Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/207

Rh everybody ought to know.” Widsith says so was good verification for statements of this sort, just as Alfred or Hending or whoever else was sound authority for a proverb. There must have been many lays in which a singer spoke of his far journeys, but did not mention his own name. Folk, as Möller points out, would call him just what he said he was,—a far-wanderer. The name was generic. In a different sense, the name of Robinson became generic for the actual stories told in the first-person by men who followed Defoe’s enticing trail; there were hundreds of “Robinsons” in the eighteenth century.

This pedantic Widsith may be to some extent a creature of the English pen; but a real roving singer has been rescued from continental tradition in his name. The pomp of heroic lays still echoes in his faltering speech. He has the court accent, the high manner; he wears none but a king’s livery, and takes only royal gifts. One wishes profoundly he had told more about himself, and had held longer the note of battle he strikes so well; but one is grateful to have him on any terms.

Widsith spake, his word-hoard unlocked, who farthest had fared among folk of earth through tribes of men, oft taking in hall rich meed of gold. Of the Myrging line his ancestors woke. With Ealhhild fair, weaver-of-concord, went he first,