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.
40/324 page 24
![Yrmenlafes Yrmenlafe’s yldra bropor, elder brother ; min runwita, the partner of my secrets, and min reed-bora, and my counsellor, seaxl-ge-tealla who stood at my shoulder Sonne we on or-lege when we in battle hafelan wéredon, guarded our helmets, ponne hniton fepan, when troops clashed, eoferas cnysedon. dashed together their helms. [A] scolde eorl Ever should an earl wesan er-g6d be noble swylc Aéschere [wes],” as Auschere was. (2. 2642.) Beowulf consoles the Danish king, by offering to pursue the new intruder to her home; he finds her abode is under the water, whither he descends, and finally returns victorious. The king loads him with gifts, and he returns to his 4G own country. This completes the first part of the poem, which reaches to the twenty-eighth canto; the latter part of which, with the whole of the twenty-ninth, and the beginning of the thirtieth, appear to have perished by mutilation of the manuscript. Afterwards we have a new story ; that of the last expedition of Beowulf, now old and monarch over his people, against a fire-drake which mo- lested them, and of his death in the encounter. We will not dwell further on the story of Beowulf, for the beauty and interest of the poem are not in the plot, but in the accessories—in the descriptions of the festivities of the royal hall, where the queen of Hrothgar served round the ale to the heroes; of the abodes of the grendels and of the fire-drake; of the combats in which Beowulf is engaged; and in the strong and natural pictures of the manners and feelings of the persons who are introduced—](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33097963_0001_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
