[17.] First strophe of Brooke's version, History of Early English Literature
[18.] Seafarer, Part I, Iddings' version, in Translations from Old English Poetry.
[19.] It is an open question whether this poem celebrates the fight at which Hnæf, the Danish leader, fell, or a later fight led by Hengist, to avenge Hnæf's death.
[20.] Brooke's translation, History of Early English Literature, For another early battle-song see Tennyson's "Battle of Brunanburh."
[21.] William Camden (1551-1623), one of England's earliest and greatest antiquarians. His first work, Britannia, a Latin history of England, has been called "the common sun whereat our modern writers have all kindled their little torches."
[22.] From Iddings' version of The Seafarer.
[23.] From Andreas, ll. 511 ff., a free translation. The whole poem thrills with the Old Saxon love of the sea and of ships.
[24.] From Beowulf, ll. 1063 ff., a free translation.
[25.] Translated from The Husband's Message, written on a piece of bark. With wonderful poetic insight the bark itself is represented as telling its story to the wife, from the time when the birch tree grew beside the sea until the exiled man found it and stripped the bark and carved on its surface a message to the woman he loved. This first of all English love songs deserves to rank with Valentine's description of Silvia:
Why, man, she is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.