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but many additions were afterwards made to these ancient verses. Names of men much earlier and later than the fifth century were foisted in by later editors of the poem. The real interest of the verses is not in these questionable matters, but in the proud and pleasant account Widsith gives of himself as a wandering minstrel, and of the honour and gifts lavished on poets. We see him at the court of Eormanric, singing his mistress Ealdhild's praises over all lands. We hear him and his mate Scilling singing in the hall while all the lords are listening. He tells of the fighting with the Huns in the Wistla woods, and he ends by an outburst of pleasure in his art and in the honour it receives from all who care for a noble fame.

The Scôp (that is, the Shaper, the Poet), in the Complaint of Deor, is not so happy as Widsith. He is no rover, but lives with his lord, and has from him lands and wealth. But his rival, Heorrenda, supplants him, and this song is written to console his heart. Others, Weland, Hild, Gëat, Theodoric, suffered dreadful pain. This he overwent, so also will I,' is the refrain of each verse. The allusions to the sagas of Theodoric and Gudrun and Eormanric prove that the English knew, as Waldhere also proves, the Germanic cycle of stories. None of the examples are Christian, but the poem suffers from a Christian interpolation. It is a true lyric, with a 'refrain' at the end of each verse, and this is unique in Old English poetry.

The two fraginents of the poem of Waldhere, found by Werlauff at Copenhagen, are made from the original German seventh-century form of the poem. The Christian and chivalric elements of the later forms are entirely absent in the verses we possess. Waldhere flies with his love Hildeguthe from the Huns, and is She enpursued by Guthere and Hagena. courages him to fight against twelve warriors in our first fragment; the second is part of the dialogue between Guthere and Waldhere.

The few lines we have of the Fight at Finnsburg belong to an older cycle of saga than that of Theodoric. There is another portion of this Finn-saga in Beowulf, and the story there told either precedes or continues our fragment. It is sung by the Scôp at the feast in Heorot, Hrothgar's hall. Finn, king of the North Frisians, has married Hildeburh, sister of Hnæf. He invites Hnæf and his comrade Hengest, with sixty men, meaning to slay them.

The verses describe the attack and defence of the hall. It is a fierce, impassioned piece of war-poetry. The related passage in Beowulf describes the burning of Hildeburh's sons on the pyre, and her bitter mourning for them, and the vengeance taken on Finn.

These are our heathen fragments, all of them so infiltrated with Teutonic saga that we believe that the English, when they came to our land, possessed and sang the great stories of their Continental brethren. Of other stories, both mythical and heroic, we have remains scattered through Beowulf-the myth of Scyld; the story of Heremod; the story of Thrytho, which belongs to the ancient saga of Offa'; the story of Ingeld and Froda and Freaware, which was the origin of a whole circle of tales; and, oldest of all, the story of Sigmund, which afterwards was developed into the great VolsungaSaga in the north, and in Germany into the Nibelungen Lied.

Beowulf.

We have one great saga of our own-the Saga of Beowulf. The poem of Beowulf, as we possess it, was probably composed into its present form in the eighth century in England, we do not know by whom; and received, either then or afterwards when it was put into the West Saxon dialect, the addition, but in moderation, of certain . Christian elements. The story is, however, honestly heathen, and its original lays arose on the Continent among he English. They came to our England with the Angles, were developed in Northumbria and Mercia, and may have reached full saga proportions in the seventh century. In the eighth (though some make it later) one poet took up all the scattered forms of it, wrought them into a whole, gave them an ethical unity in the character of Beowulf, the ideal hero and king, and filled the complete poem with his own personality.

Beowulf seems to have been an historical personage of the sixth century, a Geät, and nephew of Hygelac, who is the Chochilaicus whom Gregory of Tours mentions as raiding the Frisian shore, and slain by its defenders. Beowulf was present at the battle, and avenged his lord's death. Hygelac died in 520. Beowulf placed Hygelac's son on the throne, and after his death reigned fifty years. This brings the historic Beowulf up to about 570. But this historic personage has not much to do with the poem. Its main story (with folk-lore admixtures from earlier and savage times) is the transference to the hero of the mythical deeds of Beowa, who is one of the presentations of the Sun and the Summer, and whose fight with the Winter and the Darkness, with the frost-giants, the destroying sea and the poisonous mist of the moorland, imaged in the poem by the monster

Grendel and the Dragon, was sung in the ancient England over the sea. The destruction of Grendel and his dam by Beowulf is said to be the destruction of the winter powers of the sea-coast as

The

they attack one of the Danish settlements which
felt alike the charging of the icy sea and the
deadly cold and venom of the fenland.
story of Beowulf overcoming in his last fight the
Dragon is probably the story
of the aging Summer contend-
ing with the powers of incoming
Winter, who attempts to grasp
the treasures of the harvest.
The Summer God saves the
golden hoard, but dies in the
struggle. These myths are em-
bodied in the story of Beowulf,
and through them his person-
ality is built up by the poet.
He becomes the English and
North-Germanic ideal of a king,
and the ideal is historic. The
manners and customs both in
war and peace, the picture of
the young men sailing on ad-
venture, the town with its hall
and meadows and garths, the
etiquette and feast of the hall,
the daily doings of the settle-
ment from morn to night, the
position of women, the home-
life, the temper of mind, the
thoughts and feelings of our
forefathers, are all portrayed in
this poem, and there are few
historical records so vivid and
so interesting. It is the book
of our beginnings. It is also a
great sea-tale, fit for the origin
of the poetry of the mistress
of the seas.

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Reduced facsimile of a page of the Beowulf MS. written about A.D. 1000, amongst the Cotton MSS. of the British Museum. Transcription and translation are given below.1

1 Geata ær he on bed stige no ic me an
here waesmun hnagran talige guth ge
weorca thonne grendel hine for than ic
hine sweorde swebban nelle aldre beneo

tan theah ic eal mage nát he thara goda
that he me ongean slea rand geheawe theah
the he rof sie nith geweorca ac wit on niht
sculon secge ofer sittan gif het ge

secean dear. wig ofer wapen ond siththan witig
god on swa hwæthere hond halig dryhten mær
tho deme swa him gemet thince. hylde

[Continued at foot of page 7.

Beowulf hears that Hrothgar is harried by a monster, Grendel, who haunts Heorot, the hall of the folk, and devours Hrothgar's thanes. The distressful tale thrills the hero with pity, and he sets sail to help the Danish chief. Arriving, he is told of Grendel, the man-beast of some folk-tale, the creature of the mist and the stormy sea, strong as thirty men, lonely and dreadful, greedy of blood, hating all joy, who tears and eats his

Then the good (warrior), Beowulf the Geat,
Spake boasting words ere he went to his bed;
'Not myself do I reckon, in mightiness of warfare,
in deeds of the war, any worse than Grendel.
So him, with the sword, I will not put to sleep,

deprive him (thus) of life, though I well can do it.

Knows he not the good (war-) way-that he may strike me back,

hew upon the shield,-though he may be strong

in the works of warfare. But we two must at night

refrain from the sword, if he dare to seek

war without weapons; and then the wise God
the holy Lord, afterwards, the glory may award,
on what hand soever meet may seem to him.'

victims. Beowulf and his men sleep in the hall, and Grendel, stalking over the misty moors, strikes in the doors, and rends one of Beowulf's men, but meets at last the grip of the hero. In the fierce wrestle Grendel's arm is torn away, and the monster flies through the night to die. Next morning all is happiness at Heorot; the feast is held and gifts are given; but at night Grendel's dam comes to avenge her son, and Hrothgar's best battle-man is torn in pieces by the wolfwoman of the sea.

This is the re-creation in a later form of the original myth-a separate and later lay. It is now woven into the poem by the single writer of the whole. Grendel's dam is a sea-monster, and lives in a sea-cave; her hands are armed with claws; her blood eats like fire; she is even more savage than her son. The place where she dwells among the cliffs, in a gorge where the black waters welter furiously, is as savage as her nature; and the description of it is the first of those natural descriptions of wild scenery of which our modern English poetry is so full. Beowulf plunges into the sea, rises with the monster who has seized him into her cave, slays her with a magic sword, and returns triumphant with Grendel's head to Hrothgar, who sends him home to Hygelac laden with gifts and honour. This closes the first part of the poem. The second part opens some fifty years after, when Beowulf is an old man. He has been long king of the country, and his people love him. A Dragon, angry that his hoard is robbed, flies forth to burn and ravage; and Beowulf arms to fight his last fight and to win the treasure for his folk. Only one of his thanes comes to help him, and in the battle he is wounded to the death. The Dragon is slain, the treasure is won, and the hero burned on a lofty pyre overlooking the sea.

The poem, many full accounts and translations of which have been set forth, runs to 3183 lines, and its manuscript is in the Cottonian Library in the British Museum. It has been said to be an epic, but it is more justly a narrative poem. It has neither the unity, the weight, the continuity, nor the mighty fates of an epic. Nevertheless it reaches a spiritual unity from the consistency of the hero's character developed from daring youth to wise and self-sacrificing age. It reaches even excellence in the clearness with which its portraits are drawn and its natural scenery represented. Our power of natural description in poetry begins with Beowulf. The verse has a fine ring in it; the tale, if we forget the bardic repetitions, is

Continued from foot of page 6.]

hine tha heatho deor hleor bolster on
feng eorles andwlitan and hine ymb monïg
snellic sá rinc sele reste gebeah. nænig
heora thohte that he thanon scolde eft eard
lufan æfre gesecean folc oththe freo burh
thaer he afeded was. ac he hæfdon gefrunen
that he ær to fela micles in them win sele
wal death fornam denigea leode ac him
drihten forgeaf wig speda gewiofu

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Beowulf and Breca at Sea.

When we swam on the Sound, our sword was laid bare,
Hard-edged in our hands; and against the Hron-fishes
We meant to defend us; nor might Breca from me
Far o'er the flood-waves at all float away,
Smarter on ocean; nor would I from him.—
There we two together were tossed on the sea,
Five nights in all, till the flood apart drove us :
Swoln were the surges, of storms 'twas the coldest,
Wan waned the night, and the wind from the north,
Battling-grim, blew on us; rough were the billows.
Then, eastward, came light,

Bright beacon of God; the billows grew still.
And now I could see the sea-headlands shine,
The wind-swept rock-walls. Wyrd often delivers
An Earl yet undoomed if his daring avail.

Half-Heathen Poetry.

Elegies and Riddles.

When the lays of Beowulf were made into a poem Christianity had been long established in England. It had come with Augustine in 597. Its last conquest was the Isle of Wight in 686. It took, therefore, ninety years to Christianise England. During that interval, and indeed for a long time afterwards, a semi-heathenism prevailed.

Then lay down the war-brave, his cheek pressed the bolster, the face of the earl; and round about him many

a sea-hero ready bent to his hall-rest.

None of them thought, there, that thence should he after, evermore again, seek his home beloved,

(his) folk or (his) free burg, where he had been fostered. But they had been hearing that by far too many erewhile in that wine-hall, slaughter-death had taken from the Danish folk. But to them the Lord gave weaving of war-victory.

(Beowulf, II. 676–698.)

Even in Cnut's reign we find the laws forbidding the worship of heathen gods by the farmers and labourers; and it is more than probable that the greater number of the warriors, bards, and chiefs of the seventh and eighth centuries were only Christian in name, and followed their heathen ways of thinking, feeling, and fighting. The poetry composed by the bards in a chief's following and by the wandering minstrels, outside of the monastic influence, was not likely to be influenced to any depth by Christianity. There are a few examples of such poetry in the Exeter Book, and five of them are of great interest-the Ruined Burg, the Wanderer, the Seafarer, the Wifes Complaint, and the Husband's Message. Along with these we may place a number of the Riddles, written, it is supposed, by Cynewulf when he was a wild young poet at some noble's court, and which treat of natural phenomena, of war and armour, of the feast and the hall of the folk, of daily life in the settlements, of hunting and cattle, of forest and fish and bird.

The first five poems mentioned above may fairly be called elegiac. They are full of regret for the glory of the past and the sadness of the present, and though we have no means of dating them, I should be inclined to place them in the first quarter of the eighth century. They are devoid of Christian sentiment and doctrine. The prologue and epilogue of the Wanderer, and the long tag added to the Seafarer, are Christian, but these are additions quite out of harmony with the body of the poems. Where they were written is also unknown. Some allot them to the south of England and to the ninth century, others to Mercia. I believe them to be Northumbrian, and to belong to the beginning of the eighth century. Their scenery is northern, their temper is northern; and even the Ruined Burg, which mourns in solemn verse the vanished glory of a desolate city, and is probably a description of the ruins of Bath may have been written by a Mercian poet educated in the Northumbrian schools. Their most remarkable quality, independent of their heathen dwelling on Fate rather than on the will of God, is their love of Nature--and this too has a heathen tinge. They scarcely touch those softer aspects of the earth and sea and sky which poetry distinctly Christian loved to describe. They dwell on the tempest and the fury of the waves, on the hail lashing the broken fortress, on the thunder of the ice and the deathfulness of the snow, on the black caves in the forest and the cliffs white with the frost. There are half-a-dozen of the Riddles concerned with the terrible play of Nature in the northern seas, in the storm-wearied sky, and in the wild marsh and forest land. Our Naturepoetry of the nineteenth century is a reversion to this early English temper, and poetry of this kind in the eighth or the ninth century is unique in Teutonic literature of that time. Poetry of natural description is to be found also in Welsh and Irish

song, and it is probable that the writing of it in England is to be traced to the influence on Northumbria and Mercia of the Celtic poets. But I also believe-and the fact that the form of the English Nature-poetry of this time is finer than any Celtic work of the kind may be due to this -that these northern poets were well acquainted with Virgil; moreover, neither in Irish nor Welsh poetry of this period are there poems, such as the three Riddles on the storms, which treat of Nature alone, of Nature for her own sake. One of these is placed among the extracts. The finest of them is a long poem upon the Hurricane, impersonated as a giant rising from his prison under the earth to work his terrors on land and sea and in the sky; and in each of these realms it is described with so much force, fire, and imagination that we know the poet had watched from point to point the actual thing.

Of the Elegies the Wanderer is the best, but the Seafarer is the most interesting. The Wanderer describes the mournful fates of men, the ruin of great towns and earls, friendships lost, departed glory, the winter night and snow settling on the world and on the heart of man. The Seafarer is perhaps a dramatic dialogue between an old and a young sailor, each telling of their terrible days at sea, yet each confessing the wild fascination of a sailor's life. The Husband's Message, or rather the Lover's Message, calls, in exile, on the sweetheart of the writer to join him in the foreign land where he waits for her: 'Come in the spring, when the cuckoo calls from the cliff.' The Wife's Complaint tells of her banishment by false tongues from her lord, and mourns her fate from the cave in the wood where she dwells, but mourns the most because she knows he loves her still, and suffers from want of her tenderness. These two last poems are the only poems in Old English which touch upon the passion and subtlety of human love. There may have been many more, but all the poetry of which we have to speak in the next section was written under the shadow of the monasteries, and the subject of love is absent.

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The Iceberg-Riddle xxxiv.

Came a wondrous wight o'er the waves a-faring,
Comely from his keel called he to the land.
Loudly did he shout, and his laughter dreadful was,
Full of terror to the Earth! Sharp the edges of his
swords,

Grim was then his hate. He was greedy for the slaughter,

Bitter in the battle work; broke into the shield-walls, Rough and ravaging his way; and a rune of hate he bound.

Then, all-skilled in craft, he said, about himself, his

nature

"Of the maiden kin is my mother known;

Of them all the dearest, so that now my daughter is Waxen up to mightiness.'

Cædmon and the Christian Poetry. The distinctive Christian poetry begins before the date of the Elegies and the Nature-Riddles in the seventh century, with Cadmon of Whitby. He is the first English poet whose name we know, and it

stands at the head of the long and glorious musterroll of English singers. We have worn Apollo's laurel for 1200 years. Cadmon began to make

verse, we may fairly say, between 660 and 670. We know the date of his death-680; and we are told that he was somewhat advanced in years when the gift of song came upon him. We first find him as a secular attendant of the monastery of Hild, an abbess of royal blood, who had set up her house of God on the lofty cliff which rises above the little harbour where the Esk meets the gray waters of the German Ocean. Whitby is its Danish name; in the days of Bæda it was called Streoneshalh. Cadmon was born a heathen if he was English; but if, as some think from his name, he was a Celt, he was born a Christian. The monastery in which he afterwards became a monk was founded on the Celtic pattern-one of the children of Iona-and he was early imbued with the Celtic spirit. Existing Celtic hymns, such as Colman's, may have been placed before him by the Irish monks as models for his poetry. But, for all this, his tongue was English and his poems were made in English. Whatever the Irish spirit did for him, the ground of his work was English.

Bæda tells the story of Cædmon's birth as a poet. One night, having the care of the cattle, he fell asleep in the stable, and One came to him and said, 'Cædmon, sing me something.' 'I know not how to sing,' he replied, ' and for this cause left I the feast.' 'Yet,' said the divine visitant, you must sing to me.' 'What shall I sing?' said Cædmon. 'Sing,' the other replied, 'the beginning of created things. And immediately Cadmon began a hymn in praise of the World's Upbuilder, and awakening, remembered what he had sung, and told the TownReeve of his gift, who brought him to Hild; and, becoming a monk, he continued in the abbey till he died with joy and in peace, singing, day by day, all the Scripture history, and of the Judgment-day. Others after him,' said Bæda, ‘tried to make religious poems, but none could compare with him.'

His poetry had then made a school which was doing similar work to his when Bæda, fifty years after Cadmon's death, was finishing his Ecclesiastical History. Of what kind that work was we have no certain knowledge. The poems attributed to Cædmon by Junius in the manuscript called the Junian Cadmon have been assigned by critics to different writers. Only one of them-Genesis A-is thought by a few to be possibly from his hand. If so, he wrote the thing in two distinct manners- partly in a mere paraphrase of the Biblical story, dull, unilluminated by any imagination; and partly in imaginative episodes, in which the Fall of the rebel angels, the Flood, the battles of Abraham, and the story of Hagar and of Isaac are imaginatively treated as heroic tales, in the manner of a heathen saga, and with English feeling. It is

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