[1-6.] The text here is so corrupt that an almost complete reconstruction has been necessary.
[51.] In the manuscript these letters appear as runes. For illustrations of the appearance of runes, see the introductory note to “Cynewulf and his School,” [p. 95, below]. What these runes stood for, or whether they were supposed to possess unusual or magic power is purely a matter of conjecture.
THE RUIN
[Text used: Kluge, Angelsächsisches Lesebuch.
This description of a ruin with hot baths is generally assumed to be of the Roman city of Bath. The fact that the poet uses unusual words and unconventional lines seems to indicate that he wrote with his eye on the object.]
Wondrous is its wall-stone laid waste by the fates.
The burg-steads are burst, broken the work of the giants.
The roofs are in ruins, rotted away the towers,
The fortress-gate fallen, with frost on the mortar.
5 Broken are the battlements, low bowed and decaying,