Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/164

142 but do not extend the inquiry beyond the evidence adduced before them; to interpret and declare the law is the function of the court, not of the king and his officers.

During these first centuries in England, the Anglo-Saxon endowment of character and faculty becomes clearly shown in events and expressed in literature. A battle-loving people whose joy in fight flashes from their "shield-play" and "sword-game" epithets, even as their fondness for seafaring is seen in such phrases as "wave-floater," "foam-necked," "like a swan" breasting the "swan-road" of the sea. But their sword-games and wave-floatings had purpose, a quality that became large and steady as generation after generation, unstopped by fortress, forest, or river, pushed on the conquest of England. When that conquest had been completed, and these Saxons were in turn hard pressed by their Danish kin more lately sailing from the north, their courage still could not be overborne. It is reflected in the overweening mood of Maldon, the poem which is also called The Death of Byrhtnoth. The cold grey scene lies in the north of England. The Viking invaders demand rings of gold; Byrhtnoth, the Alderman of the East Saxons, retorts scornfully. So the fight begins with arrows and spear throwings across the black water. The Saxons hold the ford. The Sea-wolves cannot force it. They call for leave to cross. In his overmood Byrhtnoth answers: "To you this is yielded: come straight-way to us; God only wots who shall hold fast the place of battle." In the bitter end when Byrhtnoth is killed, still speaks his thane: "Mind shall the harder be, heart the keener, mood the greater, as our might lessens. Here lies our Elder hewn to death. I am old; I will not go hence. I think to lay me down by the side of my lord."

The spiritual gifts of the Anglo-Saxons are discernible in their language, which so adequately could render the Bible and the phraseology of the Seven Liberal Arts.