:00 =co = CO CM loo CO WIDSITH CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Eonion: FETTER LANE, E.G. C. F. CLAY, MANAGER Ototnburgfj: too, PRINCES STREET Berlin: A, ASHER AND CO. Irfpjtfl: F. A. BROCKHAUS $eto Hork: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS an (ZTatcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. All rights reserved WIDSITH A STUDY IN OLD ENGLISH HEROIC LEGEND BY trt^ - R. W. CHAMBERS, M.A. FELLOW AND LIBRARIAN OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON Cambridge : at the University Press 1912 1792 Cs Cambrtfige: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS TO W. P. KER PREFACE increasing interest shown during the last thirty years J- in Beowulf has, in England at least, not been extended to the other monuments of Old English heroic poetry : and that poetry has often, in consequence, been somewhat misjudged. The chief merit of Widsith is that it enables us to make a more correct estimate. If Widsith had been, as some have thought it, an authentic record of a visit to the court of Ermanaric, it would have been valuable : though hardly so valuable as the account left by Priscus of his visit to the court of Attila, an account which nevertheless few trouble to read. But Widsith is more to us than any record of fourth or fifth century travel could have been : it is a record of lost heroic song. As one of its earliest editors said, with sound sense, if in questionable Latin, Discimus ex eo, quot carmina temporum injurid nos amisimus. Another advantage to be drawn from a study of Widsith is that here we find the older scholars at their best. It is remark able, considering the means at his disposal, how good are the comments even of the despised Conybeare, and still more is this true of those of Kemble, Leo, Lappenberg, Ettmiiller, and in more recent days, of Moller, Ten Brink, and Miillenhoff. I hope that I have shown, both in dealing with the Harlung story and the Offa story, that my reverence for Miillenhoff is not a superstitious one. But it is time to protest against the undue depreciation of that great scholar, which has of late been prevalent, particularly in England and America. This deprecia tion is often not according to knowledge : indeed, we find later viii Preface students, even the most scholarly, either ignorant of facts which were perfectly familiar to Kemble and Miillenhoff, or else hailing such facts as new discoveries. Among the more recent students, I have to acknowledge indebtedness most frequently to Binz, Brandl, Bremer, Chad- wick, Heusler, Holthausen, Heinzel, Jiriczek, Lawrence, Much, Olrik, Panzer, Symons. I have tried to express these and other obligations in the due place. Where there was general agree ment on any point, I have been able to pass over it the more rapidly : where I had to differ from an opinion which has heavy critical authority behind it, I have felt bound to give my reasons at the greatest length space would permit. I regret that this tends to concentrate attention unduly upon points of difference. " " The more the literature of the subject is studied, the less room does there seem to be for views over and over new ; again I have discovered that some observation which I was hoping to find new had been anticipated by Brandl, Panzer, Olrik, Heinzel, or Rajna. But instances probably remain in which a view which has already been expressed by someone else is put forward as my own. I cannot hope to have run to earth every discussion of every hero or tribe recorded in Widsith. And indeed, much has been published, especially during the past fifteen years, and in journals of high repute, which it is hardly necessary to put on record. I have therefore reserved the right of omitting references to comments which did not appear to lead us further : other omissions are no doubt the result of oversight. For the same reason, in the section on grammatical forms I have neglected spellings like Moidum for : or for Medum (cf. Oiddi Eddi) Amothingum (th ]?) which, though interesting, could hardly be made the basis or support of any argument : and, in dealing with the metrical effect of the syncope of u, I have neglected lines like On }>am sieoc hund wees, where the loss of an earlier u might easily have been concealed by a slight rearrangement of the words. Finally I have the pleasure of acknowledging the help in reading proofs very kindly given by Miss M. Eyre, Miss E. V. Preface ix Hitchcock, Mr L. A. Magnus, and, I should add, by the Cambridge Press reader. To Mr J. H. G. Grattan I am in debted for many corrections and suggestions, and to Professor Robert Priebsch for a constant advice which has been every where of service, but more particularly in the sections dealing with and to Professor P. Ker Ermanaric, Hama, Heoden ; W. debt is even and more difficult to define it will be my heavier, ; found, like the blow which Offa gave his adversary, non unam partem sed totam transegisse compagem. R. W. CHAMBERS. 31 December 1911. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. WlDBITH AND THE GERMAN HEROIC AGE .... 1 II. THE STORIES KNOWN TO WwsiTB: GOTHIC AND BDRGUNDIAN HEROES 12 III. THE STORIES KNOWN TO WlDSITH: TALES OF THE SEA-FOLK, OF THE FRANKS AND OF THE LOMBARDS ... 66 IV. WlDSITH AND THE CRITICS 127 V. THE GEOGRAPHY OF WJDSITH 153 VI. THE LANGUAGE AND METRE OF WIDSITH . .166 VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 177 TEXT OF WIDSITB, WITH NOTES 187 APPENDIX : (A) Bibliography . .225 " " " (B) Maurungani" and the Geographer of Ravenna 235 (C) Eastgota 236 (D) The Jutes 237 (E) The original homes of the Angli and Varini (Engle and Wsernas) 241 (F) Iste 248 (G) Idumingas . 250 (H) The term Hrcedas applied to the Goths . 252 (I) Ermanaric as the foe of the Huns . 253 (K) The last English allusion to Wudga and Hama 254 (L) The Geography of the Orosius compared with that of Widsith 254 (M) Schiitte's Law of initial and terminal stress . 255 (N) The beag given by Eormanric .... 256 MAPS AND INDEX . ... 258 CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONAL NOTES ' ' p. 7. For a parallel to the Biblical interpolation in Widsith see Matthew ' Arnold On the study of Celtic Literature,' p. 69 (1867 edit.). ' ' ' ' p. 25. For common grandfather Hrethel read kinsman Hrethel. p. 172. The assertion that 1. 45 a, if we substitute for Hrof&gar the earlier Hroftgaru, can still be paralleled in Beowulf, needs qualification. For in half- lines like sellice sadracan, fyrdsearu fuslicu, the syllable lie should probably be read short (cf. Sievers, P.B.B. x, 504; xxix, 568). Yet, for the other reasons given on p. 172, 1 do not think that Hroftgaru is impossible : and even if it were, there are three reasons, any one of which would prevent our basing upon this line an argument for dating the bulk of Widsith later than 700 A.D. For, firstly, 11. 45 etc. are presumably a subsequent addition to the Catalogue of Kings (see pp. 135, 147) : secondly, a simple rearrangement of the words would make the line run satisfactorily : and thirdly, after a long syllable, bearing the subsidiary accent, u was lost earlier than after a long syllable bearing the main accent, and was certainly already lost before 700. CHAPTER I. WIDSITH AND THE GERMAN HEROIC AGE. The Heroic Poetry of the Germans. OVER many great races an enthusiastic movement seems at a certain period to sweep, carrying them during a few years to success, alike in arms and song, till the- stream sinks back into its old channel, and the nation continues a career, honourable, it may be, but wanting in the peculiar ardour of its great age. Such a spirit as came upon the Athens of Pericles, or the England of Elizabeth, seems to have animated the widely scattered Germanic tribes which, in the fifth and sixth centuries, plundered and drank and sang amid the ruins of imperial Rome. To the cultured Roman provincial, trying to lead an elegant and lettered existence amid reminiscences of the great ages of Classical history, the drinking seemed immoderate, and the song dissonant. One such has told us how his soul was vexed at the barbarous songs of his long-haired Burgundian neighbours, how he had to suppress his disgust, and praise these German lays, though with a wry face. How gladly now would we give all " his verses for ten lines of the songs in which these long-haired, " seven foot high, onion-eating barbarians celebrated, it may be, the open-handed ness of Gibica, or perhaps told how, in that last terrible battle, their fathers had fallen fighting around o. 1 2 Widsith 1 Gundahari . But the Roman, far from caring to record these things, was anxious to shut his ears to them. The orthodox bishop of the fifth century, when compelled to listen to the songs of German tribesmen, seems to agree with the apostate emperor of the fourth, who thought these lays like the croaking 2 of harsh-voiced birds . So it has come to pass that, whilst the contemporary Latin verse has been only too abundantly preserved, the songs chanted at the feasts of Gothic and Burgundian, Frankish and Lombard, Danish and Anglian chiefs, in the fifth and sixth centuries, have been lost. The loss is among the most lamentable in the history of poetry. Yet a few records have come down to us, for, as during centuries these songs passed, in the mouths of minstrels, from one branch to another of the Teutonic race 8 often to , they came be written down.