by wrath and lying his life should reave!
But Hemming’s kinsman[1] hindered this.—
1945For over their ale men also told
that of these folk-horrors fewer she wrought,[2]
onslaughts of evil, after she went,
gold-decked bride, to the brave young prince,
atheling haughty, and Offa’s hall
1950o’er the fallow flood at her father’s bidding
safely sought, where since she prospered,
royal, thronéd, rich in goods,
fain of the fair life fate had sent her,
and leal in love to the lord of warriors.
1955He, of all heroes I heard of ever
from sea to sea, of the sons of earth,
most excellent seemed. Hence[3] Offa was praised
for his fighting and feeing by far-off men,
the spear-bold warrior; wisely he ruled
1960over his empire. Eomer woke to him,
help of heroes, Hemming’s kinsman,
grandson of Garmund,[4] grim in war.
XXVIII
Hastened the hardy one, henchmen with him,
sandy strand of the sea to tread
1965and widespread ways. The world’s great candle,
- ↑ Eomer, as below (conjecturally), v. 1960; or, as Gering suggests, Offa himself.
- ↑ Litotes for “ceased altogether.”—Offa is praised in the Widsith lay, v. 38.
- ↑ See the ideal of a good king at the opening of the poem.
- ↑ The genealogy of the Mercian Offa makes his ancestral Anglian namesake, Offa, the son of Wærmund.
