Widsith

First published in 1936. The present edition of "Widsith" is based upon my own transcript of the Exeter Book text. This transcript has been collated with the text as given in the facsimile edition and in the various printed editions of the poem from Conybeare to Mackie. The interpretation of the text, though an outgrowth of independent study, owes much, of course, to the labors of earlier investigators. In particular, the monumental work of Chambers has everywhere shed light and even in the most desperate places has made the darkness visible. Textual and exegetical matters are considered in footnotes, set under the relevant passages of the text. Other matters needing discussion are taken up either in the Introduction or in the Glossary. Much of what is new in the edition will be found in the Glossary of Proper Names. The bibliography is meant to be exhaustive of treatises devoted specifically to "Widsith", selective of treatises which deal with the poem only incidentally or not at all but which for one reason or another have proved useful in the preparation of the edition. During the 25 years that have elapsed since the first edition of this book came out, further studies have deepened and widened our understanding of the poem and a new edition has become a desideratum. Those familiar with the first edition (now long out of print) will find the second markedly different in form and full of new matter. "Widsith" has come down to us in one MS only, the Exeter Book, a miscellany of English poetry transcribed "early in the period 970-990" (Flower, EB 90). The text of the poem begins with the eleventh line of fol. 84v and ends with the eighth line of fol. 87r. The poem obviously falls into a prolog (1-9), Widsith’s speech (10-134), and an epilog (135-143). The speech itself begins with an introduction (10-13) and ends with a conclusion (131-134). Lines 14-17 are commonly rejected as an interpolation. The body of the speech (18-130) includes three mnemonic name-lists very different from the rest of the poem. It was long customary to distinguish them as the weold-catalog or catalog of kings, the wæs-catalog or catalog of tribes, and the sohte-catalog or catalog of heroes.