THE MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY UP TO THE ACCESSION OF ELFRED THE GREAT The Exeter Book formed part of the library which Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, collected and left to his cathedral church. He catalogued it himself as a Mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht: "A mickle English book on all kinds of things wrought in verse." It is still kept in Exeter Cathedral, and has been there, since Leofric died in 1071, for 821 years. It is a varied anthology, and contains poems which range from the eighth to the tenth or eleventh century. One or two may belong to the seventh century, and some may be of even higher antiquity. Widsith, for example, may contain verses which were made in the old Angle land over the seas. Of the poems mentioned in these volumes, it holds, and I give them in the order they are in the Book: The Christ, Guthlac, Azarias, The Phoenix, Juliana, The Wanderer, Gifts of Men, The Seafarer, Widsith, Fates of Men, Gnomic Verses, The Panther, Whale and Partridge, The Soul to its Body, Deor, Riddles 1-60, The Wife's Complaint, The Descent into Hell, Riddle 61, The Message of a Lover, The Ruin, Riddles 62-89. Others, either of little value or later than the eighth century, are also contained in it. The Vercelli Book was discovered in the capitular library at Vercelli in Upper Italy by Dr. Blum in the year 1832. No one knows how it got there, but Wülker conjectures that a Hospice existed in that town for Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who went on pilgrimage to Rome, and who crossed by the Mont Cenis or the Great or Little St. Bernard Passes. A scanty library may have grown up there, and this manuscript have been left to it by some English voyager. The book is a volume of Anglo-Saxon homilies, but interspersed among them are six poems - The Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, The Address of the Soul to the Body, The Dream of the Rood, The Elene. The last is a fragment on the Falsehood of Men. The handwriting is of the eleventh century. The Manuscript of Beowulf is in the British Museum (Cotton Vitellius A. xv.), and the same MS. contains the poem of Judith. The Junian Manuscript, of the Caedmonian poems. - It contains Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan, and is in the Bodleian. Two fragments. (i.) The Fight at Finnsburg. It only exists in a copy of it made by Hickes from a leaf of parchment used in the binding of a manuscript of homilies. This leaf, found in Lambeth Palace Library, is now lost. (ii.) Two vellum leaves found by Professor Werlauff in the National Library at Copenhagen contain two fragments of a poem to which the name of Waldhere has been given. CHAPTER I WIDSITH, DEOR, AND THE SCOP "WIDSITH told his tale, unlocked his word-hoard," is the beginning of the earliest poem we possess in the English tongue. Widsith—that is, "the Far-Traveller"— may be the actual name of the writer, or a name which as a wandering poet he assumed; or, as it occurs only in the introduction, which was probably written much later than the body of the poem, it may be a title given to the poet by the writer of the introduction, and this seems the best explanation of the term. The suggestion that it is another name for Woden, and that Widsith is therefore a mythological person, does not seem to have sufficient ground for its adoption. He is rather the "poetic representative of the singer" who loved to wander from court to court and land to land; and his name, whether assumed by himself or given to him by an after-writer, expresses this very well. The poem begins with an introduction of nine lines. This is followed by a catalogue, from the tenth to the seventy-fifth line, of the various places and kings and tribes that Widsith had visited. An interpolation then of twelve lines succeeds, and may have been inserted in the seventh century, and in England. The conclusion contains a personal account of the poet's way of living and of his last journey, and this runs on from verse 87 to the close.' The catalogue and the personal account are very old, older than anything else we have of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and may date from the time when the English as yet kept their seats upon the continent. The theories concerning the origin and date of the poem are numerous, and I place in a note at the end of this volume a short discussion of them. To treat of them here would confuse the personal impression which the poem was certainly intended to make. 1 Verses 131-134 are, it is supposed, a later interpolation. The Preface (lines 1-9) which may have been written in the old Angle-land, tells us that Widsith, "who most of all men visited kindreds and nations, received in the hall for his singing memorable gifts." Born among the Myrgings,' he became the singer of the court, and while still young went, in this capacity, "with Queen Ealdhild the weaver of peace," the daughter of Eadwine and the wife of Eadgils King of the Myrgings, to seek the home of Eormanric (Hermanric), King of the Ostrogoths who lived "east from Ongle"; and this was his first journey. Here the Introduction ceases, and at the 10th line Widsith himself, writing in his old age, describes his journeys. "Many men and rulers I have known," he says; "through many stranger-lands I have fared, throughout the spacious earth, parted from my kinsmen. Therefore I may sing in the meadhall how the high born gave me gifts." Two among the rest were most gracious to him, Guthere the Burgundian, "who gave me an arm-ring, no sluggish king was he, and Elfwine in Italy, Eadwine's bairn. He was of all men swiftest of hand in winning of honour, and freest of heart in the dealing of rings." These names occur in the long list of kings and tribes whom he visited a list which has certainly undergone some later interpolations. Many of the ancient names belong to the North German cycle of romance. A special place is given to Offa of Ongle. We hear also of personages known to us from the poem of Beowulf, of Finn, and Hnaef, of Hrothgar, Ingeld, and of the town of Heorot. It is a list of great importance for the history of the ancient tribes of Germany and for the heroic sagas of that country, but it has no literary value, and no personal interest. The personal interest comes in at line 87, after an interpolation of twelve lines. Widsith tells of his voyage to Eormanric, of his return, of the welcome his lord gave him, and of the songs he sung at home with his brother bard Seil 1 The Myrgings, the dwellers near the mark, lived perhaps in the Elbeland between the Elbe and the Eyder, and were neighbours of the Angles. 2 I assume here, for literary purposes, that the poem was written by one man, and that it is a personal account of his wanderings. In that way we can see the thing as Ælfred saw it, and it is the first way in which we should look at it. The critical consideration of its genuineness comes in afterwards, and will be found in a note at the end of this volume. 8 On the supposition that this list is the genuine work of Widsith, that is, of a poet who in his early youth, visited Hermanric, this "Elfwine in Italy' cannot be Alboin, but, as Guest conjectures, some Chief fighting in Italy, probably during the inroad of Alaric and under his banner, in the beginning of the fifth century. If that explanation be rejected, the name Elfwine, unless we advance the date of the poem to the seventh century, must have been interpolated, for Alboin died in 572, two hundred years later than the death of Hermanric (375) whom Widsith says he visited in his youth. ling. The little tale is so simple, so direct, and so full of the detail of memory, that here if anywhere we seem to get to the genuine matter. For a longish time lived I with Eormanric; There the King of Gotens with his gifts was good to me; He, the Prince of burg-indwellers, gave to me an armlet. On the which 600 scats of beaten gold to my lord who guarded me — Scored were, in scillings reckoned.1 And another gift Lord of Myrgings he homeland of my fathers. Ealdhild gave to me, Folk queen of the doughty men, daughter of Eadwine. Over many lands I prolonged her praise, I must say to men I had known the best When so e'er in singing giving lavishly her gifts. listed The poem now represents his further wanderings among the Gothic tribes that, one after another, fought and began to settle in the provinces of Italy; and again, when he grew older, his visits to the Gothic princes while they were still fighting with the Huns in the dark woods about the Vistula. 66 Often was battle fierce," he sings, "when with hard swords the host of the Hreads had to guard the old fatherland against the bands of Ætla (Attila) all about the Wistla Wood." He names many of the warriors with whom he companied, and in whose camps he sang, but most "Wudga and Hama" (both of whom become personages in the hero sagas), "not the worst of my friends, though I name them the last." Then in four lines he sketches that long and dreadful war which the East Goten waged with the Huns, and so great is the power, even of poor poetry, that we see, as if they were alive, Wudga and Hama whirling the spear for wife and child in Wistla Wood. 1 The portions of a beág, outlined on the gold, would be called scillings; when these were adjusted to a fixed scale upon the weight of the solidus, the scilling would become (1) a definite division of a ring, (2) a division equal in weight to a solidus, and this is the meaning here; but see, for the whole matter, English Coins, British Museum. Oft from their hosting hurtling through air Midst the fierce folk Then, leaving out verses 131-134, which are an interpolation, the Traveller ends his verses by a description of the wandering singer and of the glory of his art. Thus, drifting on, the gleemen rove through many lands speak aloud their thankword! Say (in song) their need, Life and light together- Till all flits away - The poem has but little literary value, but a certain literary charm is diffused over it by the names it enshrines names of men concerning whom great sagas were written, and whose gests and government made a noise which filled the ear of the world. If the writer really saw Hermanric and Attila before they became heroes of Teutonic saga, we transfer to him and to his poem our pleasure in their cycle of stories. The very possibility that he saw these men excites us. Moreover, if we consider the poem to be of the fifth century, the light of four cycles of lays is reflected backwards upon it. Its names bring before us the sagas of Hermanric, of Alboin, of Gudrun, and Beowulf; the story of Offa, and of the fight at Finnsburg. We may be said to be present at the birth and to watch over the cradle of these great Teutonic sagas. Even if the poem be of the seventh century, and these sagas are behind it and not before it, this reflected literary charm is still present. All the great figures rise before our eyes as we read their names in the dry detail of the catalogue. We may also bind it up with another fancy for which we have a good foundation. We may fairly imagine the delight of Alfred when he read this poem. The catalogue of tribes and kings, the geographical details it contains would fall in with the temper of the king who translated and added to Orosius, who wrote down from Ohthere's and Wulfstan's lips their voyages to the North Sea, and to the mouth of the Vistula. Moreover, the passion for roving, for adventure, which is keen above all other nations in the people of our island, makes this poem representative of the English. |