wretchedness. Woe he found again, again, After that Nithhad in a need had laid him--Staggering sinew-wounds--sorrow-smitten man! That he overwent; this also may I. [17]
The Seafarer. The wonderful poem of "The Seafarer" seems to be in two distinct parts. The first shows the hardships of ocean
life; but stronger than hardships is the subtle call of the sea. The second part is an allegory, in which the troubles of the seaman are symbols of the troubles of this life, and the call of the ocean is the call in the soul to be up and away to its true home with God. Whether the last was added by some monk who saw the allegorical possibilities of the first part, or whether some sea-loving Christian scop wrote both, is uncertain. Following are a few selected lines to show the spirit of the poem:
The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard only
The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan; For pastime the gannets' cry served me; the kittiwakes' chatter
For laughter of men; and for mead drink the call of the sea mews. When storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy-feathered, Made answer; full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed,
The eagle with pinions wave-wet....
The shadows of night became darker, it snowed from the north; The world was enchained by the frost; hail fell upon earth;
'T was the coldest of grain. Yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing
To test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play. Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander,
To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off.
There is no one that dwells upon earth, so exalted in mind, But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion
For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honor or death. No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure, No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world,
Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea.
The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair, Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life,
And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey, So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides.
The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note, Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow.
Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale, To the ends of the earth--and comes back to me.
Eager and greedy,
The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward, Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea. [18]
The Fight at Finnsburgh and Waldere. Two other of our oldest poems well deserve mention. The "Fight at Finnsburgh" is a frag-
ment of fifty lines, discovered on the inside of a piece of parchment drawn over the wooden covers of a book of homilies. It is
15
a magnificent war song, describing with Homeric power the defense of a hall by Hnaef[19] with sixty warriors, against the attack
of Finn and his army. At midnight, when Hnaef and his men are sleeping, they are surrounded by an army rushing in with fire and sword. Hnaef springs to his feet at the first alarm and wakens his warriors with a call to action that rings like a bugle blast:
This no eastward dawning is, nor is here a dragon flying, Nor of this high hall are the horns a burning;
But they rush upon us here--now the ravens sing, Growling is the gray wolf, grim the war-wood rattles, Shield to shaft is answering. [20]
The fight lasts five days, but the fragment ends before we learn the outcome: The same fight is celebrated by Hrothgar's gleeman at the feast in Heorot, after the slaying of Grendel.
"Waldere" is a fragment of two leaves, from which we get only a glimpse of the story of Waldere (Walter of Aquitaine) and his betrothed bride Hildgund, who were hostages at the court of Attila. They escaped with a great treasure, and in crossing the mountains were attacked by Gunther and his warriors, among whom was Walter's former comrade, Hagen. Walter fights them all and escapes. The same story was written in Latin in the tenth century, and is also part of the old German Nibelungenlied. Though the saga did not originate with the Anglo-Saxons, their version of it is the oldest that has come down to us. The chief significance of these "Waldere" fragments lies in the evidence they afford that our ancestors were familiar with the legends and poetry of other Germanic peoples.
II. ANGLO-SAXON LIFE
We have now read some of our earliest records, and have been surprised, perhaps, that men who are generally described in the histories as savage fighters and freebooters could produce such excellent poetry. It is the object of the study of all literature to make us better acquainted with men,--not simply with their deeds, which is the function of history, but with the dreams and ideals which underlie all their actions. So a reading of this early Anglo-Saxon poetry not only makes us acquainted, but also leads to a profound respect for the men who were our ancestors. Before we study more of their literature it is well to glance briefly at their life and language.
The Name Originally the name Anglo-Saxon denotes two of the three Germanic tribes,--Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,--who in the middle of the fifth century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to conquer and colonize distant Britain. Angeln was the home of one tribe, and the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on their momentous voyage. The old Saxon word angul or ongul means a hook, and the English verb angle is used invariably by Walton and older writers in the sense of fishing. We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably because the shore where they lived, at the foot of the peninsula of Jutland, was bent in the shape of a fishhook. The name
Saxon from seax, sax, a short sword, means the sword-man, and from the name we may judge something of the temper of the hardy fighters who preceded the Angles into Britain. The Angles were the most numerous of the conquering tribes, and from them the
new home was called Anglalond. By gradual changes this became first Englelond and then England.
More than five hundred years after the landing of these tribes, and while they called themselves Englishmen, we find the Latin writers of the Middle Ages speaking of the inhabitants of Britain as Anglisaxones,--that is, Saxons of England,--to distinguish them from the Saxons of the Continent. In the Latin charters of King Alfred the same name appears; but it is never seen or heard in his native speech. There he always speaks of his beloved "Englelond" and of his brave "Englisc" people. In the sixteenth century, when the old name of Englishmen clung to the new people resulting from the union of Saxon and Norman, the name Anglo-Saxon was first used in the national sense by the scholar Camden [21] in his History of Britain; and since then it has been in general use among English writers. In recent years the name has gained a wider significance, until it is now used to denote a spirit rather than a nation,
the brave, vigorous, enlarging spirit that characterizes the English-speaking races everywhere, and that has already put a broad belt of
English law and English liberty around the whole world.
