds of the Anglo-Saxon shires; while it has
been pointed out that by Jutish law a military expedition is
still called a lething, or in Danish leding (leading). On the
other hand, in support of the opinion that this first settlement
was not of Jutes from Jutland, but of Goths from Gaul, Dr. R.
G. Latham observes that King Alfred, in translating Bede’s
‘Ecclesiastical History,’ has dealt with Bede’s recorded conquest
by the three strongest of the invading peoples, “ Saxonibus, Anglis,
Jutis,” as “that of Saxum and of Angle, and of Geatum” and of
the Geats; while the King, in whose reign the Saxon Chronicle
appears to have been established, also dropped out of his version
of Bede, the reference to a people “yet called” Jute. Again, it
is observed that Bede connects the name of the people of the
Isle of Wight—Wiht-were, Vect-varia—with Jute, as King
Alfred in his day connected it with Geat. But the error here ig
certain; the name being a British name, known to the Romans,
and current in South Britain long before anything had been
heard of Hengist and Horsa. In the Life of King Alfred
ascribed to his Bishop Asser, Alfred himself is made by in-
ference a Jute, his grandfather being Oslac, “a Goth by nation,
222 THE ANGLES. Bx. I. Cu. IV.
for he was born of the Goths and Jutes; that is to say, of the
race of Stuf and Wihtgar, and being made Governor of the Isle
of Wight, killed in Gwitigaraburgh (Carisbrooke), their last
stronghold in the island, the few native Cymry who were not
already slain or exiled.” Dr. Latham dwells upon this phrase
“Goth and Jute,” and upon Alfred’s rendering of Jute by Geat,
when he argues that the “ Jutes” of the first settlement were, in
fact, Goths ; or that, if Jutes, they were Jutes who came in com-
pany with Goths, and that they came, not out of Jutland, but
only from the coast of Gaul, across the straits that divide Gaul
from Britain. Thus, he argues, we may have in the names of
the two Kings of Wessex, Cyneric and Owichelm, the Goths
Hunneric (Heinrich) and Wilhelm. He observes that according
to this theory we have still in Kent a people that is not Saxon,
to preserve the ancient name of that part of the land; and that
the division into Lathes may be accounted for, since Zeuss has
pointed to the Lete -or Leete, who, according to the ‘ Notitia
Utriusque Imperii, were transplanted by the Romans in mili-
tary divisions of Franks, Teutons, Batavians, and others, into
Celtic Gaul. There were Loets from the Batavians and Suevi, in
the days of the ‘ Notitia, stationed at Bayeux; and Zeuss adds
to the citation of these military companies or colonies the state-
ment of the Theodosian Code (a.p. 438), “that the lands
appointed to the Leeti who were removed to them, were called
Terree Leetice.” The Lathes of Kent may, therefore, have been
“Terres Loetice” held by Germanic or Gothic military colonies
from Gaul.
But while the first of the six settlements is said to have been of
Jutes, the next three are said to have been of Saxons,
who established Saxon power in the south; and the last
two of Angles, in the north of England and the Scottish low-
lands. Who were the Saxons and the Angles? The distinction
of nation between these invaders of the South and of the North
still rests on the authority of Bede, who believed that the Angles
came from a land called Angle; in his Latin, Angulus; lying
between the countries of the Jutes and Saxon. The region to
which Bede here pointed is still to be found in a corner of land
called Angeln, in Slesvig, which lies a little to the north of the
harbour of Kiel. It forms the southern coast at the mouth of
Angles.
A.D, 500-547. THE ANGLES. 223
Flensborg Fiord, includes the projection of land, thence to the
mouths of the inlet of the Slie or Schley, which runs inland to
the town of Schleswig; and if we reckon in it the marshes on
the other side of the Slie mouths, we have a district measuring
at most twenty miles by ten, which even at this day supports but
half-a-dozen villages or towns. It contained thick woods, and
was in Bede’s time known to be desolate. But then the belief
was that it had been depopulated by migration of the Angles to
this country. Again, this Angulus is on the eastern, not the
western coast; so that if their district be confined within Bede’s
definition of it, the Angles when they came to Britain either
began their migration over land, or had to sail out of the Baltic,
and come round Denmark on their way. The distance, how-
ever, is but five-and-twenty miles from the head of the Slie to
the west coast. The whole breadth of land from the mouth of
the Flensborg Fiord to the shore of the North Sea is only forty
miles; and on that opposite shore, among the.Frisian popula-
tion north of Leck, another little district bears yet to this day
the name of Angeln. If they were in Slesvig the same Angles
who proved so busy and so strong when they reached Britain,
we may be quite sure that in Slesvig they occupied the whole
breadth of the land from coast to coast. North of the Angles,
as thus placed, were the Jutes; and to the south, between them
and the Elbe, that is to say, in modern Holstein, were the
Saxous; Denmark Proper in a slight measure, and Slesvig and
Holstein almost entirely, being, according to this view, the
parent country of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Few now believe that we have here more than a fragment of
the truth. From the whole range of the coast opposite Britain
between Jutland and the Seine, came, reinforced by kindred
tribes that extended inland, the men who at different times took
possession of the plains of Britain. They were Frisians of the
coast, from islands over against our side of the Slesvig shore,
still called the Frisian Islands, to the border of France, in the
country that is to this day named after the Belge. They were
called by a name of their own as Angles; but the name of
Saxon, like that of Welsh (foreigner) given to the Cymry,
seems to have been a name applied from without by the Romans
and the Celts; as Welsh, meaning foreign, was a name given by
224 THE SAXONS. Bx. I. Cu. IV.
those whom they called Saxons to the Cymry. The Angles of
the North of England were called Saxons by the bard of ‘the
Gododin,’ and were Sassenach long after to the Highland Scot.
It is therefore not improbable that the apparent difference
between Saxon and Angle has arisen from the fact that the
same people who ruled in the North under a native name,
accepted the other when establishing, among those by whom
they were called Saxon, their Angle kingdoms. If it was
Egbert, King of the West Saxons, who first gave to the whole
country the name of England—the land of the Angles—we may
consent to the opinion that he would not have done this had it
belonged to a differing race of Saxons, he being himself a
Saxon.
From the Angles of Bede we turn lastly to the Saxons, whose
land he identifies with Holstein. There is no record of
the geography of Germany within the period of Bede’s
six Anglo-Saxon settlements. But reasonable inferences can
be drawn from comparison of the latest accounts before that
period with the earliest accounts after it; that is to say, of the
accounts given by Tacitus in the ‘Germania’ (a.p. 98), and by
Claudius Ptolemy in his ‘ Geography’ (a.p. 161), with those of
the annalists of Charlemagne and his successors (for more than
a century after Charlemagne’s accession, A.D. 768). In Tacitus
there is no Saxony; there are no Saxons. ‘The first mention of
Saxon is by Ptolemy, who places them on the mainland, and in
three islands adjacent to the land north of the Elbe, from
Hamburg westward to the sea, and northward to the Eider.
This is the region corresponding to the Holstein districts of
Stormar and Ditmarsh, with the (Frisian) islands, it is supposed,
of Dylt, Fohr, and Nordstrand. Jutland was then known as the
Cimbric Chersonesus, named, not in relation to the Cimmerians,
or Cymry, but from the Scandinavian word Kiemper, a warrior.
Both Tacitus and Ptolemy placed on the coast south of the
Elbe, between that river and the Ems, a people called the
Chauci. The rest of the coast, north-eastern France included,
was said to be occupied by Frisians and Batavians. The Angles
of Tacitus were on the Lower Elbe, about Hamburg, Lauenburg,
and Holstein. They were the Angles of Bede’s Angulus, with
a wider extension to the south and west. Behind the Chauci of
Saxons.
A.D. 98-161. THE SAXONS. 225
the coast, whose country dipped far inland, south also of the
Angles were a people called by Tacitus and Ptolemy Cherusci.
Their land contained what we now call the Hartz Mountains, and
included modern Saxony. South of the Cherusci were the
Longobardi, and between the Cherusci and the Frisian coast
were other tribes, the Angrivarii, whose district was about
Engern, which is a small town between Bielefeld and Minden,
and the Chamavi and Chasuarii in the province called afterwards
Westphalia.
We pass now over the blank period of the six Anglo-Saxon
settlements in England to the geography of Carlovingian times,
two or three centuries subsequent to those events. The Franks
called the parts lying to the north and east of their own frontier
the four countries of the Slaves, the Danes, the Frisians, and
the Saxons. The Slaves were in Eastern Europe; Dania was
the country north of the Eyder, modern Jutland and Slesvig.
Frisia was the coast-country between the Frank boundary and
the Weser, consisting of the present Dutch provinces of Fries-
land and Groningen, East Friesland and a part of Oldenburg ;
thus including the chief part of the region formerly ascribed to
the Chauci. As for the Saxony of Carlovingian days, this was
a large region through which flowed the Elbe. North of the
Elbe, Nordalbigian, or Transalbian Saxony, nearly corresponded
to the Saxony of Ptolemy, its people being divided into Thied-
marsi (Ditmarshers), with Meldorp for their capital, and Holsati
(dwellers in woods, Holsteiners) separated by the river Sturia
from the Stormarii, whose capital was Hamburg. South of the
Elbe the Cisalbian Saxons were divided into Westphalians and
Eastphalians, with the Angrarians, formerly Angrivarii, between
them,. The Chamavi and Chasuarii are now Westphalian
(west-dwelling) Saxons; the Angles and the Cherusci, with
a tribe of Fosi, who had formerly been interposed, are now
called Eastphalian (east-dwelling) Saxons. Until Ptolemy
(A.D. 160) there is no mention of Saxons; after the time of
Claudian (a.p. 400) there is no mention of Cherusci; and, as we
hear less of this people as Cheruscans, we hear more of them as
Saxons. Saxon, then, was a new name among the nations, which
came into use during the second century. It was applied first
to the sea-faring people who had the Holstein shore north of the
VOL. II. Q
226 THE SAXONS. Bx. I. Cu. IV,
Elbe-mouth for the starting-point of their excursions, and who
corresponded on the coasts of the North Sea, to the Angles on
the Baltic side of a narrow peninsula. It is at least reasonable,
therefore, to believe that the adjacent tribes formed one body of
Angles, occupying land with two sea-fronts, to whom on one of
their fronts, early in the second century, the name of Saxon was
applied by those among whom, by their descents upon the coast
of Gaul and Britain, they were making themselves a constant
subject of discussion. The name of Saxon was extended after-
wards to the people south of the Elbe, and, supplanting other
local names in the geography of the foreigner, came to be
applied to the inhabitants of that large tract of land in Germany
whereof a fragment remains as the modern Saxony. It is certain
that these people when settled in Britain, however they may
have accepted distinctions made to account for the names
Angle and Saxon, all called themselves alike the English folk,
and their language the Englisce Sprec, English. Of the word
Anglo-Saxon, it may be recorded that it was first used in the
life of Alfred the Great ascribed to Asser, where Alfred is
called Angul-Saxonum Rex. The term is there meant, not as
an expression of union between Angles and Saxons, but to dis-
tinguish Saxons of England from those of the Continent. It was
not until long afterwards that the phrase came into use as a con-
venient technical name for the English people and their language
during the first epoch of their national life; life that has since
been marked by great changes in their method of speech and
their vocabulary, and by some changes of importance even in
the temper of the mind that these are to express.
To the geographical details here given I add only a pertinent
sentence or two from King Alfred’s account of the geographical
voyages of the Northmen Ohthere and Wulfstan, communicated
to him by those explorers, and introduced among his numerous
variations and additions to the ‘Geography’ translated by him
from Orosius. “To the north of the Thuringians,” he says (de.
of the district of Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Weimar, &c.), “are the Old
«Saxons. To the north-west are the Frisians, and to the west of
the Old Saxons is the mouth of the Elbe, as also Frisia. Hence
to the west-north is that land called Angle-land, Sealand, and
some part of Denmark.” Again, in describing a voyage of
A.D, 98-768, FRISIANS AND SAXONS. 227
Ohthere to At-Hethum, a “port by the heaths,” which is iden-
tified with Haddeby on the Slie, opposite the town of Slesvig, or
sometimes with old Slesvig itself, Alfred says that /At-Hethum
“stands between the Wenede, the Saxons, and the Angles, and
is subject to the Danes. For two days before Ohthere came to
Hethum, on his right hand was Jutland, Seland, and many
islands, all which lands were inhabited by the English before
they came hither.” These were the lands in and about the
Angulus of Bede.
To all this external evidence as to the part of the Continent
from which the Anglo-Saxons came to England, there is to be
added the internal evidence of community of local and personal
names and close analogy of language. Thus in English names
of places we have words ending in hurst, meaning a copse or
wood, and beck, meaning a brook. Between the Lower Elbe and
Weser, as well as in Holstein north of the Elbe, such horsts are
numerous. Our becks we find, again, in the becks and bachs of
the same region, especially in the more inland part, where the
Leine flows towards the Weser. Dr. R. G. Latham believes also
that in the widely-diffused Frisian ending in um, we have our
own ending in ham, for names of places.
The evidence of language to the Frisian origin of the Saxons
is so strong that there is no contradiction between the pyisians ana
statement of Procopius in the sixth century,! that *“°™
Britain was inhabited by the three races of Britons, Angles,
and Frisians, and Bede’s statement that the inhabitants were
Britons, Angles, and Saxons. Jacob von der Marland, who in
the thirteenth century produced the first-fruits of Dutch poetry
in his ‘Spiegel Historical, or Mirror of History,’ claims Hengist
himself as “a Frisian, a Saxon,” who was driven out of the land,
using the two words as synonyms :—
“ Hen hiet Engistus, een Vriese, een Sas
Die, ut en Lande verdreven was.”
And Verstegan quotes, to like effect, “an old Teutonic author,
who saith thus :—
“ “Oude Boeken hoorde ic gewagen,
Old books heard I to mention,
1 De Bello Gothico, iv, 20.
Q2
228 THE PLACE OF ANGLO-SAXON Boox I.
Dat al het lant beneden Niiemagen,
That all the land beneath Nimeguen,
Wylen Neder Sassen hiet,
Whilome Nether Saxon hight.’
Then goeth he on and telleth how the river of Scheldt was the western limit
of the Saxon country. So as accounting now for the east side of Holsatia,
which confineth on the Baltic Sea, unto this aforesaid river of Scheldt, Saxon-
land, or the country of the Saxons, contained in length more than three
hundred miles. The same Teutonic author addeth further,
‘Die Neder Sassen hieten nu Friesen,’
that is
, ‘The Nether Saxons are hight now Frisians.’ ”
There is a great diversity of dialect even among Frisians of
islands but a couple of miles distant from each other; and it is
not difficult to understand how Frisian dialects brought at dif-
ferent times from different parts of the opposite coast into this
country, formed an Anglo-Saxon clearly and closely allied to
Old -Frisian, but, as far as the few extant fragments testify,
exactly answering to nothing that it left upon the Continent.
Variety of dialect, but no difference of language, distinguished
in this country the Northumbrian from the South Saxon.
The place, then, of Anglo-Saxon, and of the modern English
The place of into which it has been developed during the last thir-
anes" teen or fourteen centuries as a member of the Teutonic
nee branch of the Indo-European family, is one of imme-
diate relationship, not to the High German of modern Saxony,
or to the Old Saxon that preceded it, but to the Low German of
the seaward plains, to the Old Frisian spoken by the hardy race
that battled constantly, and, as their broken coast shows, often in
vain, against the sea that threatened to devour their homes, and
through one dialect, or branch of Frisian, to the modern Dutch.
The languages and dialects themselves have only to be com-
pared, if upon this point we would make the evidence complete.
To Friesland Proper belong written laws of the Free Frisians, of
the east and west—Hanoverian and Dutch—that date from the
twelfth century. The resemblance of their language to that of
the Anglo-Saxons is very marked. Compare, for example, these
Old Friesic words with the English, and observe how much more
remote is the resemblance of the corresponding words in High
German, that are bracketed between them:—Daf (taub) Deaf.
Cuap. IV. AMONG LANGUAGES. 229
Thridde (dritte) Third. Threttene (drefzehn) Thirteen. Tid
(Zeit) Tide, for time. Reek (rauch) Reek, for smoke. Harvst
(herbst) Harvest. Hors (ross) Horse. Renda (reissen) Rend.
Rida (reiten) Ride. Song (gesang) Song. Strete (strasse) Street.
Thiaf or tief (ieb) Thief. Wid (weit) Wide. Wif (weib)
Wife. Wet (nass) Wet. Weter or water (wasser) Water. Fridom
(freiheit) Freedom. Swiet (siiss) Sweet. Werfor (warum) Where-
fore. Askia(fragen) to Ask. If the parallel were applied imme-
diately to Anglo-Saxon or to the provincial words that retain
untouched some portions of the ancient language lost to common
English, then the evidence of close relationship becomes of irre-
sistible extent.' A variety called North Frisian is still spoken by
the Frisians of Slesvig, and Frisian is at this day the language of
the fens of Saterland, in Oldenburg.
Of the Old Saxon language the most important extant speci-
men is a metrical Gospel History, called the ‘ Heliand’ (German,
Heiland), the Saviour. First discovered in an English library, it
was, until the present century, mistaken for a Dano-Saxon poem
written in this country. There are also, in Old Saxon, the Caro-
linian Psalms, the metrical legend of Hildebrand and Hathu-
brand, the‘ Abrenuntio Diaboli, and sundry fragments. Though
less close than between Anglo-Saxon and Frisian, the general
resemblance between Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon, both in voca-
bulary and in grammatical form, is very striking.
But here is a Frisian noun, Sunu, a son, in word and declen-
sion exactly answering to the Anglo-Saxon. Nom. Gen. Dat.
Ace. Sing. Sunu, suna, suna, sunu: Plur. Suna, sunena, sunum,
sunu. Again, in another form of declension, Anglo-Saxon Scip,
1 In the Philological Society’s ‘ Transactions’ for 1855 is a paper by the
Rev. J. Davies on the ‘Races of Lancashire as indicated by the Local Names
and Dialect of the County.’ In this paper the author says, “it is highly
important for the purposes of English philology that the Old Friesic language
should be more carefully studied by us, as it is, above all others, the fons et
origo of our own.” Stimulated by the suggestion, Dr. de Haan Hettema,
Member of the Friesic Chivalry, entering the lists for Friesland, poyred into
the Philological Society’s ‘ Transactions’ for 1856 and 1858 copious illustra-
tions of this truth. Omitting words which seem to be derived from Latin or
French, although almost the same in Dutch or Frisian, omitting also Anglo-
Saxon words, this gentleman has formed a list of four thousand examples of
conformity between Old English, Dutch, and Frisian. A thousand of them
are given in Tr. Philol. Soc. for 1858, pp. 144-178.
230 OLD FRISIAN AND ANGLO-SAXON. Boox I.
a ship, runs: Sing. Scip, scipes, scipe; scip. Plur. Scipu, scipa,
scipum, scipu; while in Old Frisian, Skip, a ship, runs: Sing.
Skip, skipis, skipe, skip. Plur. Skipu, skipa, skipam, skipu.
The form for declension of an indefinite adjective, again, in
Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter, is: Sing. Nom. A.-S. god,
god, god. O. F. god, god, god. Gen. A.-S. godes, godre, godes.
O. F. godes, godere, godes. Dat. A.-S. godum, godre, godum.
O. F. goda (and -um), godere, goda (and-um). Ace. A.-S. godne,
gode, god. O. F. godene, gode, god. Plural in all genders
alike. A.-S. Gode, godra, godum, gode. O. F. Gode, godera,
godum (and -a), gode. Compare, again, the declension of the
pronoun corresponding to the Latin is, ea, id, from which we
derive several of our English forms. M. F. and N. Sing. Nom.
A-S. se, seo, thet. O. F. se, this that. Gen. A.-S. thes,
theere, thes. O. F. Thes, there, thes. Dat. A.-S. Tham, thare,
tham. O. F. Tham, there, tham. Acc. A.-S. Thone, tha, thet.
O. F. Thene, se, thet. Plur. in all genders A.-S. Tha, thara
tham, tha. O. F. Se, thera, tham, se. So in conjugation of the
auxiliary verb “to be,” we have O. F. “he is” with a past “he
was,” and a subjunctive “he were.” Again, in regular conjuga-
tion we have for a Present Indicative, in A.-S. Berne (burn),
bernst, bernth, and throughout the plural bernath; O. F.
Berne, bernst, bernth, and throughout the plural bernath.'
For the use of students and for readiness of reference as we
proceed with the story of our language, I append to this chapter
a sketch of what is, in fact, the backbone of good English, in a
complete outline of the structure of Anglo-Saxon. Except a
1 The examples of Old Frisian grammar, and some of the information given
in the preceding portions of this chapter, I take from the fourth edition of the
work of Dr. R. G. Latham on the English language (London, 1855)—a work
of which the most essential part has been compressed by him into his ex-
cellent ‘ Handbook of the English Language for the Use of Students of the
Universities and Higher Classes of Schools’ (Third edition, 1858). The
student of English may include with advantage either the smaller or larger
work among his text-books. He will be much aided also by Dr. Smith’s
edition, with additional lectures and notes by himself and the late Dr. Donald-
son, of Mr. 8. P. Marsh’s ‘ Lectures on the English Language,’ issued as
one of Mr. Murray’s Student’s Manuals. It is an especial charm of Mr. Marsh’s
writings upon English that his study of the language comes of a true relish for
its literature,
Cuap. IV, THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 231
change of my own in the place of the dividing line between the
second and third declensions, which is explained in a note,
and, I think, an obvious simplification, the digest follows the
grammar of Erasmus Rask,' reducing it to essentials, and facili-
tating the apprehension of them by such formulas and summaries
as a learner usually makes for himself.
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON.
Alphabet compared with Modern English.
MS. corruptions used as A.-S. letters :—
A.B.C.D.E.F.G@.H.1[—J). (+, used in later times
KRBDCD-EC-E.BG-RP Pl. . K. for C]
abe aceFf Sh tt
L.M.N.0O.P.[-Q].8.S . T. U. [—V only in foreign
L.COM.TLN.O.P. R.SN.CT.U. names |
tom n op Yr ¢ c Uw
W.X. Y.([-2 only in foreign names]
Pim. .
PF x YS
+ BE. Spt) . Had om
£e@.[= th in thin). [=th in then].
we
Contractions: — P (that), f (and).
Note the resemblance, sometimes overlooked in copying old English M8S.,
between p and w, and the possibility of confounding either with tha.
1¢A Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, with a Praxis, by Erasmus
Rask, Professor of Literary History in, and Librarian to, the University of
Copenhagen, &c. &. A New Edition, enlarged and improved by the
Author. Translated from the Danish by B. Thorpe: Copenhagen, 1830.
This grammar is the basis of ‘A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, with
Extracts in Prose and Verse, Glossary, Appendix, and Notes, for the Use of
Learners, by Edward Johnstone Vernon, B.A., Magdalene Hall: London,
1846,—a book which, together with Mr. Benjamin Thorpe’s ‘ Analecta Anglo-
Saxonica, a Selection in Prose and Verse from Anglo-Saxon Authors of various
ages; with a Glossary; designed chiefly as a First Book for Students.’
London, 1846 ; and the condensed but practically enlarged edition of the Rev.
Dr. Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (London, 1855), will enable anybody
in a few months to read our early writers with ease and enjoyment, and appre-
ciate more keenly than ever all that is best in English literature. I cannot too
strongly urge the young student of English to be thorough, and teach himself
Anglo-Saxon. The digest in the text will show him that the labour is light,
while the reward is most abundant. Even by the mere help of that digest,
Mr. Thorpe’s ‘ Analecta,’ which includes a glossary, will serve to carry the
learner far upon his way.
232 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Cu. IV.
Pronunciation —Vowels nearly as in modern German. © is not a diphthong,
but a letter with the sounds of English a, in glad and glade. Consonants
nearly as in modern English, c, always hard,=k. fat the end of a syllable,
or between two vowels=v; and g when between two of the letters «x, e, i, y=y;
thus lufige, I love, is pronounced lufiye. h has a very hard sound. p and © are
the sharp and flat sound of th (Gr. 6), as we still have letters in pairs for sharp
and flat in p and b, t and d, f and v, k and g, 8 and z.
Orthography confused. The most common confusions are between a and #;
o and a, especially before n in a short syllable, (man, mon); ea, e4,—e, é;
i, iy, ¥; eo,—y,—e (seolf, sylf, self); eo,—u, especially after w (sweord,
swurd); o—u especially in terminations. u (=v)—f (luue, lufe): g is often
added to words ending in i, or omitted from those ending in ig; g (=y) is some-
times placed before e or i (geow, geall). Other confusions in orthography are be-
tween ng—nce—nge; h—g; x—cs. Accents are often omitted, yet the accent (’)
is essential, e.g. ac, but,—éc, oak; wende, turned—wénde, expected ; is, is,—is,
ice ;—for, for,—for, went; st, at,—ét, ate.—This accent is not tone. Tone is on
the first syllable of the root; in compound words on the first word.
Punctuation in A.-S. was a dot at the end of a sentence, or line of » poem.
Three dots marked the end of a discourse. :
ARTIOLE AND DemonstTRATIVE Pronovn.
Singular. Plural
M. F. N.
Nom. .. se. «- S€6 oe «» beet pa
Gen. .. pes .. .. pére .. .. bas para
Dat. .. pim .. .. p&re .. .. pim | fim
Ace. .. pone.. .. pi «. « pet |- pa
Abl, .. py «+ « p&re «. «. py pam
Novun.
For GmnpER no precise rules. A.-S. agrees generally in this with German.
Decision of Gender by Nominative Ending.—All words in a (except
names of women) are masculine, and all are of Decl. 1; in u they
are either masc. or fem., and of Decl. 3; the rest may be m., f,, or
n., Decl. 1 or 2. Decision of Gender by Declension—Nouns having
a gen, sing. in a are masculine; gen. sing. in e are feminine. Plurals
with a nominative in as, indicate masculine ; plurals with a nomina-
tive unchanged, almost always neuter. Gender also may be deter-
mined by the inflexion of the indef. art. or adj. Gender supplies
one of the chief grounds for variation in declension,
DeciEnsion 1, of words ending in an essential vowel :—
Simple Order (or First Declension).
Singular. Plural.
M. FE N.
Nom. .. «6 @ ss « ©. © an
Gen, Se ena
Dat. & :
AbL. } so dae Say VED um
Ace. .» » (except) .. .. © an.
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 233
Complex Order (Second and Third Declension).
Decuension 2, of words ending in consonant or unessential e (that is, e for i).
3, of words ending in u.
Second Declension. Third Declension.!
— SS SS —,
i M. FE N. M. F,
Singular. Nom. fe) .. 4, «. y(e) Nom wu + U
Gen. es .. 6 .. 68 Gen. a oe 8
Dat. & Dat. & ox
ADIL. ye ~~ @ 2 @ ‘ADL } a - @ a
Ace. »(€) + © oe (2) Ace. wu -@ 3
A
Ploral. i as ww Awe (U1) pig 7 a a a
Gen. ao. a .. a(ena) | Gen. a(ena).. ena
Dat. & Dat. &
ADL. } um ..um.. um AbL } - um
Summary of Declension.
1. Dative and Ablative are one case. The sense of with (mid, expressed or
understood) determines ablative.
2. Dat. and abl. plural always in um.
3. Nom. and Ace, often alike in sing., always in plur.
4. In simple order (Decl. 1) the single inflexion an sing. and plur., except that
the neuter accusative sing. is like the nom.: the dat.-and-abl. plur. is of course
um, and the gen. plur. in ena.
5. In complex order (Decl. 2, 3). Every feminine inflexion of the singular is -e.
Except of the masculines in u, every dat.-and-abl. singular is in -e. Except of all
the feminines and of the masculines in u, every gen. sing. is in. es, Except of
the feminines—for there are no feminines in nominative -e—every acc. sing, is
like the nominative. Of the masculines in u, and of those nouns only, the gen.,
dat,-and-abl. sing. is in a. In the plurals of the complex order, nom. and ace.
end in a for all feminines and for masculines in u. Masculines ending in a con-
sonant or (e) have them in as, and neuters so ending have them like the singular,
or elseinu. The gen. plur. is in a, with sometimes ena for neuters or for mas-
culines in u, and always ena for the feminines in u.
Variations in Declension.
1, The genitive plural, normally a, is sometimes preceded by en, also by r, as
in adjectives; sometimes the e before na is left out.
2. The dative plural in um is sometimes written on or an.
8. Countries and places in a are sometimes indeclinable, sometimes declined
after the Latin form. Mesge oe
4. Proper names in es sometimes have no additional es in the genitive.
5. Words in ung often have a instead of e in the abl. and dat. Feld (feald)
also makes dat. felda, plur. feldas.
6. In monosyllables of the second declension having # for root vowel, the »
become a in the plural of those words in which is represented by a in kindred
tongues, as deg, Germ. Tag, Eng. day,—stef, Germ. Stab, Eng. staff; but not in
x
1 Rask complicates the 3rd declension and obscures its marked characteristic by
placing in it those neuters of the second which have a plural nominative in u.
234 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Ca. IV.
those of which the # is otherwise represented in English or German, as del,
Germ. Theil, Eng. deal.
7. Some words transpose cs in the plural, as fisc, fixas; disc, dixas; tusc, tuxses,
8. All dissyllables in el, en, er, are apt to be contracted in the oblique cases, as
ceaster, ceastre; feminines in el and en are often contracted even in the nomina-
tive, as stefn for stefen. Other dissyllables are liable to contraction when a vowel
of inflexion follows.
9. Nouns ending in a single consonant after a short vowel, as sib, peace, double
that consonant in inflexion (sibbe). It is so with words ending in -nys (-nysse).
10. Sé, sea; 4, law; and ed, river, are usually indeclinable in the singular.
11. Some nouns are defective in singular, as ba gifta, the wedding (les noces);
lendenu, loins; pystru, darkness. Others have no plural, as rest, repose.
12. For u there is sometimes a in the plural, as beboda for bebodu, com-
mandments.
13. Some words in u change u into w or ew in oblique cases, as melu, flour
(meal), melewe and melwe.
14, Feoh, cattle, money, has gen. fedr, dat. fed; also sometimes plural fed. Like
this are pleoh, danger; peoh, thigh. Feorh, life; feores, feore. Mg, egg, and
cealf, calf, make in plural egru and cealfru. Niht has sometimes the accu-
sative nihte : nihtes is the adverb, by night, not to be confused with the genitive
nibte, Cu, cow, sometimes has in gen. sing. cus, and in gen. plur, cuna.
ADJECTIVE.
Definite —All Adjectives in positive and superlative, when used with the defi-
nite article, are declined as the simple order of nouns; adjectives in the compara-
tive are so declined, whether with or without the definite article. Also all
adjectival pronouns and numerals with the definite article. Adjectives have three
genders in each form, whether of this definite, or of the indefinite declension.
In the Indefinite declension there are peculiar terminations, namely, re, in all
eases of the feminine singular, except the accusative, which is in e. In masculine
and neuter singular there is a difference between dative and ablative, the dative
being in um, the ablative in e; and there is an accusative masculine in ne.
Genitiveis ines. In the plural all genders are declinable alike with a nominative
and accusative in -e or u, and a genitive in ra; the dative as always in um.
Indefinite Form.
M. FE N.
Singular. Nom. ,, .. . ,(u).. ..,,
Gen, es .. .. 7e@ .. .. €S
Dat. um... TO .. .. um
Ace. ne .. .. © arch
Abl. O 2x ae TO ae ce @
—_—_—_—_—_—————_—_
Plural. Nom. &
ae }.. oi xn RG)
Gen. ae wen ee EB
Dat. &
Abl.
A second Indefinite declension is formed of the few monosyllables having @ for
their vowel, of the passive participles of 2nd and 3rd conj. in en, and of polysyl-
lables with derivative endings (in ig, lic, &c.). Those in @ change the root-vowel
for the singular in the nom. and ace, feminine, and in all cases except those of the
masculine; for the plural in all cases but the genitive; and they all have a fem.
nom. sing.,—with sometimes also an acc, sing.,—in u.
hopaeqsits
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 235
Neuters of adjectives are sometimes used as substantives.
An adjective in the positive degree is used adverbially by adding -e, as yfele,
evilly.
Comparison.—Comparative and superl. signs are -or and -ost, used adverbially.
Sometimes we find ur or ar, ust or ast, and yste or iste for este.
M. F. N.
Comparative declension is of endings -ra -re -re, according only to the simple
order.
Superlative declension is of ost, the ‘adverbial ending, for indefinite declension,
and of esta, -e -e for the definite.
Some adjectives change the vowel in comparison ; those of decl. 1 which do so
have not or and ost, but re and est even adverbially. Others, of which the chief
examples follow, are irregular :—
géd. (wel) good betere (bet) betst (betest)
yfel (yfele) bad, evil wyrse (wyrs) wyrst (wyrrest)
neah near nearre (near, nyr) nyhst (nehst)
peet forme (ford) Sirst furére (furdor) fyrmest
mycel (mycle) great mare (m4) mest
lytel little leesse (lees) lest
(ér) before, ere érre (érer €ror) érest (-ost)
813 late sidre (siSor) sidmest
nordeweard (nord) northward (norSor) nordmest
niseweard (nider) nether nivere (nidror) nidemest
ufeweard (up) upward ufere (ufor) yfemest
viteweard (uit) outward vitre (vitor) ytemest
inneweard (inn) inward innere (innor) innemest
Inmost is, therefore, not compounded of in and most.
Pronoun.
Personal. .
Ist. 2nd. 8rd.
nee
M. FE, N.
Sing. Nom. ic pu he = hed shit
Gen. min pin ‘ his hire his
Dat. me pe him hire him
Acc, me (meh, mec) pe (peh, pec) hine hi _ hit
tr ——————— rRe=——_——en VW
Dual. Plur, Dual. Plur. Plural.
Nom. wit we git ge hi (hig)
Gen. uncer tire (user) incer eower hira (heora)
Dat. us ine eow him (heom)
Ace, las us (usih) ine (incit) eow (eowih)} hi (hig)
The variations between brackets occur sometimes in poetry.
The third personal pronoun is used as a Reflective, or sylf declined as an adjec-
tive isadded to the personal in equal case and gender, or placed as nominative after
a dative, as me-sylf, Sin is sometimes used by the poets as reflective possessive of
8rd person.
Possessive
formed from the genitives of only the two first persons is declined as the indefinite
adjectives. When the syllable of inflexion begins with a vowel, those in er are
often contracted, and ure considered to have no final -e. Ure also receives no
236 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Cu. IV.
additional -re in the fem. When user is used for ure, it is declined irregularly,
thus :—
M. FE. N.
Singular. Nom. user .. user .. user
Gen. usses «. USSC -- USES
Dat. & }
ussum .. usse .. ussum
Abl.
Ace. userne .. usse .. user
Se
Plural. Nom. ey
++ «+ usse (user
Aue (user)
Gen. oe «+ US8A
Dat. & \ ‘ad
Abl. foe
Demonstrative.
Se, seo, beet, used algo as article (see above) =is, ea, id, is used also as a relative
pronoun. The bare demonstrative is bes, beds, pis (hic, heec, hoc).
Singular. M. F. N. Plural.
Nom. pes .. peds .. pis we ae ds
Gen. bpises .. pisse .. pises .. .. pissa
Dat. pisum .. pisse .. pisum .. .. pisum
Acc. pisne .. pds .. pis oo o Pas
Abl. pise .. pisse .. bise .. .. bisum é
We find also pissum for pisum, pisses for pises. Also pissere and pissera for
pisse and pissa, and in plur. bes for bas (these and those).
Indeclinable be is often used for se, seo, bet, especially with a relative signifi-
cation, and later as an article (the). Compound feetpe is read peette.
Interrogative.
Hwyle, which? hweer, whether? follow the indefinite declension; and hwa,
hwet, who, what, is thus declined. (It has only a singular.)
M. N.
Nom. hwé .. .. .. .. .. .. hwat
— ~~ ———$__—
Gen. .. .. .. «. hwes
Dat. .. .. .. -. hwém (hwém)
Bret ne pee ae
Ace. hwone (hwene) .. .. .. hwet
ae ee on
AblL 4. 2. « hwi
This is never used with a substantive, and with an adjective usually governs
the genitive, as hweet yfeles, what evil?
Note—Hweeser in neuter is used for making a whole proposition interrogative.
Notes on Pronouns,
Indefinite Pronouns, eghwat, eghwyle, &e., are declined according to the last
word in their compound.
Sum (some) is often found after gen. plur. of the cardinal numbers, meaning
“about that number.”
Fela (much, many) is indeclinable.
O%er means other, or second; awéer, one of two.
These and most pronouns not otherwise characterised follow the indefinite
declension,
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. ,; 237
Cardinal Numbers.—én, tw4, pred, feower, fif, six, seofon, eahta, nigon, tyn,
endlufon (one left), twelf (tw lufon two left over ten), preottyne, feowertyne, &e.
Ordinal Numbers——Se forma (first), se oSer (second), se prydda, feorba, fifta,
sixta, seofoba, eahtaba, nigopa, tedpa, endlyfta, twelfta, prytiedSa, feowertedtha, &c.
For numerals the A.-S. used the Roman I, II, &e.
Of the Cardinal Numbers, én is declinable like an adjective.
ae and pred thus :—
ba (both) M. F. N.
Nom. & Ace, twégen.. .. twi .. .. tw (ti)
a
Gen. se ae oe twegra (twega)
Dat.& Abl. .. .. .. twim
Nom. & Ace. pry .. .. pred... .. pred
a ee
Gen. as ++ «+ predra
Dat.& Abl. .. .. .. brym
Feower retains feower in dative. Fif and six and seofon sometimes have genitive
in a. Habta, nigon, endlufon, and compounds in tyne are indeclinable. The
others are declinable, also the tens in tig, but without gender.
Hund, prefixed to tens after 60, is sometimes omitted when a hund precedes.
Units added to tens as ordinals go first with “and,” or last as cardinals. In
ordinals after 100 the smaller number is last, and the substantive is repeated, as
hund wintra and prittig wintra.
The Ordinals follow definite declension, except oder. Hund, hundred, puisend,
are substantives, and form no ordinals.
Healf after an ordinal diminishes it by one-half.
Multiplicatives in feald are declined as adjectives; +Jice are adverbs; +mnes are
nouns, Sid added to ordinals in abl. sing. or to cardinals in the plur. means
“times.”
VERB.
Anglo-Saxon verbs form the passive, as in English, by help of Auxiliaries,
They have the usual moods, but no active future among the tenses. The present
stands for the future. Wille and sceal express will or command, but only
indirectly, and occasionally a sense of futurity. The active perfect of verbs is
formed with hwbbe, the pluperf. with hefde, and the participle. In the passive
the auxiliaries of the present are eom or weorse; of the imperfect, wees, wears ;
of the perfect, eom-worden ; of the pluperfect, waes-worden ; of the future, bed or
sceal bedn.
Ausiliaries.
Ind. pres. eom Ind. imperf. wés
Wesan, to be. eart wére
Inf. pres. ger. wesan-ne is (ys) was
pres. part. wesende pl. synd (syndon) pl. wéron
past part. (gewesen) Subj. pres. Subj. imperf.
sing. sy (sed, sig) sing. wére
pl. syn pl. wéron
Imperative, sing. 2, wes, plur. 2, wesad, wese.
There is also negative neom so conjugated.
Eom with a gerund expresses obligation, as, is té lufigenne (ought to be loved) ;
with the present part. denotes a precise point of time.
238 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Ca. IV.
Be6n, to be.
Ind. pres. bed Ind. imperf.
byst (is wanting).
‘ byd
Inf. pres. ger. bedn -ne ye 5
3 pl. bedd and bed
Ege ene Subj, pres. Subj. imperf.
sing. bed (is wanting).
pl. beén
Imperative, sing. bed, plur. beds (bed).
Habban, to have (also nabban its negative).
Ind. pres. habbe (heebbe) Ind. imperf. hefde
heefst (hafast) heefdest
Inf. pres. habban heefS (hafad) hefde
ger. habbenne pl. we habba® (hafia’) pl. hefdon
part. pres. heebbende habbe, we, &c.
past part, hefd(hefed) Subj. pres. Subj. imperf. :
sing. habbe (heebbe) sing. hefde
pl. habbon (an) pl. hefdon
Imperative, sing. hafa, pl. ge habbaé and habbe ge.
Willan, to will (and its negative nyllan).
Ind. pres. wille (nelle) Ind. imperf. wolde
wilt (nelt, &c.) woldest
will wolde
Inf. pres. willan pl. we, &c., willad pl. woldon
part. willende wille, we, &e.
Subj. pres. Subj. imperf.
sing. wille sing. wolde
pl. willon (en) pl. woldon
Imperative to negative, nelle bu.
Weoréan, to become (German werden).
Ind. pres. weorse Ind. imperf. wearé
wyrst wurde
) weard
Inf. pres. ger. weordSan-ne wy
pres. part. weorsende pl. ia a & pl. wurdon
TOs pare eomronen Subj. pres. Subj. imperf.
sing. weorse sing. wurde
pl. weorSon pl. wurdon
Imperative, weors, weorpad, and weorSe.
Sceal, shall.
Ind. pres. sceal Subj. pres. scyle
scealt
sceal Imperfect sceolde
pl. scwlon (sceolon) plur. sceoldon
The Three Conjugations,
‘ Verbs are simple and complex. Their conjugation is defined by the character
of the imperfect tense. The Simple Verbs (including all verbs in ian, which
are mostly derivative) form Conjugation I., and are divided into three classes: a,
those forming the imperf. in ode; b, those forming it in de or te only [d after a
soft consonant, d, %, f, w, g, or], m,n,1,8. t after a hard one, t, p, c, h, x, and
8 when preceded by another consonant]; c, those of which the imperf. iy in de or
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 239
te, with a change of vowel in the preceding syllable. The past participle is in
all these classes simply formed by omitting the final e from the imperfect.
The Complex Verbs form the second and third conjugations. Their imperfecta
are all monosyllables, their past participles are in en or n. They all change their
root vowel in forming the imperfect, and they are classed according to the nature
of that change as follows:
Conjugation IT. Conjugation ITI.
Class:—a——b——-e ... |... @ —b e
changes the vowel
in the imperf.) 6 e 0. He! ea ee ey wa 8 4 ed
. si . a —
indie, and subj. to! . throughout. : not throughout, but :
becoming in the \ : : :
2nd pers. sing., :
and the whole i i 2
plural of indic.,
and throughout
the subj.
EXAMpPLes.
Conjugation I.
Classes
a EE aaa
a b c
Indicative.
Present, sing.1| .. «. lufige (love) .. berne (burn) .. sylle (give, sell)
2. lufast .» « bernst .. ...... sylst
3] .. . lufas.. .. .. berms .. .. .. syld
plur. )| we, &e., lufiad i beernad & \. ae syllad &
Ley 3 lufige we, &c, } beerne sylle }
IMPERFECT.
sing. 1|.. .. lufode.. .. .. bernde .. .. .. sealde
DE | oa: 2% odest .. .. dest .. .. sealdest
Bl oe os ode... de .. .. .. sealde
plur, 1, 2,3 | .- «+ odon .. « don .. .. sealdon
(edon)
Subjunctive.
Phesent. sing.1,2,3| .. . lufige .. .. berne .. .. .. sylle
plur.1,2,3 | .... Jufion(an) .. bernon(an) .. syllon
IMPERFECT.
sing. | .. .. Iufode.. .. .. bernde.. .. .. sealde
plur.| .. .. odon .. .. don .. .. don
(edon)
Imperative.
Present. sing, 2] .. .. lufa .. .. .. bem «. .. «. syle
plur.2| .. ge lufiaé at -. bernas ae oe at
lufige ge beerne sylle
Infinitive.
Present .. .- «| -- «+ lufian.. .. .. bernan.. .. .. syllan
Gerund .. .. .. | -. (t6) Iufigenne.. .. bernenne .. .. syllenne
Part. present .. .. | .. .. Iufigende.. .. bernende .. .. syllende
Part. past .. .. .. | --(ge)lufod .. .. .. bared .. .. .. seald
240 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Cu. IV,
Conjugation LL.
Classes
TE a
a b e
Indicative.
Present, sing. 1] .. .. ete(eat) .. .. léte (let) .. .. fare (go)
2)... .. ytst .. .. .. létst.. .. .. .. feorst
Bi] owe oe Ybor we we ve lt we ae ae os ford
ee se oe etad =| a ias it «+ os farad & }
1, 2,3 ete late fare
IMPERFECT,
sing. 1 | .. .- &b.. os oe oe Jeb we we oe for
2]... #te .. .. .. lete.. .. .. .. fore
Bo me te HOU wa cee ee es de we Se ee oe dor
plur.1,2,3|.. .. #ton .. .. .. leton .. .. .. foron
Subjunctive.
Present. sing.1,2,3 | .- .. ete .. .. .. léte.. .. .. .. fare
plur.1,2,3 | .. .. eton .. .. .. Idéton .. .. .. faron
IMPERFECT,
sing. | .. .. ate .. .. .. lete .. .. .. .. fore
plur.| .. .. #ton .. .. .. leon .. .. .. féron
Imperative.
Present. sing. 2] .. «. eb .. .. .. « lft .. .. .. « far
plur.2].. .. sea oe + letad & } +» ee farad & \
ete leete fare
Infinitive.
Present .. .. .. |. . efam .. .. .. létan .. .. .. faran
Gerund .. .. .. | .. .. etamne... .. létanne.. .. .. faranne
Part. present .. .. | .. .. etende .. .. létende.. .. .. farende
Part. past .. .. .. | «. « eten .. .. .. léten .. .. .. faren
Conjugation ILI.
Classes
eee Oe er
a b c
Indicative.
Present. sing. 1] .. .. byme(burn).. write (write) .. scedte (shoot)
2)... byrnst .. .. writst .. .. .. scytst
3B]... bymd.. .. .. writ .. .. .. seyt
plur.)) .. .. byrnad & } « writad & es +. Scedtad a
1, 2, 3} byrne write scedte
IMPERFECT.
sing. 1] -- . bam .. .. .. wrt .. .. .. scedt
2| .. .. *burne.. .. ..*write .. .. ..*seute
8 | we we Dat as as 20 WFAbs. cs 3. oo Sceat
plur.1,2,3 | .. .. *burnon .. ..*writon .. .. ..*seuton
Subjunetive.
Present, sing.1,2,3 | .. .. byme.. .. .. write .. .. .. scedte
plur. 1, 2, 3. byrnon. .. .. writon .. .. .. scedton
IMPERFECT,
sing. | .. .. *burne.. .. ..*write .. .. ..*scute
plur. | .. .. *burnon .. ..*writon .. .. ..*scuton _
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 241
Conjugation ITI.—eontinued.
Classes
a b c
Imperative.
Present. sing. 2|.. .. bymm .. .. .. writ.. .. .. .. scedt
plur.2| .. .. byrnad & \ .. writad & se ms aa
byrne write scedte
. Infinitive.
Present .. .. .. |... .. byrnan .. .. writan .. .. .. scedtan
Gerund .. .. .. | .. .. byrnanne.. .. writanne .. .. scedtanne
Part. present .. .. | .. .. byrnende.. .. writende .. .. scedtende
Part, past .. .. .. | .. .. burmmen .. .. writen .. .. .. scoten
Notes on Consueation (Variations included).
Consueation I. a.—The g in lufige, &c.=y, and stands by a rule of euphony
between i (the essential letter of verbs in ian) and e. A few verbs in ian have
sometimes -ede and -ed for -ode and -od, as seglian (to sail), erian (to plough).
In this and in all conjugations the two plural forms in a% and e are used; a3
when the verb follows, e when it precedes a pronoun.
I. b—This class includes transitives (as fyllan, to fell) derived from intransi-
tives of Conjugations ITI. or III. (feallan, to fall), also derivatives from substantives
and adjectives not having i for characteristic (répan, to bind, from rép, rope).
. Here and always when a consonant is double it becomes single before another
consonant. e also is inserted before st where euphony demands it, in the present
tense, never in imperfect. Those in -tan and -dan take no additional t or d in
imperfect. Settan, to set,—sette. Those in -san take generally t for % in 3rd
person (as alyst, he redeems).
Some verbs follow both these forms, as leofian, also libban, to live. In this
class are some verbs in ean =(y)an, which must not be confounded with ian.
The e is often used at random after c and g.
I. c.—Here the past participle is always contracted. Habban and willan are
irregulars of this class. Eleven other verbs of the class change the vowel in the
monosyllabic present, as well as in the imperfect. The auxiliary sceal (shall) is
one; the other ten are
Present Indicative. Imperf. Indicative.
cunnan, to know, s. can, cunne (or canst), can, pl.cunnon ..|.. s.cude, pl. cuSon
unnan, to give .. an, unpe .. .. .. an pl. unnon ..|.. .. ude.. .. .. udon
commas ne geman, gemanst .. geman pl. gemunon..| .. .. gemunde .. gemundon
Present Subjunctive.
todare dear, dearst.. .. .. dear pl.durron ..|....1durre .. dorston
2 dorste
to need _pearf, bearfst .. .. bearft pl. purfon.. ..| .. .. burfe .. .. borfton
or purfe 3 porfte
dugan, tohelp.. dedh.. .. .. .. .. se pl. dugon.. ..| (Imperf. Indicative, dohte.)
may, meg,miht .. .. .. .. .. meg pl.magon ..| Imperf. Ind. mihte, mihton
Sar or
Pr. Subj. meahte, meahton
must, mot, mést .. .. .. .. .. mét pl. mdton.. ..| mote... | .. mdste, mdston
agan, to possess ah, age .. .. .. . dls pl. agén .. ..;4ge ..| .. dhte, éhton
witan, to know.. wat, wist .. .. .. wit pl. witon.. ..| wite ..| .. wiste, wiston
&
neg. nytan wisse
In these verbs the pres. plural in on is usually changed to e before the pronoun (we magon,
but nu mage we, now may we). Most of them want the past part. but can has cus, &c.
VOL. I. R
242 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Cx. IV.
Consucation II. a.—To this class belong the irregular auxiliaries wesan and
bedn, to be. It contains words that have long e or i (not é,f) before a single
characteristic. Those before a double characteristic substitute e for one of the
two letters in the imperative, as licge, lige.
Irregulars in this class are gesedn, to see, ic gesed, he gesyhs or geseah,
pl. (gesawon,
gesewen, or
gesegen.
Imperf. gesedh or gesyh.
gefeon, to rejoice, ic gefed, he gefeah pb { gefagen
gefeegen.
cweéan, to say, is regular, except that it changes 8
into d in the plural imperfect, the imperative, and
the past participle.
II. b, contains not many words, of which some have short eo for short e in the
imperfect. To the 1st person of hé and onfé h is sometimes added, but this
belongs rather to 2nd person imperative.
II. c.—faran must not be confounded with féran, to convey or change place,
which belongs to I. b.
Consucation ITI. u, of words having a short i (y) before rn, nn, ng, ne, nd, mb,
mp, or a short e or eo before 1l, 1g, lt, rp, rf, rg, &c., with a short ea (#) in the
imperf., and in the past part. 0. To this belongs the irregular auxiliary weordan,
to become.
III. b, of all verbs with a hard i = German ei.
III. c.—In this, which like the preceding is very regular, sedSan, to seethe,
changes 6 to d in some inflexions; some in s,—cedsan, to choose, forledsan, to
lose, hredsan, to rush,—change in like manner s to r.
FoRMATION OF WorDs,
by Derivation, which is prefix or suffix of parts having no present meaning by
themselves; by Composition, which is joining of words.
1. DERIVATION.—
a. Prefixes, of negation, opposition, &c.: un-, on-, n- (used chiefly with
pronouns and adverbs). or-, a-, @-, 08-, mis-, wan- or won-
(derived from adj. wana, lacking), and-, wi%er-, to- and for-,
which often imply deterioration.
of time, place, degree, &e.: ge- sometimes collective, implies
activity, often seems to be a mere augment, as in verbs, be-
(usually implies activity), ed- (=re-, again), sin- (ever),
sam- (half), sam- (together, from samod), el- (all).
to pronouns and adverbs: hw- (interrogative), h- s-
(determinate, as hider, swa), p (determinate, as pet, bi8er),
(chiefly as regards the speaker) (chiefly as regards another thing)
seg- ge-.
b. Suffixes, denoting persons: “a, -ere, -estre, -end, -e, -el, -ol,
. (also things) (masc.) (fem) (also things)
-ing, -ling (diminutive), -waru (inhabitants of a
(also (sometimes also (plur. -ware)
patronymics) of contempt)
town or country), -en.
(masce. and a
few neuters.)
THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. 243
c. Suffixes, denoting action, quality, &.: -m, ~els, -lac, -had, scype,
(masc.) (usually (masc.)
masc.)
-dom, -nad, -a8, -08, -ud, -8, -d, -t, -ot, -t, -ing,
(masc.) (mostly (masc.
fem.) from verbs)
-ung, -le, -nes, -nys, -nis, -u, -0, -ern, -ed, -l.
(chiefly to form (neuters,
names of qualities denoting
from adjectives) a place)
Adjectival Terminations: -e, -ig, -lic, -sum, -ise, -ol, -en,
. (mental (especially
quality) denotes a
material)
-ern, -bere, -ed -d, -iht, -cund, -weard, -tig,
(chiefly (mature of (situation) (tens in
regions thing) num-
of globe) bering)
-ose, _ -feald.
(in ordinal (-fold)
numbers)
Adverbial Terminations: -um or -es, from cases; -e (usual when adverb
formed from adjective), -lice, -der, -er, -ser, -ar, -an, -on.
Verbal Terminations: -ian (most universal), -cian, -gian, -sian, -nian, -an,
-ettan, -lecan,
2, ComposiTion.—Anglo-Saxons made much use of compound words. The last
part of the compound shows its part of speech by termina-
tion or inflexion, and usually is the main word which the
other defines and qualifies. The words most commonly used
are hedfod- (head), pedd- (people), ful- (full), heah-
(high), efen- emn (=) -land, -burh, -rice, -creft, -man,
-wis, -feest, -full, -leas (less).
(sometimes (whence
nouns + nis, nouns in -nis,
or adverbs + lice) lyst, or -ledst)
Sywrax.—Anglo-Saxon Syntax has a general resemblance to the Greek and
Latin.
The Verb usually, but not invariably, following both subject and object, comes
last in the sentence. The negative generally stands before the verb, “Not fear
ye,” instead of “ Fear ye not.”
Nouns are in the genitive when they denote measure, value, weight, age, &c.,
as sex peninga wyrthe, sixpennyworth; or if answering the question when, as
ussa tida, In (of) our times. They are sometimes, however, in the dative, with
the preposition “on” answering that question, as on obrum dege, on the second
day; or in the ablative, as in the text that, our Lord went through the fields,
restedagum, on the Sabbath-day. There is an ablative absolute in A.-S, as in
Latin—as, up-a-sprungenre sunnan (orto sole), the sun having arisen.
Of Adjectives the indefinite form is used for exclamations, and the adjectives in
A.-S., as in other languages, govern cases in genitive for measure, baskets full
of ; or want, as leohtes leas, lightless; dative for similitude, like to, &c.
Pronouns.—A. short pronoun in the dative is put between subject and verb close
to the verb, as “Then it was said to bim,” &c., pa sede him mon, &c. The
article is sometimes used with proper names, as Se Johannes, John. Sometimes
it is used together with the pronoun, as He se bisceop, he the bishop; or after
other pronouns, as “in thine the holy name.” In short sentences the relative
pronoun is often omitted. There being no reciprocal pronoun, each other, one
another, are expressed by a repetition of the personal; for “they met each other,”
R 2
244 THE STRUCTURE OF ANGLO-SAXON. Bx. I. Cu. IV.
it would be “ they met they.” This personal supplies also the place of the relative
when fe precedes, as, be purh hine, through whom.
Verbs usually govern the accusative. Signifying to name, they govern the
nominative. Many too govern the genitive, as lystan to lust or desire, wundrian
to wonder at, or govern the accusative or dative of the person and the genitive of
the thing. Others, as fyligan to follow, beodan to bid, andswarian to answer,
pancan to thank (panca Gode, thank God), govern the dative. The present
infinitive is never used with the particle té, as in modern English. But the
gerund always requires t6. The preposition is sometimes separated from the
word it governs and placed, for emphasis, immediately before the verb, as “ which
all creatures (by live) live by,” instead of, “ by which all creatures live.”
Prepositions.—These among others govern the dative: fram, from; of, of; by,
by, through ; eet, at; t6, to; intd, into ; er, before, ere; feor, far; be noréan, to the
north of; behindan, behind; beheonan, on this side; betweox, betwixt, among;
biitan, without, except; betwynan, between. These govern both accusative and
dative : for, for ; beforan, before; 05, unto; gemang, among; on, on; uppon, upon;
innon, within; titon, without; ofer, over; wonder, under; td-geannes, towards.
Mid, with, governs accusative and ablative. These govern the accusative only :
geond, beyond, through; purh, through, by; ymb, round, about; ongean, agen,
against, towards; widSeeftan, after, behind; wiéforan, before; widSinnan, within;
widtitan, without; abtitan, about; ymbiitan, round about.
Conjunctions are numerous and partly simple, partly compound, or of two words
separated in the sentence, but mutually dependent, as swa .. . swa, 80... as,
hweSer pe... be, whether... or. Some govern the subjunctive, especially,
as in Latin, in subordinate propositions, such are pet, that; td pon pat, to the end
that; pedh, though; swylce, as if; gif, if; hweder, whether; sam... sam,
whether .. . or. The verbal conjunction utan, with the infinitive expresses desire
or intention, as utan wircan mannan, let us make man.
Adverbial Expressions.—Gea, is A.-S. for yea, yes. Ne means not, and usually
stands before the verb. Nas is used also for not. Na is English no, though in
composition it stands commonly for none. Ne se, for no, is opposed to ge se, yes,
Negative words compounded with ne have also the ne repeated in the sentence,
even if there be another negative in it, as “No man ever saw God,” Ne geséah
nefre nén man God.
Prosopy.—The structure of the verse used by the Anglo-Saxons will be illus-
trated, as.we proceed, by the discussion of their poetry.
The rule of versification given by Rask has been questioned by Mr. Guest in his
English Rhythms, and Mr. Guest thinks that, the rule being made, the text of
MSS. is sometimes tortured into orthodoxy. The rule seems, however, to have been
fairly deduced from Anglo-Saxon practice. Versification isnot by syllabic quantity,
but by alliteration; “that is, when, in two immediately successive and connected
lines, there occur three words beginning with the same letter, and so that the third
or last word stands first in the second line, and the two others are in the first line,
the initial letters in these three words are then called ‘riming letters.’ The last
of these letters is considered as the ‘chief letter;’ after which, the two letters in
the preceding verse, which are called ‘ sub-letters,’ must be adjusted.” If the chief
letter is a vowel, the sub-letters also must be vowels; yet, if possible, not the
same,
EARLIEST ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE, 245
CHAPTER V.
Suc writing as the ancient Gaels carved upon staves, in
Oghuim letters, was known of old to the Scdp of the pyriest
Anglo-Saxons. The Sedp derived from Scapan, to ArsieSeson
Shape or Create, his name, that corresponded in sense ™™*
to the Greek Poet, or Maker. Song and joy were expressed
by the same word Glee; the harp was the glee-beam, and the
minstrel was the glee-man. But the joy of the song lay seldom
in its gaiety of theme, war or religion, treated always with a
solid earnestness. The song was the companion of feasts, and
therefore glee was at once music and joy. In Pagan times there
was no topic but war that pleased the chieftain whom the
minstrel served. The poet was the family historian, who praised
with a full stomach and ready wit the deeds of which his patron
was most proud. He planned his praise into a harmony of
words that served not only to please the ear. When literature
was preserved only or chiefly by oral tradition, and there
were few records but those of memory, the metrical form of
delivery served as a technical aid to exact recollection; and
this, we shall find, was to a remarkable degree the character of
the short-lined, alliterative Anglo-Saxon verse.
But if there were no writers of books, there were writers of
Runes. Runic inscriptions are not found in the South of Eng-
land, where, innocent although most of them doubtless were,
they were rooted out by Christian zeal as relics of Pagan super-
stition. They were simply inscriptions in the letters used by
the Teutonic nations, and by others too, before the Roman
alphabet supplanted them; and the word Rune, not only sug-
gestive of magic but in the mere sense of a letter, remained in
occasional use among the Anglo-Saxons in this country. Of
the Runes themselves, which seem to have been used for some
time among the Angles of the North country, we still have
both in MS. and cut upon stone several northern examples.
246 RUNES. Br. I. Cu. V.
For after the flight of Paulinus they were missionaries of the
Gaelic school, trained rather to adapt than destroy memo-
rials of Paganism, who Christianised Northumbria. Mercia, too,
was taught by Gaelic monks of Lindisfarne; and we have Runes
upon the coins of its first Christian kings, Peada and Ethelred.
The Runic letters, which vary among each other in different
parts of ancient Europe, but show clear signs of a common
origin, are not utterly unlike the Phcenician-Hebrew ancestors
of the present European alphabet. They do not form an A BC
nor an alpha-beta, but their first-named symbols have the
powers of the letters f, u, th, 6, r, ¢; for which reason the order
of the Runic letters is called, not an alphabet, but a futhore.
The Pheenician-Hebrew alphabet, whence we derive that now
prevalent, was, like every other first effort at writing, symbolic
and pictorial. Thus its letters were—Aleph, an ox; Beth, a
house; Gimel, a camel; Daleth, a door; He, a window; Vau,
a peg; Zayin, a sword; and so forth. The Runic futhore is
constructed in the same way, and also begins with a head of
cattle. Head and horns, conventionally pictured, stood first for
Feoh, an ox; and then the list proceeded—Ur, a bull; Thorn,
a tree; Os, a door; Rad, a saddle; Cen, a torch, &c.—giving
apparently as many letters as the sounds of the Teutonic speech
required. But if the Runic alphabet or futhore did really give
a letter for each sound, it did what the Roman alphabet cer-
tainly does not, either for Anglo-Saxon or for modern English
of any later period, although it does bestow upon us such letters
of supererogation as c, q, and x.
Among examples in this country of Runic inscriptions is a
memorial of King Alcfrid, in three couplets of Anglo-Saxon,
engraved on the western face of the Cross at Bewcastle, in
Cumberland. Alcfrid died probably a.p. 664. On two sides
of a similar cross at Ruthwell, in Annandale, are the following
fragments of a poem on the Crucifixion. The Cross speaks :—
“God Almighty made himself ready when he would mount to the Cross,
fearlessly before men in sight of many. . . . I raised the mighty King,
Heaven’s Lord. I durst not bow. Men derided us botk together. I stained
with blood. . . . Christ was on the rood, yet thither nobles came in haste
from afar to the afflicted one. I beheld all that, sore was my dole and dree.
. . » Wounded with nails they laid Him down limb weary, they stood at His
corpse’s head.”
A.D. 2-700, THE FIRST WRITERS. 247
On the continent of Europe, and especially among the Scandi-
navians, many Runic inscriptions still remain; and it is not
without significance that the most ancient Runic relic yet dis-
covered, a gold bracelet, attributed to the third or fourth century,
and found at Buzeu, in Wallachia (now in the Museum at
Bucharest), is inscribed GurH anrop Hattac—One Holy God.
When not carved upon stone, metal, whalebone, or other
durable material, the Teutonic rune was usually cut on a piece
of smoothed wood, or bark of the birch or ash. The Christian
poet Venantius Fortunatus, whom Abbot Hilduin called Scho-
lasticissimus, and who, when he said “barbarian,” meant always
“German,” writing, at the close of the sixth or beginning of the
seventh century, to a bad correspondent, tells him that if paper
be scarce, he may take beech-bark; and that if he be weary of
the sight of Roman letters, he may try Hebrew, Achemenian,
or Greek ; or he may “ write barbarous runes on ashen tables, and
let the flat wand take the place of paper.”? As the Latin for book
was bark, liber, whence our word library, so, from the common
origin of the art of writing, the Anglo-Saxon béc, our book, meant
also the beech-tree, of which the first book was a cutting. The
cutting might be of any convenient sort—a strip of bark, a
wood-shaving, or a cudgel. A long letter from her lover might
be as much as a strong girl could carry in her arms. Among
the pieces in the Exeter book, which contains fragments of
1 Barbara fraxineis pingatur Rhuna tabellis,
Quodque papyrus agit virgula plana valet.—vi. 18.
I quote through, and upon this subject derive my information from, Mr.
Daniel H. Haigh, whose learned and suggestive, but not everywhere convincing
book, entitled the ‘Conquest of Britain by the Saxons; a Harmony of the
“Historia Britonum,” the writings of Gildas, the “ Brut,” and the Saxon
Chronicle, with reference to the events of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries’
(London, 1861), contains an excellent chapter on “the Antiquity of Phonetic
Writing as practised by the Teutonic Races.” Mr, Haigh traces the runes
to Woden, and makes Woden cousin and contemporary of Javan, the son of
Japheth, to which end he amends the translation of Hzekiel xxvii. 19, and for
“Dan also and Javan,” reads “‘ Wodan and Javan.” He suspects too Japheth
in the chief God of the Thracians, Zalmoxis, who is identified with Selm, who
is identified with Japheth, and Salmon is the name of a fish; while the
Assyrian Hea, who represents Japheth, is called “lord of the understanding”
and “the intelligent fish.” The student who does not assent to such reasoning
will yet find much that is original and sound as well as learned in this book
of Mr. Haigh’s, and his companion volume on “ the Anglo-Saxon Sagas.”
248 RUNIC WRITING. Bx. I. Cu. V.
ancient Anglo-Saxon poetry, including lines written in Runic
letters, is one in which a messenger, who has brought a letter
to a lady from her lover, says, “ What! then he bade me entreat
thee, he who inscribed (thisne béam) this beam.” And again,
our word teach—A.-8. teecan—is from tdcon, a sign or letter, of
which the root t4c is found in the Greek So0xds, and Latin docus
—a beam. To write also, A.-S. wrftan, is a word used in Beo-
wulf, the ancient Anglo-Saxon epic, to express the gash made
by a knife. We might trace through many other words asso-
ciated with the mechanism of books and writing the old manner
and the old marvel at what seemed to the ignorant a miracle of
secret signing (A.-S. secgan, to say ; Lat. sec-are, to cut) or token-
ing. In spelling, for example, the old sense of spell was a thin chip
or shaving. Tacitus tells that in Teutonic divination a rod cut
from a fruit-bearing tree was divided into slips, and the slips,
having marks on them, were thrown confusedly on a white gar-
ment, to be taken up with prayer to the gods, and interpreted
as they were taken by the ministering priest or parent.' A
special use of light cuttings for such fateful cross-readings, or
“Virgilian lots,” may have given to spells their particular asso-
ciation with the words of the magician.
The manner and the marvel of old Runic writing is thus
expressed by the men who used runes in
An ancient Anglo-Saxon Riddle.
The obvious solution of it is that a writer—it might be a sweetheart
who had many vows to send to a fair Saxon maid—took for his letter
beam the stump of an old jetty :—
“T was by the sand, near the sea-wall at the ocean shore. I stood fast in
my first dwelling. Scarcely was there any of mankind who saw my native
soil there in its loneliness. For ever at early morn the brown wave there
locked me in its sea-embrace. Little I weened that I should ever speak over
mead, exchanging words without a mouth, That is a deal of wonder certainly
to think of for those who do not understand such matter, how I and the knife’s
point, and the right hand ; man’s thought and the point together ; push things
so that I should with you, between us two alone, speak boldly my errand so
that no more men had the words spoken between us two go farther to their
knowledge.” 2
1 ¢ Germania,’ § x. ;
? This riddle is from the venerable collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, known
as the ‘Exeter Book, or Codex Hxoniensis, a folio of middle size, given,
among other volumes, by Bishop Leofric, between the years 1046 and 1078, to
A.D. 2-700. THE IRON PEOPLE. 249
We have seen, then, that while civilization may lie much in
books and writers, yet the very words, ‘ writer, and ‘book,’ carry
us back to the first struggle of mind out of barbarism. So, it may
be observed in passing, civilization centres in our towns, and yet
the very word town carries us back to the first efforts of half-
barbarous man to live in a secure society. The old words for
town show how universally in the old days safety, and perhaps
healthiness, was sought for men’s settlements by their entrench-
ment upon hills. The Sanscrit nagara, a city, is from naga,
hill. The Latin pagus, a village, is from the Greek srdyos,
a hill. The Russian gorad (grad), and the German gart, as
in Stuttgart, meaning a city (whence also the English garth,
an enclosed field, or yard, an enclosure), are from gara, a hill.
The Anglo-Saxon thorpe, Frisian theorp, German dorf, a vil-
lage, is from the Celtic tor, a hill. The German burg, is from
berg, a hill, whence also the English borough; and from the
Celtic dun, a hill or fort, we have the Angle ton, and English
town.
But the Anglo-Saxons came to this country with their priests
and poets, Pagan writers of runes, their warriors strong the tron
in a barbarian civilization ; and while the Celts retired ?°?
before them to the fastnesses of hills, they occupied and fear-
lessly built their towns upon the plains they tilled. These are
the people who were masters of the use of iron, and from whose
grave-hillocks or barrows (so named from beorh, a hill or heap,
as in Beorh-hamstede, Berkhampstead), raised, when possible,
on hill-tops by the sea, there have been taken in plenty the
long iron swords with which they made their conquest good.
Each sword is usually almost a yard long, with a double-cutting
the Library of his Cathedral at Exeter. Bishop Leofric’s library having been
scattered after the Reformation, only a few volumes, including this Codex of
A-8. poetry, remain at Exeter; others are in the Bodleian or the Library of
Bennett College, Cambridge. The MS. of the ‘Exeter Book’ is clearly written,
and apparently of the first half of the 11th century. It wants the first seven
leaves, some of the last leaves, several inner leaves, and has had an inkbottle
spilt over an important passage near the end. It was for the first time pub-
lished in 1842, by the London Society of Antiquaries, as ‘Codex Exoniensis :
a Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, from a MS. in the Library of the Dean
and Chapter of Exeter, with an English Translation, Notes, and Indexes” By
Benjamin Thorpe.
250 THE IRON PEOPLE. Br. I. Cx. V.
edge and ornamented hilt, sometimes with runes inscribed on it.
There have been taken also from their barrows the small girdle-
knives that would serve mind or body, carving runes or cutting
meat; the heads also, about a foot long, of their spears, and the
long black lines of decayed wood that once were their stout
shafts. The old Anglo-Saxon warriors went to their graves fully
equipped, with shields laid flat over their bosoms. They were
usually round wooden shields; ‘ yellow war-boards’ their poets
sometimes called them, for yellow lime-tree was the wood pre-
ferred. The wood was sometimes faced with leather, and had
an iron boss riveted to its centre, with an iron handle riveted
behind, the hollow of the boss taking the fighter’s fist. Of the
iron ring armour, the war-shirt—often mentioned in the poem
of Beowulf—distinct traces are not found. Doubtless it was
worn only by chiefs, and was too precious to the living to be
buried with the dead. When Beowulf prepared for the contest
with Grendel, and expressed his last wishes in case of death, it is
noticeable that his single bequest was his war-shirt. “Best of
battle-shrouds, it is Hreedla’s legacy, Weland’s work,” and this
was, if its owner fell, a legacy thought worthy of no less a person
than his great chief Hygelac, to whom it was to be sent.
With the iron work used by the men are found abundantly in
these barrows the ornaments of women in wrought gold, enriched
not seldom with coloured enamel, pearl, or sliced garnet ;
buckles, rings, bracelets, ear-rings, hair-pins, necklaces, and pen-
dent neck-ornaments, besides the knife, scissors, tweezers, tooth-
pick, ear-pick, and the frame of the housekeeping purse, all
pendent from the lady’s girdle. In Mercia and East Anglia the
early Anglo-Saxons burnt their dead, as we read that Beowulf
was burnt, and they gathered their ashes into coarse hand-made
urns of clay. The grave of an Anglo-Saxon chief is often found
to contain also the ornamented iron bands and handles of small
buckets, a foot or eight inches, or sometimes only four inches,
wide and deep. These probably dipped for, and carried round
to the guests in the chief’s hall, the ale or mead, or, as we read
in Beowulf, “‘ wine from wondrous vats.”
What we thus take from within the barrows heaped over their
dead, will help to give fresh life to at least a few tones of the
voice of song that rose twelve centuries ago in the wide halls of
A.D, 433-750. BEOWULF. 251
the Anglo-Saxon chieftains, when the clamour of their fighting
men was hushed, and cups were filled and hearts were free for
exultation over noble ancestry and noble deeds of arms.
Of the few remains of the most ancient Anglo-Saxon poetry
—remains are few, and of no large piece is there more The Travel-
than a single and imperfect copy—the oldest is pro- One theory.
bably a poem in 284 lines, known as ‘The Song of the Tra-
veller.” It is a geographical detail, rather than a work of fancy,
setting forth literally and concisely our old, inborn spirit of
travel in the wanderings of a Gleeman, who declares that he was
present at a contest of Aitla, or Attila, the Hun (?) with some
Gothic tribes, and that he had visited as follower, perhaps page,
of the Princess Ealhild, the court of Hermanaric, whom he calls
Eormanric. Eormanric died a.p. 375, and Attila was not king
till 463; the Gleeman would seem, therefore, to have composed
his poem at the age of about eighty. But Mr. Edwin Guest?
has observed that this ‘Traveller's Song’ seems to have been
written while the Goths were still an independent people, and
that Attila, slightly mentioned, had apparently not then risen
to the height of his power, and he suggests that the old poem
may, therefore, have been first composed between the years
A.D. 433-440. From Gothic annals Mr. Guest observes that we
may fix between the years 375 and 435 the Ostrogoth Her-
manaric, the Visigoth Wallia, the Burgundians Gibica and Gun-
dicarius, for whom we have in the ‘Traveller’s Tale’ Eormanric,
Wala, Gifica, and Guthhere. The geography also of the poem is
still that of Tacitus, and the writer seems to have been an Angle
of the Continent. So says that theory.
But of all relics of the Pagan Anglo-Saxon, the most important
is a heroic poem, nearly complete, and extending, as
we have it, to 6357 of the short Anglo-Saxon lines, or
half lines, as they are usually printed. The only existing MS.
is in the Cotton Library in the British Museum ;? it is full of
Beowulf.
1¢ History of English Rhythms,’ vol. i., p. 76-78. London, 1838.
2 MS. Cott. Vitellius, A. 15. Dr. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Can-
terbury (b. 1504; d. 1575) rescued many Anglo-Saxon MSS. from among the
ruins of the dissolved monasteries. ‘They were bequeathed by him to his own
University and College, where they are among the Parkerian MSS. of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge. Sir Robert Cotton (b. 1570; d. 1631) rescued
252 ° BEOWULF. Bx. I. Ou. V.
inaccuracy, having been written from dictation by an illiterate
monk, apparently in the first half of the eleventh century. It
was also much injured by the fire at Cotton House. We must
think of it, however, not as a tindery manuscript, but as a bright
gleam of human light and life from the far past. The common
faith is that the Pagan Anglo-Saxons brought this old heroic
tale from their own country. But some reason can be shown for
believing that it is of English birth, and that we need not look
farther than the county of Durham, in fact to a place called
Hart, near Hartlepool—for the Heorot, where stood the great
mead hall, open to attacks of the strong enemy, who is repre-
sented as a monster of the fens; and that we need go no farther
than to Suffolk for the court of Hygelac, whence Beowulf came.
In any case, the greater part of Beowulf belongs at latest to the
seventh or eighth century, and ranks as the oldest heroic poem
extant, not only in English, but in any Germanic tongue. The
German “ Niebelungen-lied,” though it incorporated, doubtless,
poetry of the eighth century, belongs to the twelfth.
And now, is to be asked, what is the substance of this ancient
tale? For we must know something of the text itself before we
turn to its interpreters. We enter one of the great festive halls
to join at the ale-drinking and hear the gleeman’s song. The
hall is long and wide, say 200 feet by 40, with a high roof and
curved gables. There is at each extremity an entrance in the
middle of the wall, protected by a porch, that is continued at its
farther end to form cellar and pantry. We pass into the hall,
a spacious nave with narrow side aisles. Pillars, dividing aisles
from nave, support the central roof. The nave is the great hall
itself, and down the middle of its floor run the stone hearths,
upon which blaze great timber fires. At the upper end is the
raised seat of the chief, at a cross-bench, where his wife, who fills
the cups of the guests, and his familiar thanes, or those whom he
distinguishes, sit with him. On each side of the long hearth
there runs a line of tables, flanked with benches and stools, at
many more of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. newly scattered abroad, beginning to
collect at the age of 18. By the fire, in 1731, in Little Dean’s Yard, West-
minster, 111 MSS. were lost, burnt, or entirely defaced, and 99, including the
Beowulf, made imperfect. The collection was removed to the Old Dormitory
at Westminster, and then, in 1753, to the British Museum.
A.D. 550-750. BEOWULF. 203
which sit the people who are the chief’s “hearth-sharers.” At
the lower end, in the space corresponding to the dais, is a table
for the drinking-cups. Between the rows of pillars and the outer
walls spaces are parted off within the narrow aisles for sleeping-
benches of the warriors. In some of the spaces are the gilded
vats of liquor into which the pails of the cup-bearers are dipped.
If women sleep in the hall, the recesses of the pillars behind the
dais are kept sacred to them, and there are in the aisles, if the
hall be the chief’s dwelling, as that in Beowulf was not, distinct
enclosures for the occupation of the family. The sleeping space
behind the pillars might, perhaps, be parted from the hall by
panelling and tapestry. In such a hall the gleeman often
chanted to his harp now one adventure now another, as the
guests or their lord might call for this or that favourite incident,
from the long rhythmical, alliterative poem, that contains the
tale of ¢
Beowulf.
The long poem, divested of its episodes, is here condensed
without the use of any but its own thoughts, phrases, or meta~-
phors.
An elder Beowulf was for a long time the beloved king of the Scyldings,
and from his root grew forth at last the lofty Healfdene. Old and war-
fierce, he gave to the world four children, heads of hosts: Heorogar, and
Hrothgar, and Halga the good, and Ela. Then to Hrothgar was given
might in battle, so that his dear kinsmen willingly heard his bidding.
Through Hrothgar’s mind it ran that he would bid men make a hall,
the greatest mead-house ever known, and there within deal out to young
and old all that God gave him, except the share of the people and the
lives of men. Widely it was proclaimed through this mid earth to many
a tribe that a Folk-stead was building. When it was ready, to this
greatest of halls he who had strength in his word gave the name Heorot.
He belied not his pledge, but dealt out bracelets and money at the feast.
The hall rose high and horn-curved. There was the harp strung, loud
was the song of the gleeman, who said he could tell from far back the
beginning of men, and told how the Almighty wrought. The band of
guests lived happily till one wrought like a fiend.
1 ‘See Dr. G. W. Dasent’s valuable English edition of ‘The Story of Burnt
Njal; or, Life in Iceland at the End of the Tenth Century. From the Ice-
landic of the Njals Saga.’ Edinburgh, 1861. The account given in this work,
with drawings and plans of the old Icelandic Hall, corresponds closely to the
Anglo-Saxon Hall described in Beowulf.
254 BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
The grim guest was Grendel, he that held the moors, the fen, and
fastness. Forbidden the homes of mankind, the daughters of Cain
brought forth in darkness misshapen giants, elves, and orkens, such
giants as long warred with God, and he was one of these. At nightfall
Grendel came into the lofty house held by the Ring-Danes after their
beer-drinking. He found therein a band of Athelings asleep after the
feast. Grim and greedy, he was soon ready; rough and ruthless, he
took in their rest thirty thanes;. then he went out with the slain bodies.
In the morning a whoop was upraised ; the strong in war suffered; the
thanes sat in sadness when they saw the track of the accursed sprite.
With Grendel, strife would be too strong, too long, and loathsome. In
the night following, Grendel again had sway, and so as often as the
darkness came he warred against right, one against all, till empty stood
the best of houses. Twelve winters’ tide was his rage borne and it
became openly known in sad songs that Grendel warred then against
Hrothgar, would have peace of no Dane, was not to be met with money.
-The high and young he sought and snared. In lasting night he held the
misty moors. Heorot he held in the swart night, with its seats richly
stained, but the gift-stool [the chief’s seat, whence gifts were distributed],
he might not touch. Hrothgar, the Scyldings’ friend, broken in mind,
sat many a time in thought. Sometimes they worshipped at the holy
places, prayed in words for help from the Ghost-slayer.
A thane of Hygelac’s, one who was a good man among the Goths,
and of his day the strongest, heard of Grendel’s deeds. He bade a ship
be got in gear, and said that he would seek over the swan-road the great
prince who had need of men. The good thane had with him chosen
champions of the Goths, the mightiest he could find; with some fifteen
he sought the swimming wood. A water-crafty warrior showed him the
land-marks. When the wrought stem, foamy-necked, had sped like a
bird for about another day, the seamen saw land, the shore-cliffs shone,
the steep hills, the wide headlands. Quickly‘the Weder’s folk stept up
on the field, tied the sea-wood, shook their war-shirts, thanked God who
had made to them the wave-paths easy.
When the Scyldings’ warder who had to keep the sea shores saw, from
the wall, bright shields borne over the bulwark of the ship, he asked in
his mind what men those were. Then went to the shore Hrothgar’s
thane; the mighty spear quaked in his hand; and he asked, ‘‘ What
‘weapon-bearers are ye, wearing war-shirts, who thus come hither leading
over the water-street a foamy keel? I hold ward that to the Dane’s
land no foe may bring war by sea. Never have I seen q’greater earl on
earth than is one of you; he is a man worthy with his weapons, if his
face tell true. Now ye far-dwellers,—quickly tell me whence ye
come ?”’
The leader of the band unlocked his word-hoard: “ We are of the
Goths’ kind, Hygelac’s hearth-sharers; my father was known widely, a
high-born lord hight Ecgtheow ; he abode in his house many winters ere
he went on his way, almost all the wise throughout the wide earth keep
him in mind. We have come through kindness to help thy lord. We
have heard say that a wretch, I know not who, does to the Scyldings
hurt in the dark nights. I may teach Hrothgar how to overcome the foe.”
A.D. 580-750. ’ BEOWULF. 255
The fearless warder seated on his horse then said: ‘‘ A sharp shield
warrior knows words from works. I hear that this is a band friendly to
the Scyldings. Bear weapons forth, I show the way, I will bid also my
fellow thanes, to hold against every foe your new-tarred ship until it bear
back to the Weder marches, those to whom it shall be given to come
whole out of the rush of war.”
They went therefore; the wide-bosomed ship stood fast at anchor,
heavy in the mud. They bore over their cheeks the golden likeness of a
boar, fire-hardened it held life in ward. Fierce men, they went down
together till they could see what was the foremost of earth’s houses
under heaven, all timbered, gaudy, worked with gold, wherein the rich
King lived. The light of it shone over many lands. Of the warriors one
turned his horse and said, ‘‘ Now is my time to go; may the all-wielding
Father hold you safe in your undertaking, I will back to the sea to hold
ward against foemen.”
The street was made handsome with stones, it showed the path to the
men. The war-shirt shone, hard, hand-locked, the bright ringed-iron
sang as they came walking to the hall in gruesome gear. Sea-weary
they set broad shields, round and stone hard, against the house-wall.
Then, stooping to a bench, placed in a ring their war-shirts, garb of men ;
the darts, the seamen’s weapons, stood together, with the ash-wood grey
above. Then Wulfgar a proud warrior asked the sons of strife: ‘““ Whence
bear ye your stout shields, grey shirts, fierce helms and heap of war-
shafts ?”
The proud lord of the Weders, answered him from beneath his helmet :
‘We are Hygelac’s board-sharers, Breowutr is my name. I will make
known my errand to the lord, thy master, if he grant us that we give
good greeting to him.” Wulfgar said, “I then, the Danes’ friend, will
speak to the lord of the Scyldings, the sharer of rings, and I will soon
make known the answer he thinks fit to give.’ He then turned to where
Hrothgar, old and hairless, sat among his earls. He went so that he
stood before the shoulders of the Danes’ lord, for he knew the ways of a
king’s house. Wulfgar spake to his friendly lord: ‘‘ Hither are come
Goths from afar, the leader these sons of strife name Beowulf; they beg,
my lord, to talk with you; do not deny them. They seem worthy to be
gladdened with your speech and mix with earls ; at least he seemsso who
has led hither the men of war.” Hrothgar, helm of the Scyldings, said :
“I Ikmew him when a boy. His old father was named Ecgtheow, to
whom Hrethel lord of the Goths gave his only daughter. The seamen
who brought gifts for the Goths said, that he has in his hand-gripe the
might of thirty men. Him, holy God hath in His kindness sent to us
West Danes ; therefore I have hope against Grendel. I shall bestow
gifts on my good friend for his daring. Speed thou to bid him in, see the
band gathered together as our kindred, say to them that they are welcome
to the Danes.” Wulfgar bore the bidding: ‘‘ My doughty lord, King of
the East Danes, bids me say, that he knows your worth; that ye come,
welcome guests, over the sea. Now goin your war-dress to see Hrothgar,
but let the war-boards and the deadly shafts abide here the bargain of
words.”
Then arose the mighty lord and his brave band of thanes, they hastened
.
256 BEOWULF. Br. I. Cu. V.
together, hard under helm, until they stood at the king’s hearth; then
Beowulf spake, on him the war-shirt shone, the war-net sewed by the
smith’s cunning :— Be thou, Hrothgar, hail! Iam Hygelac’s kinsman
and fellow-warrior. I have undertaken many great deeds in my youth,
The thing done by Grendel became known to me on my own turf}; sea-
farers say, that this hall, this best of houses, stands empty and good for
nought after the evening light is gone. I beseech thee now, lord of the
bright Danes, shielder of the Scyldings, that I alone may with this bold
band cleanse Heorot. I have heard also, that the wretched Grendel recks
not of weapons; I will scorn then to bear sword or the yellow round of
a wide shield into the strife ; but with grasp I shall grapple at the fiend,
and foe to foe struggle for life. It is the lord’s doom whom death shall
take. I ween that he will, if he win, fearlessly eat the Goths in the war
hall, Thou wilt not need to hide my head, for he will bear my flesh
away to eat it in his lonely den. Care for me then no more. Send to
Hygelac, if I die in the strife, the best of war-shrouds that wards my
breast. That Hreedla left me, it is Weland’s work. What is to be goes
ever as it must.” Hrothgar, helm of the Scyldings said; “ For fights,
friend Beowulf, and for high praise thou hast sought us. Thy father
quelled for me the greatest feud, coming over the waves to the Scyldings,
when I in my youth first ruled the Danes. Sorrow is me to say why
Grendel shames me thus in Heorot. Full often have sons of strife,
drunken with beer, said over the ale-cup that they in the beer-hall would
bide Grendel’s onslaught with sharp edges; then always in the morning
was this mead-hall stained with gore; when the day dawned all the
bench-floor was besteamed with blood of faithful men. Sit now to the
board and unseal with mead thy breast among my warriors.” Then was
a bench cleared in the beer-hall for the sons of the Goths. The thane
who bare in his hand the bravely beset ale-cup, minded his work, poured
out the bright sweet ale ; at times the glee-man sang, peaceful in Heorot:
there was gladness of warriors, of men great among Danes and Weders.
Hunferth spake ; Ecglaf’s son, who sat at the feet of the Scyldings’
lord. To him was the coming of Beowulf, the bold sea-farer, most
irksome, because he grudged that any other man ever won more praise
than himself: ‘‘ Art thou the Beowulf who strove with Breca on the sea,
when ye from pride tried the fords and for foolish boast risked life in the
deep water?” [More, also, in this wise said Hunferth]: ‘‘He overcame
thee in swimming. He had more strength. Now I look for worse things,
though thou shine ever in war, if thou durst bide a night near Grendel.”
Beowulf replied: “ Well, thou a great deal, my friend Hunferth, drunken
with beer, hast spoken about Breca. I say truly, that I had greater
strength at sea than any other man. We agreed, being striplings, that
we would risk our lives out on the flood, and we did thus: We had a
naked sword in hand when we rowed on the deep, meant for our war
against the whale fishes. He could not swim away from me, nor I from
him ; we were together in the sea five nights till the flood drove us
asunder ; the boiling fords, the coldest of weather, cloudy night, and the
north wind deadly grim threw up rough billows: roused was the rage of
the sea-fishes. There my body-shirt, hard, hand-locked, gave me help
against the foes; my braided war-rail lay upon my breast, handsome
A.D. 550-750. BEOWULF. 257
with gold. A painted foe drew me to the ground, a grim one had me in
his grasp, yet it was granted me to reach the wretched being with the
point of my war-blade. Thus often my foes threatened me. I paid them
as was fit with my dear sword. In the morning wounded with thrusts
they lay put to sleep in shoals, so that they have not afterwards been any
let to the sea-farers. Light came from the east, the seas were still, so
that I might see the headland’s windy walls. The Must Be often helps
an undoomed man when he is brave. Yet it was my lot to slay nine
nickers. ,I have not heard of harder fight by night under heaven’s round.
Breca never yet, nor any of you, at the game of war did such great deeds.
Of this I boast not. Though thou hast been the slayer of thy brothers,
for which thou shalt pay in Hell, Grendel would not have done such
gruesome deeds in Heorot, if thy mind were as war-fierce as thou tellest
of thyself. He-has found that he cares not for the strength of your folk,
he slays and shends you, and expects not strife from the Gar Danes.
But a Goth shall show him fight, and afterwards he shall go to the mead
who may, in peace and gladness.”
Glad then was the bright Danes’ lord, hoary-locked and war-praised,
trusting in help when he heard Beowulf. There was laughter of men,
the din rose, words were winsome. Wealtheow, Hrothgar’s queen, went
forth. Mindful of their rank the frolic wife, gold-decked, greeted the
men in hall, first gave the cup to the lord of the East Danes, bade him,
dear to his land, be blithe at the beer-drinking. He gladly shared the
meal and hall-cup. Then she went round, and gave on every side rich
vessels to old and young, until she bore the mead-cup, bracelet-covered
queen, to Beowulf. She greeted the Goths’ lord, thanking God that the
will had befallen her to trust in any earl for help. He, the fierce warrior,
drank of the cup from Wealtheow, and then fitted for strife, spake
Beowulf, Ecgtheow’s son: “I meant when I went on the main that I
alone would work your folk’s will or bow in death under the foeman’s
grasp. I shall do brave deeds, or await my last day in this mead hall.”
The woman liked the Goth’s proud speeches. Gold-decked went then
the queen of the glad people to sit by her lord, till Healfdene’s son went
to his evening rest. He knew that in the high hall there was to be strife
after murky night came wan under the clouds. The many all arose;
then one man greeted another, Hrothgar Beowulf, and bade him hail, gave
him mastery of the wine-hall and said: ‘‘ Never before since I could lift
hand and shield have I trusted to any man the hall of the Danes, save
now to thee. Have now and hold the best of houses. Watch against
foes.”
Hrothgar then went with his band of warriors out of the hall; he would
seek Wealtheow the queen, his bed-fellow. Before he went he set a hall-
ward against Grendel, who was to.give warning when the huge Koten
came. But the head of the Goths trusted in his own might and his
Maker’s goodness. For he doffed his iron shirt and helm, gave his rich
sword, choicest of iron, to one under him, and bade him hold the gear of
war. [Then Beowulf spoke some words of pride ere he stept on his bed.]
Around him many a keen seaman bowed to his hall rest. Not one of
them thought he should again seek his free home, for they had heard tell
VOL. I. 8
258 BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
that in that wine-hall too many of the Danes before them had been taken
by bloody death.
From afar came in the murky night, the Shadow-walker, stalking.
The warriors slept who should hold that horned house, all but one. He,
waiting for the foe in hate, in angry mood watched for the war meeting.
Then came, from the moor under the misty hills, Grendel stalking; the
wicked spoiler meant in the lofty hall to snare one of mankind. He
strode under the clouds until he saw the wine-house, golden hall of men.
Came then faring to the house the joyless man, he rushed straight on the
door, fast with fire-hardened bands, struck with his hands, dragged open
the hall’s mouth; quickly then trod the fiend on the stained floor, went
wroth of mood, and from his eyes stood forth a loathsome light, likest to
flame. He saw in the house many war-men sleeping all together, then
was his mood laughter. Hope of a sweet glut had arisen in him. But it
was not for him after that night to eat more of mankind. Hygelac’s
mighty kinsman saw the spoiler’s grasp. The wretched wight seized
quickly a sleeping warrior, slit him unwares, bit his bone-locker, drank
his blood, in morsels swallowed him; soon had he all eaten, feet and
fingers. Nearer forth he stept, laid hand upon the doughty-minded
warrior at his rest, but Beowulf reached forth a hand and hung upon his
arm. Soon as the evil-doer felt that there was not in mid-earth a stronger
hand-grip, he became fearful in heart. Not for that could he escape the
sooner, though his mind was bent on flight. He would flee into his den,
seek the pack of devils; his trial there was such as in his life days he had
never before found. Then was the good kinsman of Hygelac mindful of
his evening speech ; upright he stood, and firmly grasped at him; his
fingers burst, the Eoten was outward ; the earl stept further, the fiend
thought to wind wide about and flee to his fen heap. The hall thundered,
the ale of all the Danes and earls was spilt. Angry, fierce were the
strong fighters, the hall was full of the din. It was great wonder that
the wine-hall stood above the warlike beasts, that the fair earth-home fell
‘not to the ground. But within and without it was fast with iron bands
|cunningly forged. There bent from its sill many a gilded mead-bench,
where the grim ones fought. Over the North Danes stood dire fear, on
every one of those who heard the gruesome whoop. The friend of earls
held fast the deadly guest, would not leave him while living. Then
drew a warrior of Beowulf’s an old sword of his father’s for help of his
lord. The sons of strife sought then to hew on every side, they knew not
that no war-blade would cut into the wicked scather; but Beowulf had
forsworn every edge, Hygelac’s proud kinsman had the foe of God in
hand. The fell wretch bore pain, a deadly wound gaped on his shoulder,
the sinews sprang asunder, the bone-locker burst, to Beowulf was war-
strength given. Grendel fled away death-sick, to seek a sad dwelling
under the fen shelters ; his life’s end was come.
The wise and the strong from afar cleansed Hrothgar’s hall. Glad in
his night work, the Goth’s lord made good his boast to the East Danes
and healed the sorrow of the land. It was a token to be seen when the
beast of war laid down hand, arm, and shoulder,
Then came in the morning, as I have heard tell, many a warrior about
A.D. 550-750, BEOWULF. 259
the gift-hall, from far and near, to see the wonder. The foe left his track
as he fled, death doomed and weary, to the nickers’ mere. There was
the surge boiling with blood, the waves welled hot with clotted gore.
Grendel had dyed it after he laid down his life in shelter of the fen.
From the mere again went the glad fellow warriors proudly to ride on
horses. Beowulf’s praise was sung, nor blamed any the glad Hrothgar,
for that was a good king. At times the war-men ran their fallow steeds
in trial of the race, where the earthways were smooth. At times a king’s
thane, a boast-laden man, mindful of songs, knowing full many an old
saga, found another high tale that had truth in it. Then he began with
skill to tell of Beowulf’s undertaking, well he told of Sigemund, of the
Weelsings’ wars and wide wayfarings—men knew not his wars and works
save Fitela, who went with him. The king, also, warden of ring hoards,
with a throng about him, stept from his bride-bower; and his queen,
with him, measured the meadow path begirt by her maidens. Hrothgar
spake (he went to the hall, stood in the fore court, and saw Grendel’s
hand). ‘‘ For this sight give thanks forthwith to the Almighty. Lo!
whatsoever mother brought this son forth, if she yet lives, let her say
that the great Maker was good in her child-bearing. Now I will love
thee, Beowulf, best of warriors, as a sonin my heart; henceforth hold our
new kinship well. There shall be no lack to thee of wealth that I can
give. Often have I held worthy of part in my hoard for a less help a
weaker warrior. May the All-wielder pay thee with good as He yet has
done.” Then was Ecglaf’s boasting son quieter, after the Athelings had
seen over the high roof the foe’s fingers. Each had before it hand-spurs,
most like steel, instead of nails. The best of iron would not bite into
that bloody hand.
Then was Heorot bidden to be made fresh, many men and women
worked at the wine-house, the golden webs shone on the walls full ot
sights wondrous to the gazer. That bright dwelling, fast with bands of
iron, was much broken, the hinges were rent, the roof only was sound
when the wretch turned to flight. Then came the time when Healfdene’s
son should go to the hall, the king himself would share many a mead-cup
with his warriors. Heorot was full of friends. Then the son of Healfdene
gave to Beowulf a gold flag with rich hilt, a helm and war-shirt, a sword
of great worth many saw borne before the warrior. Beowulf shared the
cup in the court. The shelter of earls then bade eight steeds be led into
the court; 6n one of them stood a saddle cunningly worked; that was
the war-seat of the high king when the son of Healfdene played the game
of swords. To Beowulf he gave all,—horses and weapons. Also, the
lord of warriors gave to each of those on the mead-bench who came the
sea-way with Beowulf a gift, an heirloom ; and bade that the one whom
Grendel slew should be paid for with gold. Before Healfdene’s war-
leaders the glee-wood was touched and Hrothgar’s gleemen, gladden-
ers of the hall, told of the works of Fin’s offspring, the tale of Fin
Folwalding, of Hnef and Hengest, and the sons ot Hildeburh burnt by
their mother at Hnef’s pile. The Jay was sung, the gleeman’s song,
games were begun again, the noise was loud, the cup-bearers gave wine
from wondrous cups. Then Wealtheow, wearing a golden crown, came
forth to where the two good kinsmen sat. There also sat Hunferth, the
8 2
260 BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
spokesman, at the feet of the Scyldings’ lord. The Queen said: “ Take
this cup, dear lord, and be thou happy golden friend of men, speak to the
Goths kindly. Heorot, bright hall of rings, is cleansed. Enjoy the mead
of the many, and leave to thy sons folk and land when thou must forth to
behold God.” Then she turned towards the bench where her sons were,
Hrethric and Hrothmund, where Beowulf the Goth sat by the two
brethren. To him the cup was borne, and friendly bidding done, and
twisted gold, two sleeves, a cloak and rings were given, the largest I
have heard tell of on earth since Hama bore off the Brosings neck-ring.
Wealtheow said: ‘ Wear this ring, dear Beowulf, O youth, with all hail!
and with this cloak, these riches, thrive; enliven thyself with strength,
and be to these boys a kind helper. Thou hast done that which shall
beget praise throughout all time as widely as the water girds the windy
walls of land. Live thou a thriving Atheling, and be kind to my
sons. Here all are friends.” She went then to her seat. The meat was
choice, the men drank wine, they knew not of a grim hereafter. When
evening came, and Hrothgar had gone to his rest, many earls guarded the
house, as often they had done. They bared the bench floor, it was over-
spread with beds and bolsters. Filled with beer, ready for sleep, they
bowed ; they set at their heads the round bright shields. There, on the
bench, was to be seen over each Atheling his high war-helm, his ringed
shirt, and stout. war-wood. It was their way to be ready for war at
home, and in the host when need came to their lord their help was near.
But Grendel’s mother, wretched woman—she who dwells in gruesome
waters, the cold streams,—came on a path of sorrow to wreak wrath for
-her dead son. She came to Heorot, where the Ring-Danes were all
sleeping through the hall. When in rushed Grendel’s mother, the hard
edge was drawn, many a broad shield lifted. She was in haste, would
save herself, being thus found, and quickly seized one of the Athelings as
she went to the fen. He whom she killed was Hrothgar’s counsellor, his
dearest friend between the seas. Beowulf was not there, for another
abode had been fixed for him after the gifts to the great Goth. There
was a din in Heorot. She took away the kindred hand clotted with gore.
Then was the wise king, the hoar warrior, wroth when he knew his
chief thane, his dearest, to be dead. Quickly to his bower was Beowulf
fetched. Hrothgar, helm of the Scyldings, spake: ‘“ Auschere is dead,
Yrmenlaf’s elder brother, who knows my runes, my counsellor. For that
thou killedst Grendel yesternight, there is now come another mighty
man-scather to avenge her son. I have heard my folk say that they have
seen two such huge marsh-stalkers hold the moors, one in woman’s
likeness, the other Grendel. Their dwelling is the dark land where the
wolf hides, by the windy nesses; the fearful fenpath where the hill-
stream goes under the shades of the cliff, the flood under the earth. A
mile thence the mere stands, over which hang barky groves; a wood fast
by its roots overshades the water. There may be seen at night fire on
the flood. There liveth none so wise who knows its bottom. Although
the heath stalker wearied by hounds, the hart firm of horns, seeking that
holt wood, driven from afar, will hide his head in it ere he dies, that is
no holy place. Thence the wave-blending rises dark to the clouds when
wind stirreth foul weather, till the air grows drear and the heavens wail,
A.D. 550-750. BEOWULF. 261
Seek the spot if thou dare. I will pay thee for the strife with money,
with old treasure, as I did before, with twisted gold if thou come out
of it.”
[Here I may show roughly something of the manner of this and all
other Anglo-Saxon poems by translating, as literally as may be, in strict
accordance with its own method of versification, the next passage that
tells how there was ]
A horse bitted Nicker houses many.
With curling crest. Before all Beowulf
The careful prince And some of the bravest
Went worthily ; Went on the way
Warriors marched also Wise men
Shining with shields. To explore the plain,
Then there were shown Till, planted leaning
Tracks of the troubler, Over the rough rock,
Telling plainly He reached suddenly
Her way through the waste,— An unwinsome wood.
As they went forward Water stood under it,
On the murky moor,— Ghastly with gore ;
With the murdered thane It was grief for all Danes,
Of Hrothgar’s heroes, A sight of sorrow
Home defenders, For the Scylding’s friends,
Best and bravest A horror for Heroes,
Brought to his end. ‘When the head of Aéschere
Then they threaded, Was found by the steep flood
Athelings’ sons, Floated ashore.
Steep, stony gorges, The water welled blood,
A strait road, The warriors gazed
Weird, narrow way, On the hot heart’s blood,
Wastes unknown, While the horn sang
Naked, high nesses, A doleful death note.
The band all sat. They saw along the water many of the worm kind,
strange sea dragons; also in clefts of the nesses Nickers lying. These
hurried away, bitter and angry, as soon as they heard the war horn.
One the Goth’s lord killed with an arrow. Quickly on the wave he was,
with boar-spears, sharply hooked and drawn on the ness.
Beowulf clad himself in weeds of a chief. His warbyrnie, twisted with
hands, wide and cunningly dyed, must know the deeps. But the white
helm guarded his head made worthy with riches, girt with lordly links,
beset with the likeness of swine, that no brand might bite into it. Nor
least of aids was the hafted sword, Hrunting its name, lent him by
Hrothgar’s speaker. Its edge was iron, tainted with poison twigs,
hardened with warriors’ blood. Ecglaf’s son bore not in mind what he
had said drunken with wine, when he lent the weapon to a. better sword-
wielder. Himself durst not meet death under the stir of waters. Beowulf
spake, ‘‘Gold-friend of men, I am ready. If I die for thy need, be a
helper to my fellow-thanes, and send, dear Hrothgar, to Hygelac the gold
thou hast given me, that the Goth’s lord may know I found a good
bestower of rings. . And let the far famed man have my sword Hunferth,
262 BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V,
the old relic. I will with Hrunting work my doom.” He awaited no
answer, the sea wave took the warlike man.
It was a day’s space ere he sank to ground. Then she who had dwelt
in the flood, grim and greedy, for a hundred years, saw a man coming
from above into the land of wonders, grasped at him and clutched the
warrior. But she could not break his ring mail with her fingers. The
sea wolf bore the prince of rings to her dwelling, many a sea beast with
its war tusks broke his mail. Then the warrior found himself in a roofed
hall, where was no water. A pale beam of firelight shone, and then he
saw the ground wolf, the mighty mere wife. He struck hard with his
war sword. The edge failed. The angry fighter cast upon the earth the
twisted brand and trusted in his strength, the might of his hand grip.
So shall a man do when he thinks to gain in battle lasting praise, nor
careth for his life. Then Grendel’s mother seized the Goth’s lord by the
shoulder. Fearless he dragged her till she bowed. She caught him
quickly with fierce grasps, and threw him weary, pressed him down and
drew her seax, broad, brown-edged. She would avenge her son. The
braided breast-net on his shoulder withstood point and edge.
He saw among the weapons a huge bill, an old sword of the Eotens,
work of giants, greater than any other man might bear forth to the game
of war. The Scyldings’ warrior stood up and seized the knotted hilt, fast
and fierce he struck with the brand upon her neck, her bone rings brake,
the bill went through her flesh, she sank on the ground. The sword was
gory, the beam still shone, mild as the light from heaven’s candle. He
looked through that dwelling and saw Grendel lying lifeless. His huge
trunk sprang far away, when he cut off the head. But then behold!
that sword melted away as ice in the hot venomous blood; there was left
only the hilt. Beowulf took none of the wealth that he saw: he took
only the giant’s head and the rich sword-hilt.
The men who were with Hrothgar looking on the water saw it mixed
with new blood. They said this was a warning that the Atheling was
slain. Then came the noon of day, and the bold Scyldings left the head-
land, sick of mood, gazing upon the mere, wishing, not weening, to see
their dear lord. Forthwith he was afloat; he dived up through the
water, came swimming to land, glad in the burthen he brought with him.
The stout band of thanes, loosed quickly his helm and war-shirt, the
stream trickled down of water stained with gore. When they went
forth from the seashore, four men could hardly bear upon the deadly
stake the head of Grendel.
So they came to the hall, fourteen brave Goths marching with their
lord over the meadows. The worthiest of thanes came to greet Hrothgar;
then Grendel’s head was borne by the hair into the place where men
were drinking, and the head of the woman also. Beowulf said: ‘‘ Behold,
these tokens from the sea we bring with gladness to thee, son of Healf-
dene, lord of Scyldings. Now may’st thou with thy warriors in Heorot
sleep free from sorrow.” The golden hilt, the giant's work of old, was
given to the hoar war-leader. Hrothgar gazed on the hilt; in Runic
signs the tale of its birth was told upon it. Then spake the son of
Healfdene ; all were silent: “ Thy glory is upreared now through wide
ways, Beowulf, my friend. ‘Long shalt thou be a blessing to thy people.”
aaaans
A.D. 550-750, BEOWULF. 263
Many words spake Hrothgar, for he spoke of the past and of its warnings
to his friend and to the folk around him. The Goth, glad of mood, went
to his seat ; there was a new feast made. The helm of night grew murky,
the aged Scylding sought his bed, and the Goth wished for rest. The
guest slept till the black raven, gladdener of heaven, blithe of heart
announced the coming of the light.
The Athelings then wished to go to their own land, and Beowulf
bade the son of Ecglaf take again his sword; gave for the lending
thanks, said that he held Hrunting to be good, he would not with blame
hurt pride in its good edge ; that was a high-souled warrior. Hrothgar
said, “‘ Peace be to the Goths and the Gar Danes; wealth in common.
Over the gannet’s bath the ringed bark shall bring gifts and love-tokens.
Each folk I know, fast friend, fast foe, and in the old way stainless
always.” Twelve gifts also gave to Beowulf the son of Healfdene, bade
him go and quickly come again. The good king kissed the best of thanes,
and tears fell as he took him round the neck.
The bright warriors went to the ship, laden with weapons, steeds and
gold; the mast rose over Hrothgar’s hoards. Beowulf gave to the boat-
guard a sword bound with gold, and on the mead-bench he was afterwards
the worthier for that heir-loom. They sailed away, and the known
headlands of the Goths were reached. The hithe-guard who had seen
them when afar was ready ; he bound the ship to the sand and bade men
bear to the hall of Hygelac, who dwelt by the sea-wall, the wealth of the
Athelings. Kinsman faced kinsman ; Hereth’s daughter, violent of mood,
bare the wine-cup to the high chief’s hand.
Afterwards the broad land came under the sway of Beowulf. He held
it well for fifty winters, until in the dark nights a dragon, which in a
stone mound watched a hoard of gold and cups, won mastery. It was a
hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long since dead; the last earl,
before dying, hid it in the earth-cave, and for three hundred winters the
great scather held the cave, until some man finding by chance a rich cup
took it to his lord. Then the den was searched, while the worm slept;
again and again when the dragon woke, there had been theft. He found
not the man, but wasted the whole land with fire; nightly the fiendish
air-flyer made fire grow hateful to the sight of men. Then it was told to
Beowulf that his own home also, with the Goths’ gift chair, was burnt.
He who had been the friend of Heardred, who while the youth lived
had made him master of his crown, sought out the dragon’s den and
fought with him in awful strife. One wound the poison-worm struck in
the flesh of Beowulf; his kinsman, Wiglaf, when all others held aloof in
fear, came to the aid of the old hero, and helped him in his time of need.
Then while the warrior king sat death-sick on a stone, he sent his thanes
to see the cups and dishes in the den of the dead twilight-flyer. But when
the dragon’s gold was brought out, Beowulf thanked the Lord for all,
and said, ‘I for this hoard have wisely sold my life; let others care now
for the people’s need. I may be here no longer. Bid the warriors raise
a mound on the sea’s headland that shall tower on Hrones-nees, that I be
not forgotten, and that seafarers driving foamy barks over the mists of
floods may call it in the days that are to follow Beowulfs Mount.” He
gave then to a young warrior, last of his kind, his war clothes and his
264 "ANGLO-SAXON ALLITERATION. Bx. I. Cu. V.
weapons, saying, ‘‘ All my kinsmen are gone to the Godhead, earls in
their valour; I shall follow them.” That was his latest word.
The Goths made for him a heap upon the earth, hung with helms,
shields, and bright war-shirts. In the midst they laid the beloved lord
with sigh and sorrow. On the mount they kindled a great bale fire, wood
reek rose swart from the Swedish pine, the roaring of flame was heard
with the weeping (the wind ceased), till it had cracked with heat the
bone-house on the breast. And they sang a lay of sorrow while the
heaven swelled with smoke. The Weders folk wrought a mound on the
hill, high, broad, seen afar by seamen; in ten days they built the beacon
and begirt it with a wall. In the mound they set rings and all the riches
taken in the hoard. All that great wealth of the earls they gave back to
the earth, that there might be gold in the dust beside the body of the
warrior. And round about his mound rode his hearth-sharers, who sang
that he was of kings, of men, the mildest, kindest, to his people sweetest
and the readiest in search of praise.
Of the verse measure used by the Anglo-Saxons, the simple
‘Anglo-Saxon features will be found represented in the imitative
alliteration. fragment which forms on page 261 part of the preceding
sketch. The length of the lines and their rhythm varies, but
each line must contain at least two emphatic syllables: few lines
have less than four syllables, two emphatic and two unemphatic ;
some have eight or nine, or even more. Germans who study
Anglo-Saxon, differ from the usual custom of the English and
the Danes by reckoning each couplet as a single line. The
Anglo-Saxons themselves in their MSS. made no division into
lines. Much dependence is placed in all Anglo-Saxon poetry
upon alliteration for the mark of emphasis. Whatever draws
attention to a word, whether elevation of voice, pause, recurrence
of final sounds or of initial letters, creates emphasis. But to
good literature it is necessary that the words thus pressed upon
attention be those which, by right of their sense, most need it.
In accordance with natural rule, which at once makes itself felt
when it is broken, the alliteration of the Anglo-Saxon poet was
established. Of the pair of short lines in a couplet, the first has
the initial letters of the two chief words alike, in the second the
one most emphatic word begins with the same letter. The
alliteration in the first line is said technically to be of the two
sub-letters, for the fullest emphasis of awakened attention falls
on the word in the second line, which opens with the third, or
what is for its situation called the chief letter. In just accordance
with the principle of this manner of marking emphasis, words
A.D. 550-750. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 265
with a prefix have the alliteration fixed on the essential part of
the word, as in the couplet of our imitation’:
“ An unwinsome wood,
Water stood under it.” }
Their own rule of alliteration was not always strictly kept by
Anglo-Saxon poets, though often enough kept to the letter .to
make its principle one that might fairly be deduced and stated.
The spirit of it is in all cases adhered to. Avoidance of iden-
tity of letter was the rule in alliterating vowels. Throughout
the Period of the Formation of our Language this, then, is
the one national old Teutonic metre. It is the metre of those
other Teutonic remains the Old High German ‘ Hildebrandslied,’
the ‘Wesserbrun Prayer,’ the Muspilli verses on the ‘Day of
Judgment,’ and the Old Saxon ‘ Heliand,’ or ‘Song of the
Redeemer.’ It is probable, however, that in the rhythmical
system of the Anglo-Saxons there was a varying harmony
between thought and expression of which a rule like this gives
no proper account. Mr. Guest complains? that in printing
Anglo-Saxon MSS. editors have too freely, by change of accent,
composition, and resolution of words, fitted the printed text to
an accepted theory, and dealt at discretion with insertions or
omissions of the points they find among the words of verses
written without other marks of division, and with these often
imperfectly supplied.
And now, how much is history, how much romance, in the old
poem of Beowulf? 1t contains historical episodes and Interpreta-
allusions on which scholars have exercised their in- Beowul.
genuity with various effect since the text was first printed by the
learned Icelander Grim J. Thorkelin, in the year 1815. Atten-
tion was first called to the Manuscript by Sharon Turner, who
gave some extracts and translations in his ‘History of the
1 Or as in the couplet that next follows in Anglo-Saxon :
“ Wynledse wudu,
Weeter under stod
Dreérig and gedrefid ;
Denum eallum wes, &.”
2 ‘English Rhythms,’ vol. ii. pp. 9-17,
266 INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. 1. Cu. V.
Anglo-Saxons,’ and in his account of the work was misled by
a transposed page of the MS. into regarding Beowulf as the
enemy of Hrothgar. Thorkelin gave with the text an inter-
pretation of his own. The incidents of Grendel and the Dragon
he considered to be Scandinavian myths, originally connected with
Boe or Boav, called in Latin Bo-us, the son of Odin. The short
history of this hero is told by Saxo Grammaticus in the third
book of the ‘History of the Danes.’ It contains nothing like
the story of Beowulf, except that it is there said of Bo, as of
Beowulf, that he was buried under a great and famous barrow.!
Thorkelin having identified Beowulf with a Bo, afterwards, as
Mr. Conybeare observes, identifies him with the second syllable
in Hroth-wulf, being equally glad to take the wolf without a bo.
Mr. Conybeare himself gives in his ‘Illustrations of Anglo-
Saxon Poetry’ the first complete English account of the poem,
with numerous specimens of the original, to which he supplies
translations into English blank verse and literal Latin, adding to
his account a list of Thorkelin’s misreadings from collation of
the Copenhagen edition of Beowulf with the original MS. at the
British Museum. Thorkelin, however, is perhaps less to blame
than Admiral Nelson. He had made his transcript in the year
1786, and had it ready for press, with a translation, when his
literary work of thirty years was destroyed by the bombardment
of Copenhagen. He was urged by the liberality of the Danish
Privy Councillor Johan Biilow, of Sanderumgaard, to begin
1 Bo’s barrow has been sought by antiquaries, and said to be at Horlef, near
Tryggeveld, in Iceland, where there was a corroborative inscription which the
late Dr. Peter Erasmus Miiller, Bishop of Iceland, and editor of Saxo Gram-
maticus (his work having been completed since his death by Dr. J. M. Velschow)
declares to have been written certainly not before the 14th century. Dr.
Miiller notices a Jutland hill called Bui, at Lynge, in the district of Skander-
burg, with a royal barrow (Kéngs hoe) near it. But he warns his readers that
there are 600 barrows scattered about Denmark, called for their size royal.
Bui may, he thinks, answer to the Icelandic Bua-stein, a hill haunted by
spectres. The only kings with a name like Bui are a Bogi (bogie), and an
avaricious Békus, who was consumed by Rolvo. (Saxo Gramm. Hist. Dan.
Ed. Miiller et Velschow (Havniaw, 1858) Vol. Il. Proleg. et Not. p. 124.)
2 ‘Tilustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,’ by John Josias Conybeare, M.A.,
&c., successively Professor of Anglo-Saxon and of Poetry in the University of
Oxford. Edited by his brother, William Daniel Conybeare, M.A., &c.
London, 1826,
A.D, 550-750. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 267
afresh ; and his edition of Beowulf, published in 1815, was the
result.
It was at the cost of the same nobleman that the Danish
scholar Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig published in 1820 his free
Danish translation of Beowulf, The same scholar has lately
dedicated to the same patron an edition of the text, which he had
studied in the original MS. when in England between 1829-31."
In the year 1833, a new edition of the text of Beowulf was
published by Mr. John M. Kemble.? A prose translation, with
a glossary, was published four years afterwards in a companion
volume ; and this contained, in a Postscript to the original Preface
and in the Appendix, Mr. Kemble’s latest and fullest opinion of
the meaning of the poem. THe considered Beowulf to belong
essentially to the poetical cycle of the Angles, and to be founded
on legends which existed previous to the Angle conquest. Beo-
wulf himself he presumed to be originally the name not of a man
‘but of a god, one of Woden’s ancestors, represented throughout
in this poem “as a defender, a protecting and redeeming being.”
The relationships given to him are accounted for “ by the neces-
sity of bringing him into the legend.” Beowulf belongs to the
Gedts or Goths, but Geat or Gaut was the parent of a tribe
called by Procopius Tavrol. A Gothic verb gives the pret.
gdéut; the Anglo-Saxon gedtan gives ge4t; both words with the
sense of pouring. Was not Geat, then, the god of abundance,
Odin? For the Edda says that Gautr was Odin’s name among
the gods. Hrothgar and Halga Mr. Kemble identified with Hroar
and Helgi, Danish kings actually reigning in the fifth century.
But in his second Preface the same scholar says, “ Although I
will not raise Hrothgar and his brother to the rank of gods...
yet I must observe that any attempt to assign historical dates to
these, or almost any other princes, before the introduction of
1 ¢Beowulfes Beorhaeller Bjovulfs-Drapen, det Old-Angelske Heltegedigt,
paa Grund-Sproget, ved Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig,’ Kiobenhavn, 1861.
2¢The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf—the Traveller’s Song and the
Battle of Finnes-burh—edited together with a Glossary of the more difficult
words, and an Historical Preface,’ by John M. Kemble, Esq., M.A., of Trinity
College, Cambridge. London, 1833. The volume is a delightful little 12mo,
printed by Whittingham, and published by the late Mr. Pickering, of which,
according to a bad fashion among antiquarians for the creation of an artificial
rarity, there were only 100 copies printed.
268 INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
Christianity .... leads to nothing but confusion... All
that part of my Preface which assigns dates to one prince or to
another, or which attempts to draw any conclusions from dates
so assigned, I declare to be null and void, upon whatsoever
authority those dates may pretend to rest.” Mr. Kemble’s argu-
ments would, in fact, go far to transport Beowulf altogether to
the land of dreams.
Next, there appeared in 1839, and of the same school of
criticism, without text, a mythological, historical, German ana-
lysis of Beowulf by H. Leo. The first German translator of
Beowulf, Ludwig Ettmiiller,’ who ascribes the work on his title-
page to the eighth century, proposes also to show that the legend
of Beowulf was originally a myth, and says of himself, “In
general I follow Mr. Kemble.” He places the Geats in Sweden,
and considers the term Weder Goths, which occurs often in
Beowulf, to be equivalent to weather Goths, meaning Northern
Goths, because out of the north came the bad weather. This
critic is, I think, the first who observes, what is worth observing,
that neither the name Angle nor the name Saxon occurs once in
the whole poem. In 1849 a translation of Beowulf into English
verse by Mr. A. Diedrich Wackerbarth? was prefaced by another
argument upon the meaning of the poem, in which, after de-
scribing the first Beowulf as a son of Odin, if not Odin himself,
the writer says, “I believe with Mr. Kemble that he is really
the same mythical person.”
In 1855 appeared Mr. Thorpe’s edition of Beowulf, text and
translation, with a short Introduction and a Glossary; and this
is the very serviceable edition now commonly used by English
students. Mr. Thorpe’s opinion here expressed is that the poem
is “ not an original production of the Anglo-Saxon muse, but a
metrical paraphrase of an heroic Saga composed in the south-
west of Sweden, in the old common language of the North, and
brought to this country during the sway of the Danish dynasty.”
In 1859 Dr. Karl Simrock appended a claim for Beowulf as a
German Mythus to his German translation of the work. Dr.
1 ‘Beowulf: Heldengedicht des Achten Jahrhunderts.’ Zurich, 1840.
2 «Beowulf: an Epic Poem, translated from the Anglo-Saxon into English
verse, by A. Diedrich Wackerbarth, A.B., Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the
College of Our Ladye of Oscott.’ London, 1849,
AD. 550-750. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 269
Simrock says that if Mr. Thorpe gives Beowulf to the Swedes,
he must give them also, as he does not, the ‘ Traveller’s Song’
and the ‘ Fight at Finnesburgh.’
The latest interpreters of Beowulf—Dr. Grein and Mr. Haigh,
a German and an Englishman—discover in the poem more evi-
dence of a historical foundation than had usually been admitted.
Dr. C. W. M. Grein, of Cassel, is probably the best Anglo-Saxon
scholar now in Germany. Certainly he is the scholar who has
done most service to the student, for he has lately distin-
guished himself as editor of the completest and compactest
body of Anglo-Saxon poetry that has hitherto been published,
a “ Library ” in two volumes, to which he is adding a Glossary,’
Anglo-Saxon and Latin, that promises to be a full incorporation
of existing knowledge on its subject. In a late number of a
German quarterly, devoted to the study of literature in the
Romance languages and English,? there is an article by Dr.
Grein on the historical element in the poem of Beowulf, which
he agrees with others in considering to have been written in the
beginning of the eighth century at latest. Dr. Grein thinks
that the mythical adventures are ascribed to a historical person.
The two populations mentioned in the poem are the Danes,
over whom Hrothgar ruled, and the Geats or Goths, who were
ruled by Hygelac, and from among whom Beowulf came to
Hrothgar’s help. The Danes are called in the poem, without
1 ¢Bibliothek der Angelsiichsischen Poesie in Kritisch bearbeiteten Texten
und mit vollstindigem Glossar, herausgegeben von C. W. M. Grein.’ (Cassel
and Goettingen, 1857-61.) Text 2 vols. Glossary in course of publication.
Two parts are published, extending from A to the endof G. The texts include
Beowulf, Cedmon, and all that is most valuable in the Exeter Book. Dr. Grein
has also, in a separate work, translated the chief remains of Anglo-Saxon poetry
into German alliterative verse, in two volumes, entitled, ‘ Dichtungen der
Angelsachsen Stabreimend iibersetzt.’ (Gottingen, 1857-59.) The student
who does not desire English translation with his texts, may, at no great cost,
set up, in Grein’s two volumes, a library of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Of the
Anglo-Saxon text of Beowulf alone, Grundtvig’s recent Danish edition (Copen-
hagen, 1861) is the latest, best, and cheapest.
2 ¢ Jahrbuch fiir Romanische und Englische Literatur unter besonderer
Mitwirkung von Ferdinand Wolf, herausgegeben von Dr, Adolf Ebert, Pro-
fessor an der Universitat Leipzig. (Leipzig.) Vierter Band, Drittes Heft,
April to June, 1862. A journal that contributes most substantial aid to a
sound study of literature.
270 INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
apparent distinction, Sea Danes, East, West, South, and North
Danes, also from their armour Ring Danes, from their Ring-
mail, Gar Danes from their spears, or Bright Danes from their
shining panoply.
The Danes also are called Scyldings, from the founder of their
dynasty Scyld Scefing, or Scyld, the Son of the Skiff The old
myth was that on a boat laden with arms and treasure a child
was floated to the Danish coast, and the Danes being then in
great trouble accepted the boy as sent them by the gods, made
him their king, and under his lead established and extended
their power. When, after a long reign, Scyld died, his body,
placed again on a ship laden with arms and treasure, was set
adrift upon the sea; and no man ever heard or knew whither
that vessel went. Scyld may have been a real warrior, who
brought help to the Danes against their tyrant Heremod, esta-
blished his own dynasty among them, and left his son, the elder
Beowulf—not he of the poem—to succeed him.
Dr. Grein considers that the poem treats of actions done
among the Danes in Denmark. The latest English critic, we
shall find, places the scene wholly in England. Each writer
identifies Heorot (which means a hart) with a place so called on
a spot tallying exactly with his theory. The true seat of the
Danish kingdom, says Dr. Grein, was the island of Seland, on
which, in fact, at this day Copenhagen stands. Now on the east
coast of Seland, over against Sweden, not far to the south of
Helsingor, and opposite the Island of Hveen, there is a town
about two miles from the sea called Hjortholm, or in German
Hirschholm—Hartholm ; that might be Heorot; and a little
more inland there is a lake, the Sizl Lake, that might be Gren-
del’s Lake ; from which a stream flows by Hjortholm to the sea.
Here, then, Dr. Grein fixes the site of Heorot. Where does he
find the shore of Hygelac, King of the Geats or Goths, whence
Beowulf came to Hrothgar’s aid? This he agrees with Mr.
Thorpe in finding on the opposite coast of the mainland, and a
little to the north, in Swedish Gothland, and he indicates as the
probable neighbourhood of Beowulf’s grave the ruined castle of
Bohts, Bo-house, built in 1308 upon a rock, where the mouth of
the Gotha divides, to enclose the island of Hisingen. This
Bohtis gives to its township the name of Bohuslen; upon the
A.D. 550-750. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 271
island also is a Bidrlanda; but Biarr, says Dr. Grein, is an
old northern form connected with the name of the Scylding
Beowulf. The identification of this continental Gothland and
the neighbourhood of the River Gotha with Hygelac’s kingdom,
is partly supported by the fact mentioned in the poem—that
Hygelac’s predecessor and brother Heathkynn was engaged in
a desperate war with the King of the Svéons in Sveorice, now
Svearice, or Svealand, lying immediately to the north of Goth-
land. We have also, apparently, one tangible corroborated fact
to give us a date for the reign of Hygelac. In four passages of
Beowulf? there is mention of an expedition of plunder made by
Hygelac with Beowulf in his train against the Frisians, when
Hygelac, being opposed by the Hetware, the Hugas and the
Frisians fell in battle, and “the king’s life departed into the
grasp of the Franks,” Beowulf and the rest of the Geats only
saving themselves by swimming to their ships. Can this be any
other than the descent recorded by Gregory of Tours and the
Gesta Regum Francorum, as having been made in the year 511
by the Dane Chocilagus upon the coast of the Frankish Hat-
tuarii, whose allies and neighbours were the West Frieslanders
as far south as the mouth of the Maas? ‘There is record also
from the tenth century of a tradition then ascribing immense
bones on an island at the mouth of the Rhine to “ Huiglaucus,
King of the Geti,” who was there slain by the Franks. This
historical parallel had been pointed out by Leo and Ettmiiller.
Conceding mythical origin to the stories of Grendel, of the swim-
ming-match with Breca, and of Beowulf’s battle with the dragon,
Dr. Grein argues that such myths are attached to persons who
were really living in the early years of the sixth century, and
that, besides the few traces of fact that have been in the main
story overlaid by fable, there are in the episodes distinct and not
unfaithful records of fragments of history, that were brought
into this country from Danish Seland and from Gothland, on
the neighbouring coast of the Swedish continent.
On the other hand, thus runs the substance of the strong
argument of Mr. Haigh, who has lately claimed for Beowulf
1 Thorpe’s edition, lines 2408-2433, 4698-4707, 4995-5005, 5813-5835:
272 INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
a purely English origin, as the composition of a Northum-
brian Scép familiar with the scenes described, and acquainted
with men who had known the heroes of his story. Mr. Haigh
also accepts the coincidence between the poems of Beowulf and
Gregory of Tours’ ‘ History of the Franks’ on the subject of the
death of Hygelac, as evidence for the historic character of that
ancient heroic song. Sceafa, Scyld, Beowa, and other names,
were not confined to single persons. There are several Scylds
in the Scandinavian genealogy, and it may be that they all,
including the Scyld of the poem, derived their name from the
popularity of the original hero. Beowulf is not necessarily
Beowa ; but if Scyld and Beowulf did repeat Sceldwa and Beowa,
that is not more remarkable than that there should have been in
the eighth century two contemporary Eadberhts, each the son of
an Kata. That Scyld, Beowulf the first, and Healfdene, reigned
in Northumbria, as, it is argued, Hrothgar certainly did, is not
improbable. Reckoning the generations back, Scyld must have
been living about the time when there is known to have been
an immigration of Saxons. Simeon of Durham speaks of a
Scythles-cestre, Roger of Howden of a Scylte-cestre, by the
Wall, a name that seems to contain that of Scyld, which we have
to this day in the neighbouring North and South Shields.
North of the Wall again, in the same neighbourhood, is Shil-
bottle—Scyldes-botI—the palace of Scyld; near at hand also is
Bolton on the Alne, the Bolvelaunio of Ravennas, which seems
to contain the names of Beowulf and Alauna. Hrothgar’s mead-
hall Heorot, Mr. Haigh fixes at Hart, in Durham. Its situation,
two miles from the coast, agrees (like that of the Seland Hjart-
holm) with the distance of Heorot from the shore, as indicated
by the description of the march to it after Beowulf’s landing.
But that is not all. Grendel’s mere, to be found “ by the way
where the hill-stream goes under the shade of the cliffs,” was
said by Hrothgar, speaking at Heorot, to be a mile thence, over-
shaded with bushy groves: “there liveth none so wise who knows
its bottom.” Just a mile from Hart there was until lately a
'¢The Anglo-Saxon Sagas; an Examination of their value as Aids to
History ; a Sequel to the History of the Conquest of Britain by the Saxons,’
By Daniel H. Haigh. London, 1861.
A.D. 550-750, INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 2738
large pool, called the Bottomless Carr, now turned like the fens
into arable land, from which a stream, still called How (moun-
tain) Beck, flows through the parish of Hart into the slake
of Hartlepool. In the following lines concerning the mere,
“although the heath-stalker wearied by hounds, the hart firm of
horns, seeking that holt-wood, driven from afar, will hide his
head in it ere he dies,” there seems also to be a reference to the
story from which the name of Hartlepool arose, as represented
on the common seal of the borough, a hart, standing in water,
attacked by a hound. Then as we read on of the “naked high
nesses, nicker-houses many,” we are reminded of the coast of
Hartlepool and its wave-worn caves. But that is not all. At
Hart there are traces of an ancient fort, and near it is an
enclosure called the Palace Garths. There is no record of any
residence at Hart by the historic kings of Northumbria. But
athe Palace Garths near the old fort would answer to the site of
sTeorot by Hrothgar’s fortress. There is reference, moreover, in
Beowulf and in the ‘Traveller’s Tale,’ for which also an English
origin may be argued, to an attack on Heorot by the beards
under Wythergild, Frode, and Ingeld, his son. In the neigh-
bourhood of Hart traces of such a battle have been found. Near
the north-western end of the slake of Hartlepool a number of
graves, eight feet square, have been found filled with human
bones. In one grave were the bones of a hundred and fifty men
of tall stature. Again, we may have trace of Ingeld’s prin-
cipality in the three Inglebys, the Ingleton and Ingleborough of
the neighbouring county of York, and of the Wycings and
Beards in Wycliffe, Bartin, and Barforth. As for the destroying
chief who is represented by the monster Grendel, he also has
left the mark of his name behind him. It is certainly the name
of aman. There is a Grendlesmere in Wiltshire, and a Grinde-
lespytt in Worcestershire, a Grindleton in Yorkshire, and Crin-
dale dykes on the Roman wall, near which are Grindon loch
and Grandy’s knowe. Near Hart there is a parish named Gran-
don and Grandy’s Close, with close to Grandy’s Close, Thrum’s
Hill, the Giant’s Hill.
Beowulf the Scylding is said in the poem to have reigned in
the Scedelands, at Scedenig, which Dr. Grein identifies with
the Scandinavia of old geographers, Schonen, the southernmost
VOL. I. T
274. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. Vu
part of the Scandinavian peninsula. But Mr. Haigh observes
that Mr. Kemble has rightly translated “Scedelandum,” “the
divided lands,” Sceadan and Sundrian having the same mean-
ing, to divide or sunder, and these Scedelands appear to be
represented by the modern Sunderlands, of which one is on the
coast of Northtimberland, north of Shilbottle.
Then if we look for the kingdom of Hygelac, the son of
Hrethel, who ruled over the Weder Goths, we find, perhaps,
traces of the Suffolk Weders in two Suffolk Wetherdens, and
Wetherheath, Wetherup, and Wetheringsett, with a Wetherby
hundred in the adjoining county of Cambridge. We may sus-
pect Hrethel’s family name in the Suffolk Redl-ing-field, and
traces of himself at Rattlesden and Rattlerow Hill (Hredlan
hrew, Hrethel’s corpse), which may have been his place of
burial. A mile distant from one of the Wetherdens is an ancient
Anglo-Saxon fortress called Haughley, in which are at least the
H, g, 1, of Hygelac. There is also a Hoxne, which has been
called Hoxton, and Eglesdon, and is called by Leland, quoting
a life of St. Eadmund, Hegilesdune,—quast Hygelacesdune,—
and this place is only four miles from Redlingfield and not far
from Uggeshall, perhaps once Hygdeshall, Hygd being either
another name of Hygelac, or the name of his queen. Hvyen
details of the deadly war of Hygelac with Ongentleow, King of
the Sweofolk, may be faintly traced in local names on our own
soil. The first battle was fought at Raven Wood. There is a
Ravenhill near Whitby, on the coast of Yorkshire, and the
adjacent Robin Hood’s Bay may be a corruption of Raven
Wood. There are remains of entrenchments to the south of this
neighbourhood called War Dyke, and to the east called Green... .
Dyke ; six miles to the north-west is a village of Ugglebarnby,
which seems to contain the name of Hygelac, and may mark the
scene of the second battle, close to it has been a place called by
the name of Breca, one of Hygelac’s neighbours, and twenty
miles farther to the west is Roseberry Topping, a lofty hill, with
a complete circle of large pits around its conical summit, which
may recal the name of the fortress of Hreosnabeorh, in which
Ongentheow defended himself after his battle with Hygelac, and
in defence of which he died.
That Ongentheow is called King of the Sweos, does not decide
-4.D. 550-750. INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. 275
whether his people were a Swedish settlement in England, or
were still inhabitants of Sweden.
The period was the close of the fifth century or beginning of
the sixth, and if Hygelac was confederate then with Garmund
in war against the Britons, we might have, .as we do, on the
scene of that war a Hygelace’s git! near Clifton in Somerset-
shire, a Hucklecote near Gloucester, and Hugglescote near
Chorley, in Leicestershire. Even that descent of Hygelac,
A.D. 511, on the island at the Rhine mouth is quite as traceable
to the Suffolk Hygelac as to a Dane from the continent of Scan-
dinavia. Hygelac’s son is called Hereric’s nephew. Chararic,
who might be Hereric, and the brother of Hygelac’s queen, was a
Frank king, who had been treacherously-slain by Chlodovech, who
then reigned in his stead. The Garmund just mentioned made,
therefore, with Isambard an expedition against Chlodovech, and
Hygelac’s descent on Theoderic’s adjacent territory may have
been a detached part of the same unsuccessful enterprise of
vengeance.’ The evidence is by no means exhausted. Hyge-
lac’s wife is said in the poem of Beowulf to have been the wife
of that Offa whom Matthew of Paris, writing in the thirteenth
century, makes in England the son of Warmund, King of the
West Angles, who repaired and gave his name to Warwick. To
the theory which places the scene of the poem in Denmark and
Sweden it is absolutely necessary that this Offa should be carried
off to the original home of the Angles. But the story of Offa,
as told in the poem of ‘ Beowulf’ and the ‘ Traveller’s Tale,’ has
also its strong confirmation attached to our English soil. The
fabled history tells that Offa was blind till his seventh year, and
deaf and dumb till his thirtieth, when he recovered all his facul-
ties under the pressure of danger from the chief Alewih, who
sought to usurp his right of succession. The forces of Offa and
Alewih met on the opposite banks of a river named Avene, and
fought by missiles till Offa crossed, and the enemy suffered a
great defeat, according to the ‘Traveller’s Tale,’ by the border
of Fifield. There was honourable burial given to the nobles,
and the rest of the slain were buried under a great heap of
stones, which received, therefore, the name of Qualmhul
1 Cod, diplom, 566.
T2
276 INTERPRETATIONS OF BEOWULF. Bx. I. Cu. V.
(Slaughter Hill). The battle-field was called afterwards Blode-
wald. Now Fifield in Oxfordshire is separated from Gloucester.
shire by the river Evenlode (Avene of the poem); there is n.
Blodewald, but the parish next Fifield, on the other side of 1¢
river, is Bledington, and three miles west of Bledington there is
to this day Slaughter Hill, giving its name to two neighbouring
parishes as well as to the hundred. The bodies of the nobles
were buried apart. In the immediate neighbourhood are two
parishes, called Upper and Lower Swell. Swell means a burn-
ing, a funeral pile. The name occurs only in one other part of
England, in Somersetshire, also near an ancient battle-field. In
digging foundations for enlargement of the church of Lower
Swell, a long deep bed of ashes was discovered in the church-
yard, and of eleven barrows in the parish the largest is called
Picked Morden—selected slain. The field in which it stands is
called Camp-ground. History records no battle but that of Offa
on this spot. Overcome in this battle, Offa’s opponent fled and
was pursued, and, after a second fight, perished in the Rigan-
burn. His fellow-pupil Wulfstan
turned that book into Latin verse, and wrote also an extant
Life of his master Ethelwold. Wulfstan was a singer at Win-
1 MS. Cotton, Nero C. viz. 2 NE, D. 2, 19.
3 A MS. of it is in the Cotton Collection, Tiberius A. mm.
4 MS. Reg. 10, A. XIII.
5 In the Brit. Mus, MS., Reg. 15, C. vit, which contains also Wulfstan’s
metrical version,
AD. 962-1006. ETHELWERD—&LFRIC, 417
chester, and William of Malmesbury says that he wrote also a
practical work ‘On the Harmony of Tones.’
Fabius Ethelwerd, the patrician, a descendant of King
Ethelred, wrote a short Latin Chronicle, from the be-
ginning of the world to the year 975, dedicated, in its
Introduction, to his relative, Matilda, daughter of Emperor
Otho, a “dearest sister, whose letter has been longed for and
read with kisses.” Matilda was daughter of an Editha, the
sister of King Athelstane. In his Introduction Ethelwerd both
gives and requests information upon royal descents and inter-
marriages. The Chronicle is very bald and in bad Latin, con-
sisting usually of little more than memoranda, but compara-
tively full in treatment of the reigns of Ethelred and Alfred.
Bridferth, a mathematical monk, alive in 980, commented
on Bede’s scientific text-books, and wrote also a ‘Life paren.
of Dunstan.’ +
"lfric or Alfric, sometimes called the Grammarian, the son
of a Kentish Earl, was one of the first who entered the
monastic school of Ethelwold at Abingdon. When
Ethelwold became Bishop of Winchester lfric went with him,
and was his chief helper in establishing the fame of Winchester
as a place of instruction. lfric, acting as chief Minister of
Instruction in Ethelwold’s diocese, wrote as a school-book his
Latin Colloquies and a glossary in Latin and Anglo-Saxon that
was printed at Oxford in the year 1659. For the instruction of
all, Alfric translated also most of the books of the Old Testa-
ment into Anglo-Saxon. Afterwards he was removed to the
abbey of Cerne in Dorsetshire, by the wish of its founder
Ethelmer, at the request of whose son Ethelward Atlfric com-
piled his Homilies, apparently between the years 990 and 991.
At Ethelward’s request also he began to translate Genesis into
Anglo-Saxon, and continued until he had completed the whole
Pentateuch and book of Job. He wrote also a Latin and
Anglo-Saxon Grammar, two letters upon the Old and New
Testament, and a Liturgy. Having been advanced to the
bishopric of Wilton not very long before, in 995 Atlfric became
Archbishop of Canterbury. He had then to struggle against
Ethelwerd.
Zilfric,
1 MS. Cotton Cleop. B, x11.
VOL. I. 2E
418 ALFRIC’S COLLOQUY, GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY. Cu. XII.
the tumults caused by fresh irruptions of the Danes, and he
died on the 16th of November, a.p. 1006.
ZElfric’s Colloquy is best known as it was afterwards enlarged
Eilfries and republished by A‘lfric Bata, who had been himself
how. taught Latin by it at Winchester.! Latin being a
spoken and written language in living use among the learned,
though the study of it had then much decayed in England, it
was taught conversationally ; as now the modern languages are
taught ; and the form of dialogue was used for Latin school-
books in order that some conversational power might be ac-
quired more readily by the pupil. The plan of /¢lfric’s
Colloquy is, by making the disciple, who begs to be taught,
answer questions on his own occupation and the various trades
of his companions, to introduce into a not very long lesson-book
the Latin for the greatest possible number of words applicable
to the different pursuits of common life. The short descriptions
incidentally illustrate manners of the day, and among these the
use of the rod to the pupil, whether it were to make him a good
scholar or to fetch him out of bed for nocturns, has not been
overlooked. As the Latin words have their meanings inter-
lined in Anglo-Saxon, some Anglo-Saxon words are interpreted
by help of this Colloquy.
fElfric’s Vocabulary, or glossary, is the oldest Latin-English
Eilfric’s Dictionary in existence. It is classified, not alphabe-
tn Voubu- tical: giving the Latin and Anglo-Saxon for farm-instru-
i ments; for ranks of men; for names of insects, birds,
herbs, trees; names of drinking-vessels; kinds of drink, of
clothing, of arms; of forms of boat or ship; of the winds; of
colours, &c. The classification, however, is but imperfectly
preserved. This glossary was usually appended to Atlfric’s
Anglo-Saxon translation from the Latin Grammars of Priscian
and of Donatus, that teacher of St. Jerome who was the Lindley
Murray of the medieval schools. The Grammar was preceded
by a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon preface, in which A‘lfric com-
plained of the low state of learning in England before its revival
by Dunstan and Ethelwold.
1 The MSS. of it are in the Cotton Collection, (Tiberius A, m1, fol. 58) and
in the Library of St. John’s College, Oxford.
A.D, 990-1006. ASLFRIC'S HOMILIES AND OTHER BOOKS. 419
filfric’s Homilies are compiled and translated from the
Fathers, being a harmony of their opinions as the Anglo-
Saxon Church accepted them, arranged, as to each topic, in
the form of a separate and complete discourse, for the mrric’s
assurance of faith. They are in two sets, each of forty 4°™*
sermons; the first set was completed in the year 990, and pub-
lished by the authority of Sigeric, then Archbishop of Canter-
bury; the second, compiled at the suggestion of Ethelward,
commemorates the different saints revered by the Anglo-Saxon
Church. That on St. Gregory’s Day was translated for Queen
Anne by Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, who
died in 1756. Its speciality is, that it contains an account of
the conversion of England. Mrs. Elstob proposed to print,
with translations, /Elfric’s Homilies, and actually printed in
folio thirty-six pages, when the press was stopped by want of
funds. One of the sermons of /£lfric, that upon Easter, from
the Latin of Ratramuus, attracted great attention, more than
six centuries later, during the controversy with the Church of
Rome, by the opposition of its doctrine of the Sacrament to the
Roman theory of Transubstantiation. It was then several times
reprinted as “a Testimonie of Antiquitie showing the Auncient
fayth in the Church of England touching the sacrament of the
body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached, and also
receaved in the Saxon tyme, above 600 yeares ago;” and the
text from Jeremiah was added (vi. 16), ‘“‘ Goe into the streetes,
and inquyre for the olde way: and if it be the good and ryght
way, then goe therein, that ye may finde rest for your soules.
But they say: we will not walke therein.”?
ZElfric wrote also a treatise on the Trinity, an abridgment
of Ethelwold’s ‘Constitutions for the Monks of Eyns- over works
of Zilfric.
ham,’ and perhaps two sermons, one to the clergy and
one to the people.
To the tenth century belong also a few remaining strains of
1 See ‘The Homilies of Aélfric, with an English Translation, by Benjamin
Thorpe.’ Printed for the Ailfric Society, in two volumes, 1843 and 1846.
2 No date. A later tract, published at Aberdeen in 1625, gives ‘ Three Rare
Monuments of Antiquitie, Bertram, Priest, a Frenchman (written 800 years
ago); Zilfricus, Archbishop of Canterburie, an Englishman (preached 627
years ago); and Maurus, Abbot, a Scotsman (820 years ago). Translated
and compacted by M. William Guild’ I abridge its title. 242
E
420 ‘ BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. Bx. I. Cu, XII.
native Anglo-Saxon poetry. In the Saxon Chronicle, under the
date 987, prose record for the first time gives place to verse
Poemon the in chronicling the famous battle fought at Brunanburh
Brunanburh. jn Northumberland by Athelstane against the allied
Scots and Danes. In the autumn of the year 934 Constan-
tine the Second, King of Scotland, had attended a Witenagemot
at Buckingham. Eogan (Owen), Constantine’s nephew, was
King in Strathclyde, and, after Constantine’s return from Buck-
ingham, he and Owen joined their forces against Athelstane,
who marched northward and reduced them to submission.
Athelstane’s attention being then occupied by his interests in
the affairs of France, Constantine planned a fresh attack, in
concert with his son-in-law Olave Sitricson the Dane, Olave the
Red, who, ousted by Athelstane from succession to the rule of
Sitric his father in Danish Northumbria, had taken refuge in
his Irish kingdom. Olave came back into the Humber with 615
ships, to join Owen of Strathclyde, his father-in-law Constantine,
and Adills and Yring, British princes, who were gathering their
forces for another struggle, for another battle of Cattraeth.
Olave is said to have gone into Athelstane’s camp disguised as a
gleeman, and to have played while the king feasted, taking note
meanwhile of his points of attack. But a soldier who had
served under him saw Olave burying the minstrel’s reward that
he disdained to carry out, and warned the king to shift his
camp. He did so, and in the evening Werstan Bishop of Sher-
borne, arriving with troops, camped on the ground Athelstane
had quitted. Werstan was attacked in the night by Olave, and
killed with all his attendants. Olave then directed his night
attack to the king’s new camping-ground, but was repulsed.’
Two days afterwards the great battle was fought at Brunan-
burh, of which the unknown Saxon poet whose verse is inserted
in the National Chronicle thus sang, after the manner of his
fathers. With slight attention to the order of the words, a
strictly literal translation will fall into English rhythm :—
“ The Battle of Brunanburh, AN, D,CCCC.XXSVII.
“This year King Athelstane, the Lord of Earls,
Ring-giver to the warriors, Edmund too,
1 William of Malmesbury, ii. 6. The site of Brunanburh is not known.
A.D. 937.
VOL. I.
BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH. 421
His brother, won in fight with edge of swords
Life-long renown at Brunanburh. The sons
Of Edward clave with the forged steel the wall
Of linden shields. The spirit of their sires
Made them defenders of the land, its wealth,
Its homes, in many a fight with many a foe.
Low lay the Scottish foes, and death-doomed fell
The shipmen ; the field streamed with warrior’s blood,
‘When rose at morning tide the glorious star,
The sun, God’s shining candle, until sank
The noble creature to its setting. There
Lay many a northern warrior, struck by darts
Shot from above the shield, and scattered wide
As fled the Scots, weary and sick of war.
Forth followed the West Saxons, in war bands
Tracking the hostile folk the livelong day.
With falchions newly-ground they hewed amain
Behind the men who fled. The hard hand-play
The Mercians refused to none who came,
Warriors with Olave, o’er the beating waves,
And, borne in the ship’s bosom, came death-doomed
To battle in that land. There lay five kings
Whom on the battle-field swords put to sleep,
And they were young; and seven of Olave’s jarls,
With Scots and Mariners an untold host.
There the Prince of the Northmen fled, compelled
To seek with a small band his vessel’s prow.
The bark drove from the shore, the king set sail,
And on the fallow flood preserved his life.
There fled the hoary chief, old Constantine ;
Regaining his north country, not to boast
How falchions met. For on the trysting place,
Slain in the fight, his friends, his kinsmen lay ;
And his son too, young to bear arms, he left,
Mangled with wounds, upon the slaughter-ground.
The warrior, grizzly-locked had not to boast,
The old deceiver, of the clash of bills.
Nor Olave more; nor any that were saved.
They could not laughing say that at the rush
Of banners, clash of weapons, meet of spears,
The tryst of men, they, on the battle-stead,
Were better in the works of war; that there
On the death-field they played with Edward’s sons.
Then in their nailed ships on the stormy sea
The Northmen went, the leavings of red darts.
Through the deep water Dublin once again,
Ireland, to seek, abased. Fame-bearing went
Meanwhile to their own land, West Saxon’s land,
The brothers, King and Atheling. They left
2538
422 SAXON CHRONICLE. Bx. I. Cu. XII.
The carcases behind them to be shared
By livid kite, swart raven, horny beaked,
And the white eagle of the goodly plumes,
The greedy war-hawk and grey forest wolf,
Who ate the carrion.
Slaughter more than this
Was in this island never yet. Sword’s edge
Never laid more men low, from what books tell,
Old chroniclers, since hither from the east
Angles and Saxons over the broad sea,
Looking for land sought Britain, proud war smiths
Who won the country from the conquered Welsh.”
If the historiographer of the Saxons was not at this period
Other Verse himself a poet he was well inclined to verse. The
Chronicle. Chronicle breaks into rhyme again when the North-
umbrians in 941—Athelstane having died the year before—de-
fiantly gave Olave his inheritance; and in a few unpoetical
lines it records that Athelstane’s successor, Edmund, subdued
Mercia and released from the Danes, the five towns, Leicester,
Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby. Again, under the
year 958, the date of the accession of Edgar, a poem celebrates
his prosperous and peaceful reign, and his piety and wisdom,
barring the one fault, that
“ He loved foreign vices and brought heathen manners too fast within this
land, and enticed hither outlandish men and allured pernicious people to this
country. But may God grant him that his good deeds be more prevailing
than his misdeeds, for his soul’s protection upon the long journey.”
Under the date 973, the fact that in the sixteenth year of his
reign, and at the age of thirty, Edgar caused himself to be
anointed King at Bath on the day of Pentecost, by Dunstan
and Oswald, gives occasion for a metrical record, versifying
names and dates and ages. There are two short poems in the
Chronicle upon the Death of Edgar in 975. One of them takes
ten lines to say that the day of his death was July 8. Thus:
“Children of people name, Men on earth, The month everywhere,
In this land, Those who erewhile were, In the art of numbers,
Rightly instructed, July month, When departed, On the eighth
day, the young Edgar from life.” With equal vivacity this
writer tells in the same copy of verse that Cyneweard, Bishop of
Wells, died ten nights before Edgar; that Edgar was succeeded
by Edward ; that the great Earl Oslac was banished ; and that
AD. 994, THE DEATH OF BYRHTNOTH. 423
there was in the same year a comet. Another piece of verse
inserted under this year in the Chronicle denounces the ealdor-
man Allfhere, who destroyed Ethelwold’s monasteries. A dozen
lines expressing, under date 1002, the misery of a town taken
by the Danes, complete the catalogue of scraps of verse inserted
in the Chronicle. The one really good piece among them all is
that on the Battle of Brunanburh; but the entry concerning
Ailthere and the monasteries leads us to the topic of another,
and, with a single exception, the last relic of Anglo-Saxon poetry,
the fragment which describes the death of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth
at the battle of Maldon.
Byrhtnoth was a brave and pious ealdorman of the East Saxons,
who, before his death, gave all his lands to the Church.
He took the part of the Benedictines when, at the acces-
sion of Edgar’s son Edward, the country was divided by faction for
and against them, and Ailfhere, the ealdorman of Mercia, expelled
them from the monasteries in his territory. Afterwards, in the
year 994, and in the reign of Ethelred the Unready, when the
Northmen under Justin and Guthmund attacked Ipswich and
avenged a previous defeat by ravaging the country round about,
Byrhtnoth, disdainfully challenged by them, fought with them
at Maldon, in Essex, was defeated, and was himself killed in a
battle, which to the King seemed so disastrous that the raising
of money to buy peace from the Danes after this time first
appeared as a recognised tax, under the name of Danegeld.
This battle was the subject of an animated poem, of which there
is still extant the copy of a fragment containing about six hun-
dred and fifty lines. The only known MS. was burnt in the
fire at the Cotton Library, after the poem had been copied by
Thomas Hearne, and printed by him as prose at the end of his
edition of the Chronicle of John of Glastonbury.
Byrhtnoth.
The Death of Byrhtnoth.
The poet tells how Byrhtnoth trained his bands, and how the herald
of the Vikings came with threats demanding gold for peace, but Byrhtnoth
raised his buckler, shook his spear, and made resolute answer. The
warriors marched to the estuary (of the Blackwater at Maldon, in Essex),
but the inflowing tide divided them. They waited, impatient, for the
ebb. Then, when the tide suffered it, a bridge was made and defended,
the invaders were allowed to cross the ford, and Byrhtnoth shouted
424 THE GRAVE. Bx. L Ga. XII.
across the cold river, ‘‘ Warriors, hear! Free space is given you; come
quickly over as men to the battle! God only knows which of us shall be
masters of the slaughter-field.” They canie and the hour was come when
the fated warriors should fall. Wulfmer, Byrhtnoth’s sister’s son, was
mangled with the battle-axe. A Danish chieftain, advancing against
Byrhtnoth, wounded him with his spear, and fell under the Earl’s stroke.
Again Byrhtnoth was wounded by a dart that the boy Wulfmer plucked
from his flesh. Hurling it back he laid low with it him who had too
surely reached his lord. One came to plunder Byrhtnoth, but was beaten
off by the wounded Earl with his battle-axe. But then his large-hilted
sword dropped from his hand, he could no longer stand firmly on his
feet. He looked heavenward and prayed for his soul. The heathen
bands mangled his body, and cut down the youths, Ailfnoth and Wulfmer,
who stood by it. Then fled from the fight those who durst no longer stay,
Godric, son of Odda, first to fly, though he had ever shared the goods of
his chieftain; he and his brother Godwy fled to the woods. But daunt-
less warriors desired to avenge their leader. Alfwine, young in years,
bravely encouraged them. Offa supported him with words of shame
against the coward Godric, whose flight, for he rode so noble horse in
the fight, had been mistaken by many a man for that of the chief himself,
and therefore was their host dispersed. Leofsuna pledged himself not
to retire one step from the field, he would die in arms, and rushed forth
raging to the fight again. Dunnere brandished his spear, shouted to all
the host that they should avenge Byrhtnoth. Aiscferth, Edward the tall
chief, Offa, suddenly cut down in the fight, joined again in the crashing
of bucklers. The aged Byrhtwold counselled them on. “TI am old, yet
will I not stir hence.” Godric, not he who had fled, cheered them on,
rushing with the foremost he poured forth his darts and sped his death
spear against the pirates.”?..
So in the heat of conflict we part from them, for here the
fragment”ends.
There is yet one fragment more of a true poem. A few lines
written in the margin of a volume of Homilies,’ in the
East Anglian dialect, apparently the latest verse of
the Anglo-Saxon period, represent gloomy and pitiless Death
forcing on man in cruel detail, all the circumstances of his
triumph.
‘The Grave.
The Grave.
Death speaks to Man. “ For thee was a house planned. ere thou wert born;
for thee ground was appointed ere thou camest of thy mother. It is not
1 Thero is a full prose translation of this poem, and of the next on the Grave
(but very inaccurate) in Conybeare’s Illustrations. I have here rather described
the substance of Byrhtnoth than expressed its spirit.
2 Bodleian MSS. NE. F. 4, 12.
A.D. 990-1066, THE GRAVE. 425
yet prepared, nor its depth measured, it is not yet seen how long it may be
for thee. When they shall bring me thee to where thou shalt be, I shall
measure thee and the earth afterwards. Thy house is not highly built, it is
low and hateful when thou liest in it; the heelways are low, the sideways low,
the roof is built full-nigh thy breast; so thou shalt dwell in earth full cold,
dim and dark. That den rots on your hand. Doorlessis that house, and dark
it is within; there thou art fast prisoner, and death holds the key. Loathly
is that earth-house and grim to dwell in; there thou shalt dwell and worms
shall part thee. Thus thou art laid and most hateful to thy friends; thou
hast no friend that will come to thee, and who will ever inquire how that
house liketh thee, who shall ever open the door for thee and come down after
thee, for soon thou becomest loathly and hateful to look upon. [For soon is
thy head bereft of hair; albeit its locks scatter beauty, none will with clasp of
finger stroke it!]” * * *
But the Anglo-Saxon mind did not flinch from the gloom of
the grave. Beyond that narrow way the Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-
looked to the eternal mansion, of which it is but the pels.
small wicket-gate through which men pass in to their home
from the day’s labour in their Master’s vineyard. When, after
many years, the English mind was shaking off Rome-bred
delusions, and was taking the pure Gospel to its heart, the
example of our ancient Church was set forth in an edition of
the Anglo-Saxon version of the Four Gospels, issued in 1571,
by Archbishop Matthew Parker, with a dedication to Queen
Elizabeth, by Foxe, the martyrologist. That edition was made
from a copy in the decaying Saxon of the Anglo-Norman times.
The second edition was from an earlier copy ;* but in each case
the Gospels, inthe language of the land, are divided into por-
tions for appointed days, so arranged as to secure the public
reading of them, without reservation or cloak of an unknown
tongue, by the Anglo-Saxon clergy to their people.
2 This is added in another handwriting.
2 Printed at Dordrecht in 1665, and edited by Dr. Marshall, Rector of
Lincoln College, Oxford, together with the Gothic version that had been given
by Junius. The text of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels—Tha Halgan Godspel on
Englise—has been also recently edited by Mr. Benjamin Thorpe.
INDEX TO VOL. I.
Oo
PART I.
ACADEMY, BOILEAU.
Ascham, 32, 6,7; 46.
A. Asser, 395, 6; his Life of Alfred, 408-
Acaprmy, the French, 53.
Acca, Bishop of Hexham, 353, 5.
Adamnan, 340.
Addison, 46; 64,5; 72; 81,2; 87-91.
Adrian, 334.
Ailfric, 417-9.
Aidan, St., 298.
Alaric at Rome, 289.
Alban, St., 287, 8.
Alcuin, 366-78.
Aldhelm, 334; 341-7.
Alfieri, 105.
Alfred, King, 389-410.
Allegory, 14-17; 24; 31; 333.
Alliterative metre, 215, 6; 244; 261,
4, 5.
Almahide, Scudéri’s, 56.
Amadis de Gaul, 28; 31.
Analogues, English and Persian, 136, 7;
English and Arabic, 137, 8; English
and Sanscrit, 140-3.
Andrew, Saint, Anglo-Saxon poem of,
323.
Andrewes, Bishop, 46.
Aneurin, 198; 206-14.
Angles, 197; 219, 20; 222-4; 226.
Anglo-Saxon, first use of the word, 226;
character, 6,7; 280-4; 319, 20; 333,
4; settlements in England, 197, 8;
chronicle, 406, 7; 420-2; metre, 244;
261, 4,5; language, 228-44.
Anthology, the Anglo-Saxon, 406.
Anti-Jacobin, Canning’s, 110.
Arabic in English, 137, 8.
Arcadia, Sidney’s, 24.
Arculf, 340,
Aretino, 33.
Argoed, Battle of, 199, 200.
Ariosto, 27, 9; 30.
Aristobulus, St., 285.
Aristotle, study of, 35.
Arles, first council of, 288.
Art Poétique, Boileau’s, 57, 8; 60.
Arthur, King, 202, 15.
Aryan, 134-6; 139-48,
10.
Assonance, 215, 16.
Astrophel and Stella, 26, 7.
Attacots, 195.
Attila, 251; 278.
Augustine, the Father, 290, 1.
————— the Apostle to the Anglo-
Saxons, 295, 6.
B
Bacon, Francis, Lord, 45; Sir Nicholas,
49
Bailé, tale of the Fate of, 171, 2.
Ballymote, the Book of, 192.
Bangor, 288; 296.
Barrows, 154; 249, 50.
-Basque in English, 160.
Battle of Moytura, 174; Ventry Har-
bour, 189; Gabhra, 190; Argoed,
199, 200; Gwenn-Estrad, 199; Cat-
traeth, 206-14; Morlais Ford, 205;
Hatfield Chase, 297; Brunan-burh,
420-2; Maldon, 423-5.
Becan, John of Gorp, 129; 134.
Bede, 7; 219-25; 304-6; 348-62;
404-5, .
Behn, Aphra, 92.
Belge, the, 157-60; 162; 194.
Benedict Biscop, 348.
Beowulf, 251-64; Interpretations of,
265-78.
Bentivoglio and Urania, 92.
Bernat de Ventadorn, 10.
Berni, 29.
Bernicia, 198; 207; 209, 10; 214.
Bewcastle Cross, Runes on, 246.
Bhagavat-Gita, the, 135.
Bible, Translation of the, 37.
Bickerstaff, Isaac, Esq., 86.
Bidpai, 136.
Boccaccio, 20, 21.
Bodley, Sir Thomas, 310.
Bodmer, 102-4.
Boethius, 16; King Alfred’s, 397-400.
Boileau, 55-8; 64; 100.
INDEX TO VOL. I.—PART I.
427
BOJARDO.
Bojardo, 29. .
Boniface, 347.
Books, the first, 247, 8.
Boromean Tributes, ‘the, 177.
Boscan, 28; 48-50.
Bran the Blessed, 286.
Breitan, 211.
Bridferth, 417.
Bronze Period of Civilization, 154-6.
Brunanburh, poem of the Battle of,
420-2.
Bryneich, 198; 207; 209, 10, 14.
Buckingham, Duke of, 58, 60.
Bunyan, 59.
Biirger, 108.
Byron, 106, 7.
¢c.
Cabbala, the, 35; 307, 8.
Ceedmon, 296, 8,9; 302-18.
Caeilte, M‘Ronan, 181, 2, 4, 5.
Caermarthen, Black Book of, 217.
Cesar, 193, 4.
Calendar, an Anglo-Saxon, 320.
Campaign, Addison’s, 82.
Canning, 110.
Cardan, 32.
Cattraeth, 206-8; Battle of, 209-14;
a place of baptism, 297.
Celtic in English, 162-7 ; metres, 215, 6.
Celts, 119-125; 156. See Cymry and
Gael.
Chapelain, 56, 7.
Charlemagne, the Romances of, 28, 29 ;
Alcuin and, 366-78.
Chaucer, 21, 2; 32; 59; 72.
Chauci, the, 224, 5.
Cherusci, 225.
Christian Hero, Steele’s, 83.
Christianity, its first effect on literature,
6, 7; introduced into this country,
284-302.
Chronicle, the Anglo-Saxon, 406, 7;
420-3.
Chroniclers, the Anglo-Norman, 11.
Chuailgne, Tale of the Cattle Spoil of,
177-80.
Ciaran, Saint, 178.
Cid Campeador, Poem of the, 28.
Cimmerians, 118-20.
Citizen of the World, Goldsmith’s, 109.
Clelia, Scudéri’s, 56.
Cliodhna, the Wave of, 184.
Coifi, 297.
Colbert, 54.
Coleridge, 108, 5, 6.
Colet, 35.
Colloquy, Ailfric’s, 418.
Columba, 294.
Columban, 294, 5.
EASTER,
Conceits in Literature, 14-17; 24, 6,7;
33-59.
Conchobar, a Legend of, 176.
Connaught, Annals of, 192.
Conrart, 53.
Cooper, Fenimore, 109.
Corneille, 53; 56.
Cotin, Abbé, 56.
Cotton, Sir Robert, 810; 251, 2.
Cowley, 46.
Crashaw, 44.
Crede’s Bower, the poem of, 186, 7.
Crisis, the, Steele’s pamphlet, 89.
Croker on Johnson, 99.
Cromlechs, 152-4; 189.
Cruithne, the, 191.
Crusades, influence of the, 11.
Cuchorb, Death Song of, 180, 1.
Cuchullain, 172.
Cuilmenn, the, 177.
Culdees, the, 293, 8; 334-6.
Cuthbert’s Letter on the Death of Bede,
359-61.
Cymry, the, 118-25; 158, 160-7; 214,
15; 470; their ancient Literature,
198-217 ; its metre, 215, 16.
Cyndyllan, Llywarch’s Lament for, 205.
Cynewulf's Helen, 322; his Juliana, 325.
D.
Dacier, 59.
Danes, the, 388; 390-4; 420-4.
Dante, 9; 12-18.
David, St., 294,
Dean of Lismore’s Book, the, 182.
Decameron, Boccaccio’s, 20, 21.
Defoe, 76-81; 102.
Degrees in Literature, Old Gaelic, 173.
Deira or Deivyr, 198 ; 207 ; 209, 10; 214.
Deor, the Lament of, 278.
Deserted Village, Goldsmith’s, 101.
Diarmaid and Grainné, the Pursuit of,
188.
Dictionary of the French Academy, 54.
Dicuil, 385.
Division of Nature, Erigena’s, 381-4.
Donne, 34; 46. ;
Drama, the, 24; 34; 36; 41; 48-7; 56;
58-63 ; 83-85.
Druids, 168, 9.
Dryden, 46; 48; 58; 59.
Du Bartas, 36; 47-50.
Dumbarton, 190.
Dunciad, Pope’s, 91.
Dunstan, 415, 6.
Durham Ritual and Gospels, 364.
E.
Easter, controversies on the time of,
295, 6; 300; 332; 352, 3.
428
INDEX TO VOL. I—PART I.
ECCLESIASTICAL, ~
Ecclesiastical History, Bede’s, 356-8 ;
translated by King Alfred, 404, 5. -
Eddius Stephanus, 338.
Eden, the River, 208.
Edgar, Poems on the Death of King,
422, 3.
Edinburgh Review, the, 111,
Educational Works, Bede's, 353; A1-
cuin’s, 377; Ailfric’s, 417-9.
Egbert, Archbishop of York, 366.
King of England, 387.
Edwin of Worcester, 338-40.
Eiddin, 208.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Gray’s,
98, 101.
Elizabeth, Queen, 49.
Endymion, Lyly’s, 45.
Englishman, Steele’s, 89.
Enigmas, Aldhelm’s, 345.
Erigena, John Scotus, 378-84.
Erse, 145. See Gaelic.
Esthonians, Wulfstan’s account of the,
403, 4.
Ethelwerd, 417.
Ethelwold, 411-5.
Ethelwolf, 384.
Euphues, Lyly’s, 38-41.
Euphuism, 33-49.
Evesham, 339.
Examiner, Swift's, 89.
Exegetical Works, Bede’s, 353-5; Al
euin’s, 377.
Exeter, the Cymry in, 215.
Book, the, 248, 9; 278, 9; 319;
824-7. :
F,
Faerie Queen, the, 23, 75.
Faust, Goethe's, 106.
Fenians, the, 188-91.
Fergus Finnbheoil, 181, 3, 4.
——— M‘Roigh, 178.
Fielding, 93-97, 101.
Fiesco, Schiller’s, 104,
Fingal, Macpherson’s, 103; 181.
Fionn.
Finnesburg, the Fight at, 279, 80.
Finntragha, Battle of, 189.
Fionn, M‘Cumhail, 181-90.
Firbolgs, the, 174, 5.
Flann of Monasterboice, 192.
Flint Tools and Weapons, 150-4.
Floral Games of Toulouse, 19; 51.
Florence, Old, the Italian mind in, 12;
82.
Four Masters, Annals of the, 192.
Franks, Geography according to the,
225-7.
Freeholder, Addison's, 82.
See
HARROWING.
French Influence on English Literature,
4; 51-66; 72,3; 97.
Frisian, Old, 194; 228-301; Frisians,
223-30.
Froissart, 713, 4; 771, 2,
Funeral, Steele’s Comedy of the, 83, 4.
Futhore, the Runic, 246.
G.
Gabhra, the Battle of, 190.
Gaedhels, Story of their first appearance
in Erin, 175. See Gaels.
Gaelic Literature, 170-92 ; metre, 215, 6.
in English, 162-7.
Gaels, the, 118-25; 159; 193-7.
Gall, St., 295.
Garcilaso de la Vega, 48; 50.
Genesis, Bede's Four Books upon,
353, 4.
German Literature, relation of, to Eng-
lish writers, 4; 100-6.
Germanus, 292.
Gildas, 199; 218, 9.
Gilla Caemhain, 192.
Gleeman, the Anglo-Saxon, 245.
Gododin, the, 206-15.
Goethe, 100, 1, 4.
Goldsmith, 97; 100, 1.
Goll, M‘Morna, 182, 3,4; 190.
Goropius Becanus, 129; 134.
Gospels, Bede on the, 355; the Anglo-
Saxon, 425.
Gottsched, 102.
Grammar and Vocabulary, Alfric’s, 418.
Grand Cyrus, Scudéri’s, 56, 92.
Grave, Anglo-Saxon poem on_ the,
424, 5.
Gray, 98, 101; his translations from the
Welsh, 211.
Greene, Robert, 41, 3, 4, 6.
Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis and Dia-
logues, King Alfred’s versions of, 405.
Grimbald, 395.
Grocyn, 35.
Guardian, Steele's, 89, 90.
Guelfs and Ghibellines, 12, 13.
Guiot of Provins, 571.
Gulliver’s Travels, 91.
Guthlae, St., A. S. poem of, 324.
Gwenn-Estrad, Battle of, 199.
Gwyddels, the, in North Wales, 195.
i,
Halifax, Montagu, Earl of, 81, 2.
Hall, Bishop, 36.
Harris’s Hermes, 128.
Harrowing of Hell, the, 317; 327.
INDEX TO VOL. L—PART I.
429
HARVEY,
Harvey, Gabriel, 43.
Hawes, Stephen, 23.
Helen, Cynewulf's, 322.
Heliand, the, 229; 265.
Heorot, site of, 252; 270-3; 277.
Herder, 100; 131.
Hergest, the Red Book of, 217.
Hildebrandslied, the, 229; 265,
Hitopadesa, the, 136.
Holstein, Saxons of, 224, 5.
Homilies, Ailfric’s, 419.
Howel Dda, Laws of, 217.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 131.
Hume, David, 101.
Hygelac, 271, 4, 5, 7.
Hymns, Anglo-Saxon, 327.
Hyperboreans, 120-+.
L
Iberian Britons, 159-62.
Iceland, 432.
Ida’s Invasion, 197, 8; 200, 207.
Ina, Laws of, 387.
Indo - European Theory, the, 134-8;
family tree, 148.
Influence, Literary, of nation upon na-
tion, 2; 71, 2; of Italy on England,
4; 9-47; 332, 3; of France on Eng-
land, 4; 51-66; 72, 3; of the English
people upon English writers, 75-116 ;
of the Crusades, 11.
Ingelo, Nathaniel, 92.
Ingulf, 483.
Innisfallen, Annals of, 192.
Invasions, the Book of, 192.
Tron, the first use of, 156, 7, 8; 249-51,
Italy, influence of, on English Litera-
ture, 4; 9-47; 332, 3.
J.
Jarrow, Bede at, 7; 348-62.
Jerusalem, travels to, 32; 341; 385.
— Delivered, Tasso’s, 31.
John the Old Saxon, 395.
Johnson, Samuel, 54; 97-100.
Jones, Sir W., 129; 136, 9.
Jonson, Ben, 46-8.
Joseph Andrews, Fielding’s, 93, 4.
Journalists, modern, 109-112.
Judith, A. 8. Poem of, 327.
Juliana, Cynewulf’s, 325.
Junius, Francis, 310.
——— Letters of, 109.
Jutes, 197; 219-22.
K.
Kant, 165.
Kalidasa, 136.
MASSINGER,
Kian, 206; 210.
Kilronan, Annals of, 192.
King Arthur, 202, 15.
Klopstock, 103.
Kywryd, 206.
L.
La Fontaine, 56.
L’Allegro, Milton's, 101.
Language, Origin of, 125-32.
Langue d'Oc and Langue d'Oyl, 51.
Languet, 25, 6.
Lansdowne, 61.
Lantfred, 416.
Lathes, the Kentish, 221.
Latimer, 35.
Latin English, 65, 6.
——- of the first Period, 167; of the
second, 365, 6.
in Erse, 145.
Prose writing, 331.
Laws of Howel Dda, 217; of Ina, 387.
Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott's, 108.
Leabhar na Uidre, the, 192.
— Breac, the, 192.
Lecain, the Books of, 192.
Leinster, the Book of, 171-3; 192.
Libel Bill, Fox’s, 110.
Lightning, Bede on, 351.
Lilly, 35.
Linacre, 35. :
Lismore, the Dean of, his Book, 182 ;
the Irish Book of, 185.
Littus Saxonicum, 194, 5.
Llanvor, 204.
Lloegrians, 205, 6.
Llywarch Hen, 198; 202-5.
Local Nomenclature, 158-61 ; 163, 4, 7;
196, 7; 207; 220-2; 227; 249.
Lochlan, 190, 1.
London, 195.
Lorenzo de’ Medici, 23, 4.
Love’s Labour ’s Lost, 44, 5.
Lurius, King, 287.
Lyly, 34; 36-43.
M.
Macpherson’s Ossian, 103.
Mahabharata, the, 135.
Maldon, A. S. Poem of the Battle of,
423-5.
Malherbe, 52; 55.
Manual, K. Alfred’s, 396.
Marini, 34,
Marlowe, 46.
Marot, Clement, 44, 8.
Massinger, 46.
4
INDEX TO VOL, IL—PART I.
MEAVS.
Meav’s Death Song over Cuchorb, 180, 1.
Mechanism of English Writing, 68-72.
Menaphon, the Preface to, 44, 5.
Mendoza, Diego de, 50.
Mengant, 206.
Menologium, the A.8., 320.
Merlin, 206.
Metres, Celtic, 215, 6; Anglo-Saxon,
244; 261, 4,5; 331.
Milton, 46; 59; 64,5; 71; 76; 101, 2;
8311; 318, 4.
Minnesinger, the, 11; 103.
Moliére, 53; 56, 7.
Monasticism, narrowed, 411, 12.
Monboddo, Lord, 129-31.
More, Sir Thomas, 48.
Henry, 35, 6.
Morgan or Pelagius, 288-92.
Morlais Ford, Battle at, 205-14.
Morning Advertiser, 110.
— Chronicle, 110.
——--- Herald, 110.
--——- Post, 110.
Moytura, Tale of the Battle of, 174.
Muspilli, 265.
Myvirian Archeology of Wales, 217.
Myrddhin. See Merlin.
N.
Nash, Thomas, 44.
Nature of Things, Bede on the, 351, 2.
, the Division of, Erigena on,
381-4.
Nennius, 159; 386, 7.
Neo Druidism, 295.
Neo Platonists, 35.
Newgate, Defoe in, 80.
Newspapers, English, 109, 10.
Nibelungenlied, the, 11; 103.
Ninian, 293.
Normans, the, 8; 388.
North Briton, Wilkes’s, 109.
Northumbria, 198; 215; 272-4; 296—
303; 358.
Anglo-Saxon of, 363-5,
Notitia Utriusque Imperii, 194, 5.
Novantee, the, 211.
Novels, 21; 24; 36; 42,3; 56; 91-7;
109.
0.
Ododin. See Gododin.
Oghuim, 171-3.
Ohthere’s Voyages, 402, 3.
Oisin, 181-5; 188.
Ollamh, the, 173.
Origin of Language, 125-32.
PULCI.
Orlando Innamorato, 29; Furioso, 27-30.
Orosius, King Alfred’s, 400-4.
Ossian, M‘Pherson’s, 103, See Oisin.
P,
Pamela, 92, 3; 103,
Panther, A. 8. Poem of the, 326-7.
Pap with a Hatchet, 43.
Paradise Lost, Milton’s, 59; 65; 76;
102; 311; 313, 4.
Paraphrase, Caeedmon’s, 312-8.
Parthenissa, 91.
Partridge, the Almanac-maker, 86.
Pastoral Poetry, 24.
Patrick, St., 185, 8; 292-4.
Paul, St. (in Britain ?), 284-6.
Paulinus, 296-8.
Pedantry, 34.
Pedigree of English, 148.
Pelagius, 288-92.
Pentateuch, Bede on the, 354.
Pepys, 60, 1.
Periods, the four, of English Literature,
4, Ofthe Formation of the Language,
6-8; 117-425. Of Italian Influence,
4; 9-47. Of French Influence, 4;
51-66; 72-3. Of Popular Influence,
4; 75-116.
Persian in English, 136, 7.
Petrarch, 18-20; 33.
Phoenicians in Cornwall, 156.
Piers Plowman, Vision of, 8; 22.
Pillory, Defoe’s Hymn to the, 79.
Plato on the Origin of Words, 126, 7.
Platonism, 34, 5.
Plegmund, 395.
Polexander, 92.
Politian’s Orpheus, 24.
Pope, 62-4; 88; 91.
Popular Influence on English Litera-
ture, Period of, 75-116.
Powys, Cyndyllan, Prince of, 203, 5.
Précieuses, the, 51-3; 56.
Prime Stories, Old Gaelic, 173, 4,
Provengal language and poetry, 10; 11;
17
Proverbs, Anglo-Saxon, 326.
Psalms, Anglo-Saxon Version of the,
327.
Pseudo Cseedmon, theory of a, 307-9;
311, 2.
Ptolemy, the Saxons of, 224.
Public Advertiser, the, 110.
Ledger, Newbery’s, 109.
Pucelle, Chapelain’s, 56,7.
Pulci, the, 229.
INDEX TO VOL. I.—PART I.
431
QUARLES.
Q.
Quarles, 46.
Quarterly Review, the, 110, 2.
Quotation, the taste for, 30.
R.
Racan, 52.
Racine, 56, 7.
Raleigh, Sir W., 46.
Ramayana, the, 135.
Rambler, Johnson’s, 99.
Rambouillet, Marquise de, 41; 52; 53;
56.
Rape of the Lock, Pope’s, 64; 102.
Rapin, Réné, 59, 60.
Reading-Power, 112-6.
Red Book of Hergest, the, 217.
Regni, the, 158.
Regnier, 51.
Rehearsal, Buckingham’s, 58.
Restoration, Literature of the, 59.
Review, Defoe’s, 80.
Revolution, the French, 103-7.
Rheged, 198.
Richardson, Samuel, 93; 103.
Riddle, an Anglo-Saxon, 248.
Rinaldo, Tasso’s, 31.
Robbers, Schiller’s, 104.
Robinson Crusoe, 91, 2; 102.
Roger Infans, 481.
Roman Occupation, traces in English
of the, 167.
Romaunt of the Rose, the, 22, 3.
Ronsard, 51,2; 55.
Roscommon, 60.
Rousseau, 103.
Rowe’s Shakespeare, 61.
Runes, 245-8.
Ruthwell Cross, Runes on the, 246 ; 363.
Rymer, 60; 62.
8.
Sacheverell, 78.
Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, 46.
Sewulf, 483.
Saints, Lives of, 412-4.
Salomon and Saturn, 328.
Samuel, Bede’s Exposition of, 354.
Sannazaro, 24.
Sanskrit, 134-6; 139-48.
Saracens. See Arabians.
Saxon, first appearance of the name,
924-6, Old etymologies of the word,
133.
Old, 229; 265.
Saxons in England, 194-8; 219, 20.
See Anglo-Saxons.
Schiller, 103, 4.
Scop, the Anglo-Saxon, 245.
TYRANNIC.
Scott, Sir Walter, 41; 108, 9.
Scudéri, George and Madelene, 56, 9.
Senchan, 178.
Seneca’s Plays, 34.
Shakespeare, 43, 4; 60-4.
Shortest Way with the Dissenters,
Defoe’s, 78, 9.
Sicilian Languages, the, 10.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 24-7; 46, 9.
Silures, the, 159, 60.
Slesvig, Angles of, 222, 3, 7.
Smollett, 96, 8, 9.
Soliloquies, Shakespeare's, 61, 2; 101.
Solomon, Bede on the Temple of, 354.
Somers, Lord, 81, 2.
Sorrows of Werter, Goethe’s, 100, 4.
Southey, 105.
Speaking and Writing, 66-8.
Spectator, the, 65; 87-9; 103.
Spells, 248.
Spenser, 27, 8; 44; 72, 5.
Steele, 64; 81-91.
Stile, Marinesco, 34.
Stone Period of Civilization, 150-4.
Strathclyde, Britons of, 198; 206-15;
297.
Streoneshalh, 300.
Surrey, the Earl of, 17; 24; 28.
Swale, the River, 207.
Swithun, 388, 9; legends of, 412-4.
Sylvester, Joshua, 48, 9.
T.
Tacitus, the Angles of, 224.
Tain Bo Chuailgné, Tale of the, 177-80.
Talhaiarn, 206.
Taliesin, 6; 199-202.
Tasso, 27; 29; 31.
Tatler, the, 64; 85-9.
Tatwine, 378.
Temora, 181.
Tender Husband, Steele’s comedy of
the, 92.
Theodore of Tarsus, 334-6.
Thomas of Erceldoune, 108.
Tighernach, Annals of, 192.
Time, Bede on Division of, 352,
Times (newspaper), the, 110.
Tom Jones, Fielding’s, 94~7.
Toulouse, Floral Games of, 19.
Town. origin of the words for, 249.
Travellers’ Song, the, 251; 278; 326.
Trissotin, Moliére’s, 56.
Troubadours, 10; 16; 17; 26.
True-Born Englishman, Defoe’s, 77.
Tuatha de Danann, the, 175; 189; 191.
Turpin, Archbishop, 29.
Tyrannic Love, Dryden's, 56,
INDEX TO VOL. I.—PART I.
UGGESHALL,
U,
Uggeshall (Hygelac’s Palace at ?), 277.
Ulfilas, 148.
Ulster, Annals of, 192.
Urien, 6; 197-203.
Urience, Sir, of Gore, 198.
Usher, Archbishop, 309, 10.
v.
Various Gifts and Fortunes of Men,
A.S. Poems on the, 325, 6.
Vaugelas, 53.
Vedas, the, 134, 5.
Ventry Harbour, Battle of, 189.
Vercelli Book, the, 321-4.
Verstegan’s Ethnology, 132-4.
Virginity, Aldhelm’s Praise of, 344-6.
Vita Nuova, Dante’s, 14.
Ww.
Waldhere’s Saga, 280.
Wales, the Cymry in, 193-7,
Wallenstein, Schiller's, 104, 6,
Walther von der Vogelweide, 11.
Walpole, Horace, 98.
Walton, Izaak, 46.
Wanderer, A.S. poem of the, 325.
Waterloo, Byron’s Ode on, 107.
ZEUSS.
Weather Wisdom, Bede’s, 351.
Webster, 46,
Weekly Newspapers, 110.
Weland the Smith, 278, 9.
Welsh. See Cymry.
Wessex, Anglo-Saxons in, 363.
Whale, A.S. poem on the, 327.
Whitby, Hilda at, 299-302.
Wiclif, John, 8; 22.
Wilfrid, 334-7,
Willibald, 341.
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 11.
Woodfall, William, 110,
Wordsworth, 104-6,
Writing, the first, 248. Writing and
speaking, 66-8. Mechanism of Eng-
lish writing, 68-72.
Wulfstan, Ethelwold’s pupil, 416.
——’s Voyage, 403.
Y.
York, Egbert and Alcuin at, 367-9.
Young’s Night Thoughts, 10° 03.
Z.
Zend, relation of, to the Indo-European
Languages, 141, 2.
Zeuss on Celtic Literature, 191, 2.
END OF PART I.—VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.