THE SINGER AND HIS LAY
197
With Israelites was I and with the Ex-Syrings,[1]
with Ebrews and Indians, in Egypt too.
With Medes and Persians and Myrging folk,
85and with Mofdingas too, and the Myrgings beyond,
and with Amothings, and with East-Thyrings,
with Eolas, Istas, and Idumeans.[2]
And[3] I was with Eormanric all that while
the king of the Goths was gracious to me.
90A ring he gave me, ruler of strongholds,
on which six-hundred of solid gold
was scored for the treasure by shilling-count;[4]
I made then Eadgils owner of this,
my helmet-lord,[5] when home I fared,
95the loved one, in pay for the land he gave me.
First[6] of the Myrgings, my father’s home.
Then Ealhhild gave me another ring,
queen of the doughty-band, daughter of Eadwine.[7]
- ↑ Assyrians.
- ↑ The “list” has been badly damaged here, so far as symmetry goes, and falls into a curious kind of pedantry.
- ↑ Here begins what may fairly pass as the oldest and best part of the poem. The reader should note the resemblances of style and phrase here to style and phrase of the Beowulf. Kennings are heaped, in variant repetition, for the two kings. The fact that Widsith gave what he had received to his own king should be compared with Beowulf’s similar action; the latter gets land in return, the former is paying for land already given.
- ↑ The heavy gold ring is marked with its value. Spirals of gold, too, were often twisted about the arm; one round broken from the spiral counted so much. So a king’s kenning is “ring-breaker.”
- ↑ A favorite kenning for the king is “helmet,” or “refuge,” or “shelter,” or “haven,” of his people.
- ↑ Lord or king.
- ↑ If persons and places here must be put into some sort of consistent relations both with one another and with the statements of the prologue, Heinzel’s scheme is least open to cavil. Widsith leaves his home among the Myrgings, somewhere in the neighborhood of Holstein, and his king,
