Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/17



HE manuscript is written in West-Saxon of the tenth century, with some Kentish peculiarities; it is evidently based on successive copies of an original in either Northumbrian or Mercian, which probably belonged to the seventh century. Two scribes made this copy. One wrote to verse 1939; the other, who seems to have contributed those Kentish forms, finished the poem. There is some attempt to mark the verses, and a few long syllables are indicated; but the general appearance is of prose.

The original epic seems to have been composed by a single author, not for chant or recitation to the accompaniment of a harp, but for reading, as a “book.” Rh