Footnote 8:  From Garnett’s Beowulf, ll. 1384-1394.

Footnote 9:  From Morley’s version, ll. 1357-1376.

Footnote 10:  Beowulf, ll. 2417-2423, a free rendering.

Footnote 11:  Lines 2729-2740, a free rendering.

Footnote 12:  Morley’s version, ll. 2799-2816.

Footnote 13:  Lines 3156-3182 (Morley’s version).

Footnote 14:  Probably to the fourth century, though some parts of the poem must have been added later.  Thus the poet says (II. 88-102) that he visited Eormanric, who died cir. 375, and Queen Ealhhild whose father, Eadwin, died cir. 561.  The difficulty of fixing a date to the poem is apparent.  It contains several references to scenes and characters in Beowulf.

Footnote 15:  Lines 135-143 (Morley’s version).

Footnote 16:  A lyric is a short poem reflecting some personal emotion, like love or grief.  Two other Anglo-Saxon poems, “The Wife’s Complaint” and “The Husband’s Message,” belong to this class.

Footnote 17:  First strophe of Brooke’s version, History of Early English Literature

Footnote 18:  Seafarer, Part I, Iddings’ version, in Translations from
Old English Poetry.

Footnote 19:  It is an open question whether this poem celebrates the fight at which Hnaef, the Danish leader, fell, or a later fight led by Hengist, to avenge Hnaef’s death.

Footnote 20:  Brooke’s translation, History of Early English Literature,
For another early battle-song see Tennyson’s “Battle of Brunanburh.”

Footnote 21:  William Camden (1551-1623), one of England’s earliest and greatest antiquarians.  His first work, Britannia, a Latin history of England, has been called “the common sun whereat our modern writers have all kindled their little torches.”

Footnote 22:  From Iddings’ version of The Seafarer.

Footnote 23:  From Andreas, ll. 511 ff., a free translation.  The whole poem thrills with the Old Saxon love of the sea and of ships.

Footnote 24:  From Beowulf, ll. 1063 ff., a free translation.

Footnote 25:  Translated from The Husband’s Message, written on a piece of bark.  With wonderful poetic insight the bark itself is represented as telling its story to the wife, from the time when the birch tree grew beside the sea until the exiled man found it and stripped the bark and carved on its surface a message to the woman he loved.  This first of all English love songs deserves to rank with Valentine’s description of Silvia: 

               Why, man, she is mine own,
    And I as rich in having such a jewel
    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
    The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, 4.

Footnote 26:  From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, record of the year 457.