Secular Learning in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Chardonnens and Carella Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 69 (2012), 175–202

WIÐ DWEORH: AN ANGLO-SAXON REMEDY FOR FEVER IN ITS CULTURAL AND MANUSCRIPT SETTING

B. R. Hutcheson

London, Brit. Lib., Harley 585 is an Anglo-Saxon medical codex of c. 1000.1 The manuscript begins with a translation into of the Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius, and continues with the Old Eng- lish Medicina de quadrupedibus partly attributed to Sextus Placitus. According to Cameron, both works ‘probably originated in the late fourth century’, though they ‘are of quite uncertain origin’.2 The standard edition of these is now de Vriend’s, replacing Cockayne’s antiquarian 1864 publication.3 Following these two medical works in Harley 585 is a collection of Old English and Latin remedies, includ- ing some charms, several of which are classed as so-called metrical charms.4 The Lorica of Laidcenn, a Latin prayer for protection exhib- iting Hisperic vocabulary and containing an unusually extensive inter- linear gloss in Old English, is inserted amongst the charms, perhaps indicating that it was seen as similar to these medical and pseudo- medical remedies. These texts – the charms, medical remedies, and the Lorica – are commonly referred to as Lacnunga (‘Recipes’) after Cockayne’s editio princeps.5 Cockayne’s selective edition was super- seded by Grattan and Singer’s in 1952, which was in turn supplanted by Pettit’s much-needed thorough scholarly edition.6

1 Ker, Catalogue, no. 231; Gneuss, Handlist, no. 421; Doane, Books, no. 5. 2 M. L. Cameron, ‘The Sources of Medical Knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 11 (1982), 135–55, at 140. 3 The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus, ed. H. J. de Vriend, EETS os 286 (London, 1984); Leechdoms, ed. and trans. Cockayne, I, 1–373. 4 The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. E. V. K. Dobbie, ASPR 6 (New York, 1942), 116–28. 5 Leechdoms, ed. and trans. Cockayne, III, 1–80. 6 Anglo-Saxon and Medicine, ed. and trans. Grattan and Singer; Anglo-Saxon Remedies, ed. and trans. Pettit. M. L. Cameron, ‘Anglo-Saxon Medicine and Magic’, ASE 17 (1988), 191–215, neatly inverting Grattan and Singer’s title, persuasively 176 B. R. Hutcheson

Wið dweorh is one of the metrical charms in Lacnunga. Harley 585 is the sole manuscript in which the charm appears, and the text is fair- ly corrupt. The primary aims of the present study are to provide a fresh analysis of the multiple cruces in Wið dweorh with an eye to- wards establishing a viable text of the poem, and to elucidate the po- em’s meaning and purpose, both of which are obscure. In order to do so, it will be necessary to look at the poem in its cultural and manu- script context. Though Grattan and Singer claim to have found a num- ber of purely pagan charms and recipes in Lacnunga, all the texts they identify (as opposed to any preface or coda) also contain either invo- cations of Christ or the Christian God or are herbal recipes.7 The sin- gle exception is Wið dweorh, the title of which is usually translated ‘’ – though the preface of Wið dweorh places it too squarely within a Christian milieu.

‘Against a Dwarf’ It is well at the outset to discuss the proper translation of the title gen- erally given to the charm, which is simply the first two words of the charm as it appears in the manuscript: Wið dweorh. The Old English may indeed mean, literally, ‘against a dwarf’, OE dweorh being the etymon of ModE dwarf. Including a remedy for a dwarf in a medical codex, however, would seem to make no sense, certainly not from a modern point of view, and it is questionable whether it makes sense in Old English either. I have translated dweorh as ‘fever’ in this article. Cameron observes that dweorg glosses L febrem once in the Medicina de quadrupedibus, but ‘whether at some past time delirious fevers may have been at- tributed to dwarves we have no way now of knowing’.8 The Diction- debunks the opinions of Grattan and Singer, and G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague, 1948), that the remedies in the Anglo-Saxon medical codices were supersti- tious gibberish, and demonstrates that a number of them were probably in fact the best remedies that would have been available for the illnesses they claim to treat. See also M. L. Cameron, ‘Bald’s Leechbook and Cultural Interactions in Anglo-Saxon Eng- land’, ASE 19 (1990), 5–12; idem, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, CSASE 7 (Cambridge, 1993), 57–8. 7 As K. L. Jolly notes, ‘[i]t is misleading to designate all charms as “pagan”, be- cause pagan and Christian elements cannot easily be distinguished in their use’ (Popu- lar Religion in Late Saxon England: Charms in Context (Chapel Hill, London, 1996), 94). 8 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 152–3.