we hear that they were let loose in the spring, and young ones freshly caught and tamed in the autumn. During the winter these winged servants pulled down the numberless water-fowl that nested in the river banks. One of the noblest of these, no prey indeed for the hawk, but the food of the eagle, was the swan; and once on a time Cynewulf, who may now have seen it flying over the forest to some inland pool or fen, described it in one of the finest of his riddles-marking especially that old tradition of its song, not before its death, but when it left the village to fly over the great world. Nor did it sing with its throat. Its feathers sounded melodiously as the wind went through them, a form of the myth which might easily arise among a people who knew of swan-maidens whose robe of feathers had a magical existence of its own and could be done off or on at pleasure. Cynewulf may have had, when he wrote this riddle (viii.), some form of the heathen myth in his head.

Voiceless is my robe

when in villages I dwell,
When I fare the fields, or drive the flood along.
Whiles, my glorious garments
Heave me high above
When the Craft of clouds
Far the folk above,
Loudly-rustling sound,
Sing a sunbright song,
Over flood and field

and this lofty Lift

the housing place of heroes!
carries me away

then my fretted1 feathers
lulling hum along,

when stayed to earth no more,
I'm a spirit faring far.

That has the modern quality. Phrases, like "the strength of the clouds," "the spirit that fares over flood and field" (flôde and foldan fèrende gaest), the melodious rustling of the fretted feather-robe, the sense of a conscious life and personality in the bird and its pleasure in its own beauty, are all more like nineteenth century poetry in England than anything which follows Cynewulf for a thousand years. But it is not only the greater birds that are drawn with a vigorous pencil by the early English poets. Cynewulf, as he stood at the edge of the clearing, heard the Cuckoo shouting, and he sketched the bird in one of his riddles. But the sketch has no poetry in it; it is only when speaking of the Starling and the Nightingale that he feels the gentle influences of the singing fowl. He saw the Starlings, as we suppose, upon this day, rising and

66

1 Fraetwe is originally carved, fretted things; hence an ornament-anything costly; here, then, my rich garment of feathers." Craft is, of course, power.

2 Starling; at least so Prehn dissolves the Riddle. I am not sure he is right. The stare is not particularly a little bird, nor is its note sweet. Does it call its own name? The bird seems to answer best to the Martin; others say that Gnats is the solution, but this seems out of the question.

falling in flocks over the hills and cliffs, above the stream where the trees stood thick, and over the roofs of the village, and the verse tells how happy he was in their joyousness, their glossy colour, and their song (Riddle lviii.)

Here the Lift beareth
O'er the hill-summits;
Swart, sallow-coated!
Flocking they fare on,
Roam the wood-nesses,
Of the children of men.

wights that are little,

and deep black are they,
Sweet is their song!
shrilly they sing,

and whiles, the burg-halls
Let them call their own name!

And now the evening falls, and as the traveller enters the town a flood of song bursts from the woods, and the English "earls" stop to listen, or sit silent in the doorways, while the "ancient evening singer," as Cynewulf calls the nightingale, pours forth his song. The bird himself speaks, proud of his power over men, and the whole thought of the riddle is the same as Wordsworth's

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods.

Many varied voices

voice I through my mouth.

Cunning are the notes I sing, and incessantly I change them.

Clear I cry and loud;

Holding to my tones,

I, the Evening-singer old,
Bliss within the burgs,
With a cadenced song.

with the chant within my head;
hiding not their sweetness.

unto earls I bring

when I burst along

Silent in their dwellings

They are sitting, bending forwards.1 Say what is my name.

Riddle ix.

Making this song our supposed Cynewulf passed through the gate in the hedge and entered the village. The main road was probably paved, and led straight to the hall of the kinsfolk set in the midst and surrounded by a piece of meadow

1 I quote here the whole of Ealdhelm's riddle De Luscinia in order to confound those who say that Cynewulf in his Riddles is a mere imitator of the Latin. In the Latin there is not a trace of imagination, of creation. In the English both are clear. In the one a scholar is at play, in the other a poet is making.

Vox mea diversis variatur pulcra figuris,
Raucisonis nunquam modulabor carmina rostris,
Spreta colore tamen, sed non sum spreta canendo.
Sic non cesso canens, fato terrente futuro:
Nam me bruma fugat, sed mox aestate redibo.

Almost every riddle, the subject of which Cynewulf took from Ealdhelm,
Symphosius, or Eusebius, is as little really imitated as that. Even the Riddle
De Creatura, the most closely followed of them all, is continually altered
towards imaginative work.

land. Many narrow paths, on either side of the main-way, went to the separate houses of the freemen, each with its farm buildings, each surrounded by its own hedge, and within the hedge, its orchard, or vineyard; perhaps fig-trees, or mulberry from which the morat was made; and many beehives. These stood under the apple-trees, or leaning against the out-houses of the farmer's home; and in the garth Cynewulf watched with pleasure, and afterwards described, the draw-well and the water-bucket rising into the air, then the black-haired Welsh woman carrying on her shoulders the yoke from which the water-buckets hung, "two hardy bondsmen," as he calls them in his fanciful fashion, "fast fettered together," which she bears under the roof of the hall (liii.). He saw the women spinning at the doors (xxvi.), or feeding the dogs and hens (li.). He saw the cobbler lay by his tools (xiii.), and the smith cease to labour at the sword (xxi. 6) and the war-shirt, and the jeweller at the ornamenting of the horn and the cup, the collar and the bracelet; he saw the carpenter leave the half-finished house, and the hedger lay aside his bill, and he made verses on them all. The paths were full of the men returning from work, the swineherd and the woodward, and the hewers of wood from the forest, and the hunter with his spoil; the watchers of the cattle from the common pasture next to the wood, the plougher and sower and gardeners from the arable land, the tenders of the lambs and colts and calves from the meadows nearest to the town, the miller and the eelfishers, the weir-wards and the fowlers from the river-side. The town was full. He moved with the crowd, and soon saw shining in the red light of evening the high, horned gables of the hall of the kin, standing in the midst of the central meadow, and near it the moot-mound, or the two or three huge trees left to mark the place of assembly when the town was planned. All the freemen we picture now, were there, perhaps in their armour, their long hair floating on their shoulders, hearing and judging causes, making their own laws, taking counsel for war or peace, commanding and forbidding. The chosen head of the kinsfolk, with his comrades and the chief freemen, stood on the top of the mound as the wandering singer came through the crowd. When the moot was over and the evening star shone (the star the English called the "star of the swains "), and the loud horn "called with its voice the warriors to the wine-feast," the hall was opened, the torches were lit, the smoke rose from the great fires in the midst. The men sat down to eat and drink, and as Cynewulf

took his place, one of the women had finished a great web at the loom and brought it to the head of the kin into the hall, and Cynewulf, seeing this, made a riddle about the loom, which, to please his hearers, he likened to a noble warrior making and enduring a hard fight. Now his fancy paints the bed of the loom smitten by the restless and wrathful beam, "the fighting warrior"; now he sympathises with that part on which the web is stretched, and which is pierced by spears -perhaps, too, he thinks of the dartings of the shuttle,then we see at last the "leavings of the battle," the finished web, borne into the hall. This is the riddle, but it is very difficult to translate, and many are its renderings

where a thing I saw ;

wounded by a beam,

and of battle-wounds it took
Very grievous were
and the wood with war-gear
Of its feet

I was then within,
'Twas a wight that warred,
By a wood that worked about:
Gashes great and deep!
To this wight the darts;
Fast was bound about.
One was fastened down,
Leaping through the lift,
And a tree was touching it,
All behung with leaves.
Of the Doing of the darts
Where men met a-drinking;

but the other active toiled,
then the land anear!

where it towered in light,
Then I saw the leavings
to the dwelling borne
where my master is.

Riddle lvii.

When Cynewulf had sung this riddle (if I may continue presentation of him as a wandering singer), he would be offered mead and ale, borne to him from the small table at the end of the hall where the drink was placed. Inspired with the draught, we may well fancy him making two other riddles to make gay the feast. The first, on the mead, begins with the bees bringing honey from the hills and dells, and then draws a vivid picture of the drunkard.

That with back (and shoulders)

he must seek the ground!

If from that unrede he escape him not,
He's bestolen of his strength, in his speech is strong,
Of his mood not master, of his might bereft,

Powerless in feet and hands. Find out what I'm called.
I who thus to earth bind the hireling down,
Dullard by my dinting,

even in the day!

Riddle xxviii.

The solution of the next riddle (xxix.) is, according to Prehn, a wine vat. The better answer has occurred to many. It celebrates "Old John Barleycorn." The things said, even to the very order of their saying, are so curiously like those said in the old ballad, that I am induced to conjecture that this impersonation is extremely old, and that Cynewulf's riddle and the ballad are both forms of a much older original. I translate the riddle, and a vigorous thing it is; and I give below the version which Burns made of the ballad

There's a portion of the earth, prankt most gloriously
With the very hardest and the very sharpest

1 JOHN BARLEYCORN.

There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae swore a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

They took a plough and plough'd him
down,

Put clods upon his head,

And they hae swore a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.

But the cheerfu' Spring came kindly on
And show're began to fall;

John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.

The sultry suns of Summer came,

And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.

His colour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began

To show their deadly rage.

They've ta'en a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;

They hung him up before the storm,

And turn'd him o'er and o'er.

They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.

They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;

But a miller us'd him worst of all,

For he crush'd him between two stones.

And they hae ta'en his very heart's
blood,

And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,

For if you do but taste his blood,
"Twill make your courage rise.

"Twill make a man forget his woe;
"Twill heighten all his joy;
"Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!