This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ... notes I. What ho Hwaet. This ' what' is not interrogative, but interjectional; it calls attention to the song, and it became the formula of overture for a Lay; just as in the medieval time the Lay began with 'Listenith lordinges ' The exordium of the romantic Lay was imitated in religious poetry, and this opening Hwat I is found in several poems of the secondary Epic, e. g. Andreas, Holy Rood, Destinies of Apostles, Juliana. 3. advanced bravery: ellen fremedon. I have hardly refrained myself from translating ellen chivalry, to the idea of which it approaches very near. 4. ScyId of the Sheaf': Scyld Seeing. Not 'Scyld the son of Scaf;' for it is too inconsistent even in myth, to give a patronymic to a foundling. According to the original form of the story, Sceaf was the foundling, he had come ashore in a boat with a sheaf of com, and from that was named. This form of the story is preserved in Ethelwerd and in William of Malmesbury. But here the foundling is Scyld, and we must suppose he was picked up with the sheaf, and hence his cognomen. 4 f. For a prose example of this syntax, oftlon with Dative of person and Genitive of thing, see Land Charters, p. civ. 15.-what they erst had suffered Jaet hie &r dragon. In several places ' erst' seems to be the fittest equivalent for kr, a frequent adverbial particle, which cannot always be rendered uniformly. It may not be amiss to observe that 'erst' does not necessarily put a wide interval of time between the present of the narrative and the event referred to: it may be used of events contemplated as quite recent; thus, in George Wither: --As if I in my anger would begin To break the stool that erst had broke my shin. Bonterwek corrected pset iopd, for concord with fyrenpearfe: --' The hard.