Page:Runic and heroic poems of the old Teutonic peoples.djvu/31

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The Anglo-Saxon Runic Poem
15

R. (? ) seems easy to every warrior while he is indoors and very courageous to him who traverses the highroads on the back of a stout horse.

C. (the torch) is known to every living man by its pale, bright flame; it always burns where princes sit within.

G. (generosity) brings credit and honour, which support one's dignity; it furnishes help and subsistence to all broken men who are devoid of aught else.

W. (bliss) he enjoys who knows not suffering, sorrow nor anxiety, and has prosperity and happiness and a good enough house.

H. (hail) is the whitest of grain; it is whirled from the vault of heaven and is tossed about by gusts of wind and then it melts into water.

N. (trouble) is oppressive to the heart; yet often it proves a source of help and salvation to the children of men, to everyone who heeds it betimes.

I. (ice) is very cold and immeasurably slippery; it glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems; it is a floor wrought by the frost, fair to look upon.

    characters, cole and gar, being invented to express the gutteral sounds. These later characters do not occur on the Thames scramasax or in any of the few inscriptions from the South of England, so it may be inferred that they were peculiar to Northnmbria.

    cole does not actually occur in Hickes, but is taken from Domit. A. ix. and Galba A.

    Gyfu (Salzburg AS. geofu, Goth, geuua), gumena, abstract, "generosity."

    Hickes, Wen ne brucef, Se can weana lyt. Wenne, dat. sg. of wen, not wen (ef. Dona. A. ix.) f a Kentish form of the wyn of the Salzburg Codex, Galba A. n. etc. (Sievers, Anglia, xiu. 4). As the name of the Runic W, wyn suits admirably in the passage* of Cynewulf, e.g. Crist, v. 805, Elene, v. 1263, and is found elsewhere in AS. MSB., e.g. Elene, v. 1089, on vuldret W Kiddle XCL 7, modW; Ps. Cos. xcix. 1, Wsumia}>= jubilate. From the Runic alphabet wyn, like Jx>rn, was adopted into A3. script.

    llatgl (Salz. AS. haegil, Goth. haul). Cf. Hay all in the Norwegian and Icelandic poems. The first two Runic characters in Hickes are taken from Domit. A. ix., the third alone belongs to the poem; cf. Hempl. Mod. I'hiL i. 13.

    wealeaj hit windet icura; if tcur can be fern, as Goth, tkura (windis), ON. ik&r, tcura, N. pi., may be retained; otherwise it must be emended to euro*.

    Nyd (Salzb. AS. natd, Goth, noict?). Cf. Scandinavian poems and Elene, T. 1260: N gefera nearutorge dreah enge rune.