Runes. An early love poem. 118
ILLUSTRATIONS
| [ Death Of Saint Bede] | Frontispiece | |
| [ Whitby Abbey] | Page | 19 |
| [ King Alfred the Great] | " | 48 |
| [ The Ruthwell Cross] | " | 80 |
| [ The Alfred Jewel] | " | 114 |
| [ A Saxon Ship] | " | 114 |
FOREWORDS
This little book makes no claim to be a history of pre-Conquest Literature. It is an attempt to increase the interest which Catholics may well feel in this part of the great 'inheritance of their fathers.' It is not meant to be a formal course of reading, but a sort of talk, as it were, about beautiful things said and sung in old days: things which to have learned to love is to have incurred a great and living debt. I have tried to clothe some of these in the nearest approach I could find to the native garb in which their makers had sent them forth, with the humblest acknowledgement that nothing comes up to that native garb itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace. I may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley, Professor Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook: also to the writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of English Literature," vol. i.
If this little book in any way fulfils the wishes of those Catholic teachers who have asked me to print some thoughts of mine about English Literature, I shall be glad indeed.
Emily Hickey.