Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/401

 s. xii. NOV. 20, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

393

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER SO, 1915.

CONTENTS. No. 308.

NOTES : " Wistlanwudu" and the Date of ' Widsith,' 393 Jewish Treasure-Trove, 395 Inscriptions in Churchyard of St. Mary's. Lambeth, 396 The Brehon Law James I.'s Expenses, 398 " In petto" Puritan Names in New Eng land German War Fetish, 399.


 * Latton Family ' The Magical Note '

Dando " Legal Processes in the Middle Ages " Shiffles " John Scott, D.D. Heine: Description ol Brougham Speaking Biographical Information Wanted John Vardy, Architect Salonika War and Money, 400 Henry Gosson, Bookseller Father John and Dr. Bacon Royal Artillery Feast of Corpus Christi, and Crucified Dove Libbel, Author of Ballade Fleet Prison 'Sherwood Forest,' by Mrs. Gooch Mary Eliza- beth Wilson, 401.

REPLIES : Nelson Memorial Rings, 402" Sancte Jaco a Coiupostel "Anastatic Printing, 403 Tomb of Alexander the Great Portrait of Miss Thayer French "of Stratford- atte-Bowe" Churches used for the Election of Municipal Officers, 404 D'Israeli : Thames Street Hebrew Dietetics Making of Folk-Poetry, 405 Virtues of Onions Joseph Sturge Unicorn's Horn at the Tower Disraeli : Reference Sought Bows and Arrows in the Crimean War Table of Affinities, 406 'The Ladies of Castlemarch 'Theological Disputations by Signs, 407 Henry Fielding Sir Henry Moody's Camera Obscura Latin Inscription Reference Marks" A stricken field "Skull and Iron Nail" Homo BulJa" "I don't think " "Lienin," 409" Esses "Elder Folk-Lore, 410.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' The Quest and Occupation of Tahiti 'Old London's Spas' 'Folk-Lore round Horncastle' Strawberry Hill Catalogues -Cornish Marriage Registers

' Essex.'

41 WISTLA2VWUDU " AND THE DATE OF ' WIDSITH.'

IN the British Museum facsimile transcript of the Exeter Book (Additional MS. 9067, fo. 866) there is a pen-stroke over the in Wistlawudu which had been ignored by all editors and commentators until I drew attention to it in Anglia, Bd. xxxiv. (1910), p. 526. The Museum facsimile was compared with the original, and signed accordingly, by Sir Frederick Madden, on 24 Feb., 1832. Dr. Chambers, who has actual knowledge of the original MS., says that the British Museum copy is " very accurate" ('Widsith,' 1912, p. 187). Ob- jections have been raised to my treating this upward-curving stroke as an n-stroke because a stroke is never used for final n in the Exeter Book. I believe that no one has attempted to explain this pen-stroke, and I beg leave to do so now, premising my remarks with the statement of my personal opinion that it is a feature which ought not to have been suppressed by editors of ' Widsith.'

In so far as form is concerned this pen- stroke is not at all rare in ancient MSS. It frequently occurs in Domesday Book (1086), and it is used generally to proclaim abbreviation ; cp. the reproduction of a page of the Armagh Gospels written in Ireland early in the ninth century, in Mr. Falconer Madan's ' Facsimiles illustrative of Mediaeval Palaeography,' Oxon., 1898, No. 2.

The statement that final n is always written in O.E. texts in the Exeter Book is one which ignores the clear indications to be found therein of the use of the n-stroke in the prototype. We get scribal mistakes which may be classified as final n/m sub- stitution, n-stroke omission, and confusion of length-mark with n-stroke. E.g., (1) in Dr. Gollancz's edition of (part of) 'The Exeter Book,' Early English Text Society, 1895, on pp. 22, 32, 72, we get motam, heredum, and fream and magum, and in each case final m stands for n. (2) on pp. 270 and 302 we find drucne and geogum for druncne and geongum. (3) in ' Widsith,' 1. 24, rondingum of the MS. stands for *rodingum, and here the scribe extended a length-mark as if it had been an n-stroke. Cp. mond for mod, p. 136.

For these reasons I judge, first, that the n-stroke really was used in the prototype of the Exeter Book ; secondly, that the transcriber of that prototype generally extended n-compendia ; and thirdly, that in the particular case of Wiatlawudu he inadvertently omitted to expand the com- pendium, and was constrained to reproduce the mark of abbreviation, i.e. the n-stroke.

At least one consideration of great critical importance springs from the recognition of the n-stroke over a of " Wistlanwudu." The survival of final n assists us in assigning an approximate date for the Northumbrian redaction of the poem.

In Old Northumbrian final n fell away from words of moie than one syllable before bhe year 731, in which the Venerable Bede finished his ' Historia Ecclesiastical The only one of the three eighth-century MSS. of his work which is dated, was transcribed n 737. That is the Moore MS. ; cp. Mr. Plummer's Introduction to his edition of Bede, vol. i. p. Ixxxix. In this MS., as in all others, the defeat of Aidan, King of the Scots, is said to have taken place " in loco celeberrimo qui dicitur Degsastan, id est Degsa lapis" (I. xxxiv.). This pretended elucidation of the name of the bat tie- field is unscholarly : " Degsa lapis " does not render