Copy 1, Volume 1
Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright.
- Thomas Wright
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
274/324 page 258
![ESSAY VIII. ON THE NATIONAL FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF ENGLAND. a | memorials of the days of Anglo-Saxon WE] heathendom are unfortunately few. The only work which we can ascribe with any degree of certainty to so early a mm eee period of their history, or rather of the inte of their forefathers before they came here, is the poem of Beowulf, of which an edition has been given by Mr. Kemble; and this poem has been much interpolated by Christian transcribers. before it was re- duced to the state in which it has come down to us. The chief exploit of the hero, Beowulf the Geat, is the destruction of the two monsters Grendel and his mother; both, like most of the evil beings of old times, dwellers in the fens and waters; and both, moreover, as some Christian bard has taken care to inform us, of ‘* Cain’s kin,’ as were also the eotens, and the elves, and the ores (edétenas, and ylfe, and orcneas). The haunt of the Grendels was a lake in the middle of a dark and dreary morass ; it was overshadowed by the thick branches of an ancient wood, and by night the surface of its waters appeared covered with flame (v. 2714.)](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33097963_0001_0274.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
