Baltimore, Maryland,
October, 1900.
PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1911.
I have read over carefully these translations with a view to another reprint, which the publishers find necessary, but I have not compared them again with the texts used. I have corrected a few typographical errors of little importance.
For the bibliography I would refer to Brandl's Sonderausgabe aus der zweiten Auflage von Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (Strassburg, 1908), in which I find noted Holthausen's edition of the Elene (Heidelberg, 1905), but I have not seen it.
I take advantage of this opportunity to say that my translation of Béowulf, of which the last reprint was issued in 1910, is not in prose, as some have misconceived it, but it is in the same metrical form as the translations in the present volume,—an accentual metre in rough imitation of the original. I agree with Professor Gummere and others that this is a better form for the translation of Old English poetry than plain prose. It was approved by the late Professor Child nearly thirty years ago, as noted in the Preface to the second edition of my translation of BÉOWULF, January, 1885.
JAMES M. GARNETT.
Baltimore, Maryland,
February, 1911.
[INTRODUCTION.]
In presenting to the public the following translations of the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poems, Elene, Judith, Athelstan, Byrhtnoth, and The Dream of the Rood, it is desirable to prefix a brief account of them for the information of the general reader.