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VII.—The Philological Legend of Cynewulf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

Romance seldom stalks frank and undisguised. It wears the sober cloak of religion in the pious fictions of the saints and assumes the honest name of history in the inventions of chroniclers. Yet nowhere does it veil its face more darkly than in the pages of seemingly serious-minded biographers. That curious volume, recorded by Isaac D'Israeli, the Farfalloni degli Antichi Historici, might easily find its counterpart in our English literary apocrypha. The legalized narrative of Alfred's splendid foundation of the University of Oxford; Chaucer's life at the University and at Woodstock and his base betrayal of his friends; Shakespeare's intrigue with William Herbert's mistress; Milton's dream-meeting with the fair Italians under the Cambridge tree—all these have been themes of the legend maker. Now he who harks back to the earliest days of Old English prose and poetry will find disguised romance lurking everywhere. The philologist has often dragged it forth and stripped it of its pretences; but he has just as often connived at its rogueries. This connivance has been in the main unconscious, for the Anglist has been the dupe of his methods which have led him all unwitting into the very lap of legends. In his fallacies of false assumption, in his tame acquiescence in unfounded assertions that bear a certain stamp of authority and in his proneness to manipulate by argument data that he will be branded for doubting, the modern scholar is too often akin to the medieval schoolman. And so, in his last chapter, sly romance has its way with him.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1911

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References

page 236 note 1 Zur Chronologie und Verfasserfrage Angelsächsischer Dichtungen,“ Englische Studien, xxxviii (1907), 145-195.

page 237 note 1 Canterbury Tales, “Prologue,” A. 394.

page 237 note 2 See Miller's edition, 364, 4, 11, 410, 9; compare Klaeber, Anglia, xxvii, 419.

page 237 note 3 See Kemble, Codex Diplomatics, iii, 223, 9.

page 238 note 1 See my article in Modern Language Notes, Dec., 1910. Let the scholars who balk at the “ Cynwulf ” interpretation of the First Riddle answer these questions. Is there any inherent improbability in the presence of the writer's name in a charade-acrostic at the head of a group of Old English riddles? Does not Aldhelm, often our riddler's guide, preface with a name-acrostic his enigmas? Does not Cynewulf show elsewhere his fondness for both charade and runic acrostic; and do not he and other writers sometimes combine these? Are there not good grounds for regarding Riddle 90 as a “ Cynewulf ” charade and for recognizing a close parallel between āþecgan (Rid. 12,7) and tribulantes (Rid. 904)? Do not name-charades usually begin with a synonym of the first syllable (see example cited from Rawlinson ms.)? Is it not therefore permissible to find in the opening word of our poem, Lēodum, a synonym of cyn (see Juliana charade), and to note the recurrence of wulf at the head of subsequent divisions? Do not and hine in the second line refer to Lēodum (Cyn) and Wulf, and, if so, shall we close our eyes to the obvious interpretation? Has it not been shown that runes in Icelandic are often represented by their name-words or by synonyms of these names? If in Icelandic, why not in Old English, where the reverse method is three times followed by the very writer in question? Is not the clue to the puzzle fully given in lines 2 and 7? Is not artistic design suggested by the appearance, within this poem of less than twenty lines, of perfectly fitting synonyms of all the “ Cynwulf ” rune names (see my article)? Is any other runic substitution possible? Are not these very rune-names those suggested by the runes in Cynewulf's other poems, which are scattered through the discourse in just such fashion as their equivalents here? Is not such a rätselmärchen as Riddle 1 (see my edition, pp. xxi-xxii) as adequate a vehicle for the poet's name as the apocalyptic references of Riddle 90 or the “Judgment” scenes of the religious poems?

page 239 note 1 Eccl. Hist., iv, 19. Very like are the description of the marshy, site of Ramsey (Historia, Ramesiensis, Rolls Ser. 1886, pp. 7-8) and Asser's account of the swampy surroundings of Athelney (De Rebus Gestis Æfredi, A. D. 888). Such “islands encompassed by fen” were certainly not found in Northern England.

page 239 note 2 See my Riddles of the Exeter Book, 1910, p. 163.

page 239 note 3 This practice of selecting a word from an author's vocabulary and of basing upon that selection sweeping conclusions as to his origin is strikingly illustrated by Sievers' argument (PBB. x, 473) that the word, mersc, Exodus, 333 (which he asserts to be a nonceusage) assigns to the writer of this biblical epic a home near Romney Marsh in Kent. Reference to Grein's Sprachschatz, ii, 234 (see also Mürkens, Bonner Beiträge, ii, 87 f.) shows that the word appears in the “ Northern ” poetical Psalter, (10633, on sealtne mersc), composed doubtless hundreds of miles from Romney.

page 239 note 4 Anglia, xiii, 1-21.

page 240 note 1 See Sweet, Old English Texts, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 7, 17.

page 240 note 2 O.E.T., p. 151.

page 241 note 1 Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum, Part ii (Latin), pp. 81 f; Brandi, Paul's Grundriss 2 ii, 1002. In the Liber Vitae close together are Cyniuulf and Alduulf, who are mentioned side by side by Simeon of Durham under 778; here is Brorda who died in 799; here, too, are Osberct, to whom Alcuin wrote in 793, and Torctmund, who is mentioned in Alcuin's letter to Charlemagne in 801. Many of Thompson's identifications are open to question; but he is certainly justified in saying: “ The evidence that, at the earliest, it could not have been written until quite the end of the eighth century is sufficiently strong both in the list of kings and ‘duces’ and in the list of abbots.” The investigations of Rudolf Müller among these names (Palœstra, ix) do not affect Thompson's conclusion, as his “Untersuchungen” have no historical significance.

page 241 note 2 Miss Bentinck-Smith (Cambridge History of Eng. Lit. i, 50) seems, however, to magnify our evidence unduly in saying: “In Northumbria the medial i became e, roughly speaking, about 800; in Mercia the transition was practically accomplished by 750. This fact lends color to the hypothesis of Wiilker that Cynewulf was a Mercian.”

page 241 note 3 Notice the varying forms of names on Old English coins from the same moneters (Keary, English Coins, ii, Anglo-Saxon Series, London, 1887, lxxxii-lxxxiii): Degemond, Dagemond, Daiemond; Ansiger, Ansicer, Ansier; Winiger, Winier; ÆÐelred, Æilred.

page 241 note 4 Compare Erlemann's refutation of such arguments, Herrig's Archiv, cxi, 1903, 63.

page 242 note 1 On this point note the eminently sensible remarks of Carleton Brown, Englische Studien, xxxviii, 221-222.

page 242 note 2 L. c.

page 242 note 3 Christ, p. Ixx.

page 242 note 4 Juliana, p. xv.

page 243 note 1 See infra.

page 243 note 2 Anglia xiii, 13.

page 243 note 3 Christ, p. lxviii.

page 243 note 4 Paul's Grundriss 2, ii, 1041.

page 243 note 5 Note Cynwlf, near Cynewlf, in a Kentish document relating to the adjudication of an estate at Dover and Folkstone and Liminge in 844 (Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, No. 445, n, 22).

page 243 note 6 Dictionary of Christian Biography, ii, 911.

page 243 note 7 Birch, C.S., No. 327, Kemble, C.D., No. 193.

page 243 note 8 Birch, C.S, No. 648 (ii, 326).

page 243 note 9 Grueber, English Coins, Anglo-Saxon Series, ii, 65, 100.

page 244 note 1 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 222.

page 244 note 2 Bonner Beiträge, (BB), xxiv, 123.

page 244 note 3 Kynewulf, Bonner Beiträge (BB), i, 71-73.

page 244 note 4 Die Sprache der Cynewulfischen Dichtungen, Christ, Juliana und Elene, Göttingen, 1887.

page 244 note 5 Ueber die Sprache und Mundart der Altenglischen Dichtungen, Andreas, GuÐlac, Phoenix, Kreuz und Hellenfahrt, Marburg, 1890.

page 244 note 6 Anglia, Bb. ix, 163, note.

page 245 note 1 Englische Studien, xxvi, 392.

page 245 note 2 Journal of Germanic Philology, iv, 97-103.

page 245 note 3 Riddles of the Exeter Book, p. Iviii.

page 246 note 1 Mürkens employs (Bonner Beiträge, ii, 87 f.) many of these illustrations to establish the Northern origin of the Exodus epic, with the same flagrant exclusion of strong alternative probabilities. Mürkens' argument that all forms which appear rarely in a text must have been in the original version lays a large premium upon the isolated and sporadic, and glorifies scribal vagaries; indeed, if pushed to an extreme, it would assign an Anglian origin to nearly all the works of Wessex.

page 246 note 2 Anglia, Bb, xi, 328-329.

page 246 note 3 I shall purposely avoid the citations of examples from prose-texts with so-called “Anglian coloring” like the “Life of Guthlac,” the “Epistle of Alexander,” the and Lācnunga, though the evidence that certain works of this class had their origin elsewhere than on Saxon ground is hardly convincing. Bülbring, Anglia, Bb, xi, 100-101, and Boll, BB, xv, 92 f, have shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Harleian Gloss 3376 (WW. 192 f.), which contains many words and forms usually regarded as Anglian, was written not indeed at Winchester, but in Saxon territory, probably on the borders of Kent.

page 246 note 4 Deutschbein, PBB, xxvi, 232, is certainly at fault in declaring that feola for fela is not known in strong WS., as it is found occasionally even in Alfred (Bülbring, § 234; twice in the Cura Pastoralis, Cosijn, § 19). Sievers, Gr. 8, 106, note 2, remarks that “a collateral form, feala, beside fela (feola), occurring also in prose seems to have formed its vowel on the analogy of fēawa, ‘few.‘”

page 247 note 1 See for the origin of the two forms, dīegol and dēagol, Sievers, Gr. 3 128, 3.

page 247 note 2 Leiding, p. 40, § 17, and Bauer, p. 49, § 17, point also to þēgon (Jul. 687, And. 25), gēfon (Christ 1354), gefrēge (And. 668, 963, 1121); but let us mark the presence of such “Anglian” forms as āgēfan, in the WS. Menology (81) and bēron, wēgon in the WS. Maldon (67, 98), if we may trust Hearne, and þēgon in the Judith (19), which poem, as I show elsewhere, is probably WS. too, though the form may be a reminiscence of the early poetry. And it is surely noteworthy that the form, gesegen, which is always hailed as an Anglian survival in the poems, appears as early as 870 or thereabouts in so Southern a document as the Codex Aureus Inscription (O.E.T., 175), emanating from the very duke, Ælfred, who is so closely identified with Surrey by the grant of his lands at Horsley, Clapham and Chertsey (Charters, No. 45, O.E.T., 451). It is true that gesāwon, gesewen are the invariable forms in the Metres, as in the WS. prose of their period; but it is equally true that both gefēgan (“exultant”) and gesegenne, (“conspicui”) are found in the Bede Glosses of 900 (O.E.T., 181), which Sweet and Bülbring (§ 21) assign to Kent. Though, in the literary prose, þēgon, sēgon, gefēgon are without doubt exclusively Anglian, our examples seem to suggest that they were current in the South at an earlier period.

page 250 note 1 Brandi is therefore unjustified (Grundriss 2 ii, 1060) in regarding as Anglian Mercna for Myrcna, Chronicle, A. 655, and gehwerfde, A. 601.

page 250 note 2 The danger that lies in conclusions reached without due weighing of evidence is strikingly illustrated by Brandl's inference (Grundriss 2, ii, 1077-1078) that the Battle of Brunanburh is Anglian, because in the Parker ms. (A) appear flēman, nēde, gelpan, giung, gesleht, hlehhan, where B.C.D. read , gylpan, geong, geslyht, hlihhan. As all these supposed “ Anglian ” forms are freely found in Kentish and Saxon works (for flēman, nēde, gelpan, see supra; for giung compare Metres 26 67,86; and for gesleht, hlehham, note Bülbring, § 179, Cosijn, § 14, p. 31), it is obvious that these are mere scribal variations from a West-Saxon norm. Other passages of the Brunanburh (notably ll. 12-13) show that the A. text of this poem is farther from the original than the versions of B.C.D.

page 251 note 1 Ignorance of the workings of “ palatal umlaut ” in Anglo-Saxon has led to unwarranted inferences in regard to the origin of the Judith.

page 253 note 1 See Krämer, BB, viii, 37.

page 253 note 2 Stephens, Runic Monuments, pp. 99-160, 829-832.

page 253 note 3 Eh is sanctioned in West-Saxon transmissions (cf. Rid. 2311).

page 253 note 4 See Jansen, BB, xxiv, 123.

page 253 note 5 Englische Studien, xxvi, 392.

page 253 note 6 Jour. Germ. Philology, iv, 102-103.

page 253 note 7 See Bosworth-Toller, pp. 257, 261.

page 254 note 1 The pronoun him in the next line (Juliana, 707) may well refer either to the plural runes or to the singular ewu, which is common gender (cf. Rid. 902, ewu = agnus).

page 255 note 1 See Grein, Sprachschatz, i, 266-267 for references to many similar passages. The lines in Christ and Satan (109 f), ic mōste * * gebīdan/hwœt më drihten god dēman wille, strongly oppose Trautmann's charge of dēman to dēma in Juliana, 707, hvœt him œfter ddum dēman wille.

page 255 note 2 PBB, x, 464-5.

page 255 note 3 Yet even here we must move with caution. The very line that Sievers employs (PBB. x, 474) to attest a Southern origin for Hymn ii (Gr.-W., Bibl. ii, 212), ond (ā) his willan wyrcÐ (ll. 6a, 11a) is found ond þœs milan wyrcÐ in the Salomon and Saturn (l. 500) which elsewhere admits only unsyncopated forms and which contains such supposedly Anglian words as gēna, ūstc, þœcele, strynd. On the other hand there is no warrant for denying a Southern origin to poems full of verbal syncope like the Menology and the Maldon, as do Imelmann and Crow in their respective editions.

page 256 note 1 This objection to this dialect test occurred to Ten Brink, (Beowulf, p. 213), and to Trautmann (Kynewulf, p. 70, Note); but, because it opposed the latter's argument, he relegated i+ to a footnote without pressing it to a conclusion inevitably fatal to Sievers' reasoning.

page 256 note 2 Cambridge Philological Society, 1899, pp. 250-253.

page 256 note 3 Anglia, ix, 620.

page 257 note 1 Grundriss 2, ii, 1054.

page 257 note 2 If the doctors thus disagree in their diagnosis of original texts, how dare they speak with positiveness of the embryos of forms in the very late transmissions of poems of this same period?

page 257 note 3 Dieter, Sprache und Mundart der ält. Engl. Denkmäler, §§ 48, 50, cited by Ten Brink and Trautmann.

page 257 note 4 So Brandi, Grundriss,2 ii, 1051. See Sievers, PBB, xii, 174 and Görnemann, Zur Sprache des Textus Roffensis, Berlin, 1901.

page 258 note 1 PBB, ix, 236.

page 258 note 2 Holthausen even goes to the length of introducing these forms into his text of the Elene passage.

page 258 note 3 hēnþe and knþe appear as variants in the Boethius, (Sedgefield's edition, p. 24, 5) and hnþum in the Cotton Psalm (82). See examples cited supra.

page 258 note 4 O. E. T. No. 34, l. 15; No. 45, ll, 17, 42, 50.

page 259 note 1 See Sweet, C. P. “Introduction,” p. xxii. He remarks: “The late miht hardly ever occurs in the Pastoral, but the form niht is well-established.”

page 259 note 2 See Chadwick, pp. 182-184; Bülbing, § 313.

page 259 note 3 O.E.T, No. 40, l. 2.

page 259 note 4 O. E. T. No. 41, l. 4, No. 42, l. 2.

page 259 note 5 See Brown, Die Sprache der Rushworth Glossen, pp. 24, 34, 78; Bülbring, Anglia, Bb ix, 71; x, 2-3, 6-7. Bülbring argues convincingly against his own earlier view that līht had come into the Anglian dialects from the WS.

page 260 note 1 This is attested by many instances in the early Chronicle (see Brandi, Grundriss,2 ii, 1060) and by isolated examples in Alfred's works (see Jordan, Eigenthümlichkeiten des anglischen Wortschatzes, p. 17). The history of the two forms, in and on is traced by Miller, “ Introduction ” to Bede's Eccl. Hist., p. xxvi, and by Deutschbein, PBB, xxvi, 172.

page 260 note 2 See Mather, M.L.N., ix, 154; Jordan, Id., pp. 46-48.

page 260 note 3 O.E.T. No. 34.

page 260 note 4 Birch, C.S., No. 510. I find in this charter no forms that are not either WS. or Kentish.

page 260 note 5 See Hart, M.L.N., vii, 122, Deutschbein, PBB, xxvi, 173.

page 261 note 1 See Jordan, Id., 12, 57, 62.

page 261 note 2 Cf. E. M. Thompson, Cat. of Ancient MSS. (Latin), ii, 81; Brandi, Grundriss,2 ii, 1002.

page 261 note 3 Sweet, O.E.T., p. 422.

page 262 note 1 See Riddies of Exeter Book, Nos. 36, 41.

page 262 note 2 See Brooke, History of Early English Literature, p. 230.

page 262 note 3 Anglia, xvii, 106-107.

page 262 note 4 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 223.

page 263 note 1 See my article, “ Cynewulfian Runes of the First Riddle,” M. L. N., Dec., 1910.

page 263 note 2 In the “ Introduction ” to my edition of the Riddles, pp. Ixxvii-lxxix, I have indicated many points of difference between Rid. 36 and 41, and the other poems of the collection.

page 263 note 3 See my “ Introduction,” p. lxxix, note.

page 263 note 4 It is true that geonge (222) which also appears, And. 1311 (geongan), and ehtuwe are found in tenth-century prose only in Northumbrian Gospels; but we have too little evidence for our earlier period to limit safely these forms to one dialect. The so-called Northern eÐÐa (4416) and þh (728) are known to Rushworth 1, which Brown and Bülbring class as Mercian, and bg (58) is common in the Charters and early Glosses (O.E.T., p. 615).

page 264 note 1 Certain Southern forms have the support of runes (see p. lviii).

page 264 note 2 Pp. lxi-lxxv.

page 264 note 3 Little importance can be attached to the argument of Imelmann (Die Altenglische Odoaker-Dichtung, 1907, pp. 14, 17) that the gedēdon demanded by the metre (MS. gedydon) in the namepoem, Rid. 124 is exclusively Northumbrian (see also Sievers, PBB. x, 498), since we meet the form, dēdon both in the West-Saxon Cura Pastoralis (where Sievers' Grammar 3, 429, note 1, explains it as a Kenticism) and in the Mercian Martyrology. The form, ddon is so common in the older poetry (Genesis A and Paris Psalter) that it seems better to regard its appearance in the late Genesis B 722, þt hīe tō mete ddon, as a survival than as an Old Saxon form. Sweet is doubtless right (“Introduction” to Cura Pastoralis, p. xxvii) in regarding dēdon as the oldest form of the word in all English dialects (cf. O.S. dādun, O.H.G., tātun).

page 265 note 1 Early English Literature, p. 372.

page 265 note 2 See the various parallels indicated in my “ Notes ” to Riddles 3, 4.

page 265 note 3 Metres 273 īscalde s (cf. Seafarer, 14, īscealdne s); 64 hīo on staÐu bēateÐ (see my note to Rid. 36, strēamas staþu bēataÐ).

page 265 note 4 It is interesting to mark in this connection the “ Northern coloring ” of the fourteenth-century alliterative poems of the West Midland district (see Osgood, Pearl, 1906, p. xx).

page 265 note 5 Note my discussion (supra) of Cynewulf's knowledge of “ islands in the fens.” Does it follow that he lived in East Anglia?

page 266 note 1 Contemptuous disregard of “ literary arguments ” often reacts violently upon champions of a dozen linguistic inconsistencies. On purely aesthetic grounds Brooke and Wülker maintained against the whole philological camp the Cynewulfian authorship of many of the Riddles, both groups of which are now seen to bear the poet's endorsement.

page 266 note 2 M. L. N., xxv, 241.

page 266 note 3 BB, i, 27-29, 120-122.

page 266 note 4 Trautmann, of course, alters these verses to fit his canon.

page 266 note 5 Richter, Chronologische Studien zur Angelsächsischen Literatur, Halle, 1910, pp. 41-42.

page 267 note 1 Fulton, M. L. N., xi, 162, Schlotterose, BB. xxv, 92.

page 268 note 1 See Grein, Sprachschatz, i, 335.

page 268 note 2 See Rid. 33°, on ānum fēt; Rid. 3217 on fōte; 326 fēt (nom.) and folme.

page 268 note 3 BB., i, 118.

page 268 note 4 Anglia, xviii, 387; see Schmitz, Id., xxxiii, 216.

page 269 note 1 Christ iii, which Cook ascribes to Cynewulf, is 'assigned by Trautmann (BB. i, 122) and Richter (Chronologische Studien, p. 94) to an earlier period, and by Brandi (Grundriss 2, ii, 1049) to a decidedly later time. Binz (Anglia, Bb, xxii, 80, March, 1911) puts it close to Genesis B. The uncertainties of Old English literary history suggest “ the wavering vistas of a dream.”

page 269 note 2 Trautmann confidently informs us (BB., i, 116-117) that all un-Cynewulfian verses in the Andreas are obviously false transmissions; and then takes up the pruning-knife. So the work goes on.

page 269 note 3 See Brooke, E. E. Lit., p. 375.

page 269 note 4 Dümmler, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, i, 582-604.

page 270 note 1 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 156.

page 270 note 2 The priority of the religious epic over the secular one has received strong support from Sarrazin in the article cited, from Richter, Chronologische Studien, 1910, and from Klaeber, Englische Studien, xli, 321 f.

page 271 note 1 Richter is surely guilty of a “ suppressio veri,” when he conceals (p. 58) the existence of unquestionably long stems in the Psalter, because they conflict with his theory of a late origin of the work. The results of such investigations should be carefully checked.

page 271 note 2 See Richter, pp. 68-70. There is nothing to support Trautmann's assertion that the South was more tenacious of old forms than the North.

page 271 note 3 The small value of such arguments is amply indicated by a comparison of the Epinal Gloss of about 730 with the far younger Corpus. In the use of words in el, ol, en, or we should argue a priori that the earlier Gloss would show a large preponderance of monosyllabic forms and the later of dissyllabic. But such is certainly not the case. I mark in Epinal, hœsil (twice), segil, sigil (twice), palester, regen, hrīsil, rōÐr, lebil near Corpus hœsl (twice), segl, sigl (twice), plastr, regn, hrīsl, roÐr, lebl. On the other hand Epinal reads spaldr, scalfr, sefr, tetr, gœpl, ofr, and Corpus, spaldur, sealfur, cefer, teter, gœpel, ofer. Evidently the secondary vowel was well developed by the time of Epinal (see Sarrazin, Eng. Stud., xxxvin, 174).

page 272 note 1 Sweet, O.E.T, pp. 183 f.

page 272 note 2 Waring, it is true, in the “Introduction” to Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels (Surtees Society, Pt. iv, 1865), p. crx, assigned these glosses to “ the country immediately south of the Humber,” but, for a time, scholars wrongly thought that they were Kentish (Sweet, Transactions of Philological Society, 1875-6, p. 555), and later opinion seems to assign them to “the Southeastern borderlands of Mercia.” (Brandi, Grundriss,2 ii, 1054). Sir E. M. Thompson (Catalogue of Ancient MSS. ii, 10) points out that “the interlinear gloss throughout is in a minute pointed minuscule hand of the latter half of the ninth century.” Any comparison between Cynewulf and these glosses could therefore only prove at best, that he wrote before 850.

page 273 note 1 Moreover, Von der Warth has pointed out (Metrisch-Sprachliches, Halle, 1908, pp. 7-11) that Cynewulf himself admits such accusatives as fulwihte (El. 172) and wiste (And. 312).

page 273 note 2 Cf. Sarrazin himself, PBB, ix, 366; Sievers, Grammar,3 § 296, note.

page 273 note 3 Sprachschatz, i, 263; ii, 633; BB, i, 83.

page 273 note 4 Cf. Bede, Eccl. Hist, 386, 13; Epistola Alexandri (Anglia iv, 139), 550, 554, 606, ūsic.

page 274 note 1 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 145. Compare my protest against Barnouw's invalid claims, Riddles, pp. lxxvii-lxxviii.

page 274 note 2 Barnouw, Textkritische Untersuchungen, Leiden, 1902.

page 275 note 1 BB, i, 92.

page 275 note 2 Trautmann, BB, i, 120, would make dehnverse evidence for an early period. Cynewulf uses 15:100, the Metres 8 or 9. This is merely a personal preference. Note that, in the case of schwellverse, the poets of the Rood and of Judith, two hundred years apart, use about the same number.

page 276 note 1 Brandi, Grundriss,2 ii, 1077, regards the author of the Brunanburh as unsure in Ms metre, because he puts the alliteration upon a simple preposition (67b, beforan þyssum), and gives a verb precedence over a substantive (68b, þœs þe ūs secgeaÐ bëc) The critic is certainly unaware that beforan is equally important in Andreas, 571, 619, and that the second phrase is constantly recurring in the older poetry (Genesis, 227, 1723, Hymns, 720; cf. Gen. 969, Guthlac, 850), from which Æthelstan's singer drew.

page 276 note 2 Miss Bartlett's dissertation, pp. 41-49; Brandi, p. 1094; Richter, Chronologische Studien, p. 97.

page 276 note 3 BB, i, 88-115.

page 276 note 4 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 225-233.

page 277 note 1 His Riddles do not tell against his priesthood, since all the enigmas of this period came from churchmen, Aldhelm, Boniface, Tatwine, Eusebius.

page 277 note 2 Christ, pp. Ixxiii-lxxiv.

page 277 note 3 Englische Studien, xxxviii, 196-233.

page 278 note 1 Trautmann, BB, i, 94.