THE increasing interest shown during the last thirty years 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 injuriâ 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 remarkable, 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, Ettmüller, and in more recent days, of Möller, Ten Brink, and Müllenhoff. I hope that I have shown, both in dealing with the Harlung story and the Offa story, that my reverence for Müllenhoff is not a superstitious one.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.