Suffer for their sins in its surging flame.
[779.] The passage following contains the runes from which we obtain the name Cynewulf. The runes are at once a word and a letter, in the same way that our letter I is also the symbol for the first personal pronoun. In the places where the meaning fits, Cynewulf has written the runes that spell his name.
[804.] In this passage the runes omit the e of the poet’s name, although it is found in the other runic passages.
SELECTIONS FROM THE ELENE
[Critical edition: Holthausen, Kynewulf’s Elene, Heidelberg, 1905.
Translation: Kennedy, The Poems of Cynewulf, pp. 87 ff.; Kemble, The Poetry of the Codex Vercelliensis, with an English translation, London, 1856.
Source: Acta Sanctorum for May 4.
The first passage describes the vision of the cross by the Emperor Constantine, the second the finding of the true cross by his mother, Helena, in Old English, “Elene.”
The poem is usually regarded as Cynewulf’s masterpiece.]