l. 373. E. remarks of the hyphened eald-fäder, "hyphens are risky toys to play with in fixing texts of pre-hyphenial antiquity"; eald-fäder could only = grandfather. eald here can only mean honored, and the hyphen is unnecessary. Cf. "old fellow," "my old man," etc.; and Ger. alt-vater.
l. 378. Th. and B. propose Geátum, as presents from the Danish to the Geatish king.—Beit. xii.
l. 380. häbbe. The subj. is used in indirect narration and question, wish and command, purpose, result, and hypothetical comparison with swelce = as if.
ll. 386, 387. Ten Br. emends to read: "Hurry, bid the kinsman-throng go into the hall together."
l. 387. sibbe-gedriht, for Beowulf's friends, occurs also at [l. 730]. It is subject-acc. to seón. Cf. [ll. 347], [365], and Hunt's Exod. l. 214.
l. 404. "Here, as in the later Icelandic halls, Beowulf saw Hrothgar enthroned on a high seat at the east end of the hall. The seat is sacred. It has a supernatural quality. Grendel, the fiend, cannot approach it."—Br., p. 34. Cf. [l. 168].
l. 405. "At Benty Grange, in Derbyshire, an Anglo-Saxon barrow, opened in 1848, contained a coat of mail. 'The iron chain work consists of a large number of links of two kinds attached to each other by small rings half an inch in diameter; one kind flat and lozenge-shaped ... the others all of one kind, but of different lengths.'"—Br., p. 126.
l. 407. Wes ... hâl: this ancient Teutonic greeting afterwards grew into wassail. Cf. Skeat's Luke, i. 28; Andreas (K.), 1827; Layamon, l. 14309, etc.
l. 414. "The distinction between wesan and weorðan [in passive relations] is not very clearly defined, but wesan appears to indicate a state, weorðan generally an action."—Sw. Cf. Mod. German werden and sein in similar relations.
l. 414. Gr. translates hâdor by receptaculum; cf. Gering, Zachers Zeitschr. xii. 124. Toller-Bosw. ignores Gr.'s suggestion.