yelled the fowls of war, hoarsely barked the raven, o'er the fallen corpses; Swart that chooser of the slain ! Sang aloud the wolves hoping for the carrion. cruelly they threaten; At the eve their horrid song, all the midnight through, hideous slaughter 2 of the host. Exodus, ll. 161–168. Then we see them while the battle is raging. This is the description in Genesis of the fight between Abraham and the Elamites Loud were then the lances, So they rushed together— Sadly sang the wan fowl, Hastened then the heroes, mickle cry of war! Interchanging of death-darts, Genesis, 1. 1982. Again we meet these beasts when the Hebrews go forth from Bethulia at the call of Judith. "The warriors hurried, heroes under helm, and bore the banner of victory forth at the breaking of the day. Sounded then the shields, starkly clanging-" In the wood the wolf; Slaughter-greedy fowl! Then rejoiced the gaunt beast, and the raven wan, Surely well they knew That the war thegns of the folk thought to win for them Hungry for his fodder, all his feathers dropping dew; Sallow was his garment, Horney-nebbed he was. and he sang a battle lay; Judith, 1. 205. We meet them also on the march and in the battle in Cynewulf's Elene, when Constantine fights with the Huns. Forth then fared the folk troop, and a fighting lay Sang the Wolf in woodland, Dewy-feathered, wailed a slaughter-rune ! 3 on the foes' track, Elene, 11. 27-30. Raised the Earn his song. 1 Carleasan is "without care or sorrow, reckless." I have ventured to make cear stand for "pity." 2 I have repeated fyll in the translation. 3 Waelrune ne mad; literally, "hid not the slaughter-rune." The slaughterrune was the howling of the wolves. Loud upsang the Raven Strode along the war host; Swart, and slaughter-fell. Elene, 11. 52-56. At last the battle is joined, and Cynewulf is all pagan in his description Sang the trumpets Loud before the war hosts; Ranger of the holt! loved the work the raven: looked upon the march; Song the wolf uplifted, Rose the Terror of the battle!2 There was rush of shields together, crush of men together, Sent the showers of arrows, spears above the yellow shields; 4 Through the surge of furious foes, by the strength of fingers! victory's song was sung. Elene, 1. 109. One more example shows the birds of war gorged with carcases after the battle. Abraham in the Genesis vowing to the King of Sodom that he will not take scat or shilling from him, 1 Holtes gehle da — “comrade, indweller, of the holt." 2 This phrase is like the picture of Terror and Strife and Rout in the 4th book of the Iliad. 3 I repeat ford onsendan in the translation. 4 Stundum is "at times," hence "eagerly." I have combined both meanings in stroke after stroke. 5 I have put his in, because I think Cynewulf meant the Emperor's spears and helm. 6 Nor does Cynewulf leave them there. The Huns are driven in flight to their camp, but are beaten from it. "Some, half alive, guarded their lives in the rocky cliffs, some Drowning" (like an evil witch), "seized on in the river stream. I have wondered as I read the description whether the poet may not have remembered, as he wrote, the fight where Penda fell, and the flooded waters of the river that swept away the Mercians and their king. "Then," he continues, "was the host of the brave-hearted rejoiced; they chased the stranger from break of day till evening fell. The snakes of battle, the ashen darts, flew after them. Few of the host of the Huns came back to their home. There it was seen that the King Almighty gave victory to Constantine, magnificence and dominion through His rood-tree." These are lines that may well resemble those sung after the fight of Winwaed by the bard of Oswiu. Did Cynewulf, more than a century afterwards, enshrine, under the victory of Constantine the victory of Oswiu; under the tale of the swollen Danube, the drowning of the host of Penda? save that part which Aner and Mamre and Eschol have fairly won in the brunt of ashen spears, tells him that he need no longer disquiet himself concerning the Northmen. For the birds of carrion, All along the mountain ledges, sitting blood bedropt, The picture of the vultures, thus sitting, dripping blood, on the ledges of the cliffs travels beyond the conventional description, of which we find another example in a war-song written when poetry had decayed, but which has attained a high reputation because it happens to be one of the few pieces of Anglo-Saxon poetry known to the Englishmen. "Under the precipices of the mountain" is, of course, on the ledges at the bases of the cliffs; wael is often the battle-field strewn with corpses, the whole slaughter of the fight; and "crammed and glutted" is to express the repetition of picce gefylled." CHAPTER IX THE SETTLEMENT IN POETRY WHEN, after the year 613, the Conquest was practically complete, the English had settled down over all the open country into an agricultural life, family by family, kinsfolk by kinsfolk, collected into hamlets round the heads of their houses. They hedged and ditched their villages, built their farm-steads, each with its garth and outhouses, laid out the arable land and the meadow outside the hedge, organised their village government, and established the places where the folk met for religious worship and for council. As to the RomanBritish cities which they had sacked and burned, these remained in ruins, to be haunted by the owl and the fox. A long time passed by before this agricultural people cared to live in towns. They were like the Douglas; they liked better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak. There was no further war with the Welsh, except upon the marches of the north, west and south, or when a Welsh king like Cadwallon united his forces with a king like Penda against another English king. The wars which were now waged by the English were those of English king with English king for over-lordship. Even amidst these wars agriculture went steadily on, and the arts of peace were developed in home and village life. The English forged the ploughshare rather than the sword. They built weirs, and fished, and set up water-mills by the rivers. Boat-building, brewing, leather-tanning, pottery, dyeing, weaving, the working of gold and silver, and embroidery, grew and soon began to flourish. The days of merchandise succeeded the days of piracy and plunder; life became gentler, nearer in spirit to the homes of England as we now conceive them. The main struggle was closed. 1 Mills.- Corn was usually ground by the women in stone querns, but we find water-mills in a problematical charter of 838 (Ecgberht). "Et unam molinam in torrente qui dicitur holan beorges burna."- Earle's Charters, p. 288. There are many records in Anglo-Saxon poetry which have to do with this daily life of the people-life inland, life on the seaboard, life on the sea, customs and manners, implements, hunting, tilling, and war. Of war and arms I have already written. This chapter and that which follows it are intended to bring forward such of these records as have a literary interest of their own, and will at the same time illustrate the English settlement as well as the English life on the sea. Most of them belong to a time when Christianity had been thoroughly established, but the manner of life and the matters mentioned in them were much the same in the sixth and seventh as in the eighth and ninth century. The fresh gentleness which Christianity added scarcely touches the things which are here discussed. Being thus independent of date, it is more convenient to bring these records together under such a title as The settlement of the English, in poetry. These records are found in short poems, such as the Riddles of Cynewulf, and in scattered lines in the midst of longer poems. To turn aside and notice them in the midst of the general history of literature would confuse the main narration. To omit them, on the other hand, would be to leave out some striking pieces of early English poetry. But I hope my readers will understand that these chapters are not intended to be a treatise on the Settlement, or an attempt to discuss all that pertains to the manners and customs of the English. Such a treatise belongs to the historian and the antiquarian, and has been admirably done by others. My object is to set in this framework the descriptions of the early English life, of its habits and way of thinking which are to be found in the poetry of Northumbria, and I shall not travel beyond this aim. I say the poetry of Northumbria, because I believe it was in that part of England that poets chiefly wrote; and the scenery, the manners, the spirit of the people described in such records as the Riddles, belong rather to the Angles than to the Jutes or Saxons. Inland, then, in the seventh century, the Angles were settled along the rivers, on the plains overlooked by moor and down, by the sea, and among the fens. Their hamlets rose on the site of the Roman villas, on either side of the Roman roads, wherever the Romans had drained the marshes, in every fertile vale or plain where the provincials had cultivated the land. The masses of forest country, the moors and mountains were left unoccupied by this agricultural people and were haunted by giant and elf and monster. But when |