Seven nights have ye toiled.’
After this extract, Turner continues:— ‘It would occupy too much room in the present volume to give a further account of this interesting poem, which well deserves to be submitted to the public, with a translation and with ample notes. There are forty-two sections of it in the Cotton MS., and it ends there imperfectly. It is perhaps the oldest poem of an epic form in the vernacular language of Europe which now exists.’
In the second edition the following lines were added:—
‘After Hunferthe, another character is introduced:
Dear to his people,
of the land of the Brondingi;
the Lord of fair cities,
where he had people,
barks, and bracelets,
Ealwith, the son of Beandane,