[132] In Haupt’s “Zeitschrift,” ix.
[133] We have already seen in the chapter on the West Saxon laws, that a bookmaker of the Saxon period appended the laws of Ine to the laws of Alfred, as if he found it natural to treat the old material as an appendix to the new.—But there is also something on the other side. In the after part of the Exeter book there are three batches of riddles, and the first riddle of the first series (Thorpe, p. 380), is a charade upon the name of Cynewulf, as was shown by Heinrich Leo. This has naturally led to the surmise that Cynewulf has had more to do with the riddles than simply to preface them in his own honour.
[134] Thus:—“ofer ealne yrmenne grund.” Juliana init.; and in the same poem we find “bealdor” used of a woman!
[135] All this is marred by William of Malmesbury, who represents him as having trafficked for this promotion, and as having been cut off before he had long enjoyed it. And yet the two pictures are not incompatible. The poetry sets before us a poet of the most splendid gifts, but I know nothing that indicates a superiority of character. Indeed, the comparison with Solomon suggests a moral type to which the known and supposed writings of Cynewulf aptly correspond.
[136] “Dorsum immane mari summo.” Æneid i.
[137] Milton has set this to his own deep music:—
“Him haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder’d skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seaman tell,
With fixed anchor....”
[138] The reader will not stumble at a few historical inaccuracies in a narrative where a speaker in Helena’s time is a brother of the protomartyr.
[139] Kemble, “Runes of the Anglo-Saxons,” pp. 13-19. Grein, vol. ii., p. 351; and literary notice at p. 413.
[140] It may not be known to all readers, that this is an English word; and historically, perhaps, the best English name, for the mole (talpa). Along the Elbe it appears in a form nearer to that of the text: “Win worp oder Wind-worp, der Maulwurf.” Bremisch-Niedersachsisches Wörterbuch.