we ... gefrunon is a variant on the usual epic formulæ ic gefrägn ([l. 74]) and mîne gefræge ([l. 777]). Exodus, Daniel, Phoenix, etc., open with the same formula.
l. 1. "Gâr was the javelin, armed with two of which the warrior went into battle, and which he threw over the 'shield-wall.' It was barbed."—Br. 124. Cf. Maldon, l. 296; Judith, l. 224; Gnom. Verses, l. 22; etc.
l. 4. "Scild of the Sheaf, not 'Scyld the son of Scaf'; for it is too inconsistent, even in myth, to give a patronymic to a foundling. According to the original form of the story, Sceáf was the foundling; he had come ashore with a sheaf of corn, and from that was named. This form of the story is preserved in Ethelwerd and in William of Malmesbury. But here the foundling is Scyld, and we must suppose he was picked up with the sheaf, and hence his cognomen."—E., p. 105. Cf. the accounts of Romulus and Remus, of Moses, of Cyrus, etc.
l. 6. egsian is also used in an active sense (not in the Gloss.), = to terrify.
l. 15. S. suggests þâ (which) for þät, as object of dreógan; and for aldor-leáse, Gr. suggested aldor-ceare.—Beit. ix. 136.
S. translates: "For God had seen the dire need which the rulerless ones before endured."
l. 18. "Beowulf (that is, Beaw of the Anglo-Saxon genealogists, not our Beowulf, who was a Geat, not a Dane), 'the son of Scyld in Scedeland.' This is our ancestral myth,—the story of the first culture-hero of the North; 'the patriarch,' as Rydberg calls him, 'of the royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Angeln, Saxland, and England.'"—Br., p. 78. Cf. A.-S. Chron. an. 855.
H.-So. omits parenthetic marks, and reads (after S., Beit. ix. 135) eaferan; cf. Fata Apost.: lof wîde sprang þeódnes þegna.
"The name Bēowulf means literally 'Bee-wolf,' wolf or ravager of the bees, = bear. Cf. beorn, 'hero,' originally 'bear,' and bēohata, 'warrior,' in Cædmon, literally 'bee-hater' or 'persecutor,' and hence identical in meaning with bēowulf."—Sw.
Cf.