Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/205

Rh beyond their quite incidental bearing upon the personality of the scop himself.

Widsith is introduced by the usual formula as about to speak and as a man worth hearing. He comes of good stock; is champion rover in his profession; and once went on an important mission with persons of the very highest rank. But the first outcome of his “word-hoard” is disappointing. For some forty lines he is very dull; the speech does not belong to him, one is fain to think, but is rather a poetical list of kings and peoples, like those made for children in modern times, easy to remember by means of the rime-scheme into which the names must fit. Saxo uses such a list of alliterating names in telling of those who fought at Bravalla; but he fills out the original Norse. With these English versus memoriales also is mingled other stuff. There is a moral reflection, at which the modern hearer of sermons and lectures would do well not to scoff; and there are two passages which go into legendary details,—one about Offa and one about Hrothgar and Hrothwulf. With the fiftieth line, a good sounding verse, by the way, the Far-Wanderer drops his impersonal and hearsay information, and for the rest of the poem speaks of things he has seen for himself. It is a miscellaneous account, not only in matter, but in style, spirit, and effect. Apart from the impossible Israelites and Assyrians of his itinerary, the singer betrays either the plurality of his origins or his incapacity to tell a good, cheerful, likely lie such as one expects from a forerunner of Mandeville; a travelled man, moreover, he now stammers along as the most helpless of artists, and now breaks