notes and queries march 1991 - yale university · from cambridgeshire, leeds, and the isle of man,...

NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991

beginning of folio 206' corresponds to Patro-logia Latina CII, col. 478C (... el innocentiam,in eo Christus suscipitur), commenting onMatthew 18:5. What is missing is the end of theexegesis of the Gospel for the nineteenth Sun-day after Pentecost, all of the exegesis of theEpistle for the feast of the Archangel Michael,and part of the exegesis of that day's Gospel.Unlike the printed text, the Worcester manu-script does not write out the lection in full at thebeginning of the exegesis, but simply providesthe liturgical date, the specification of the read-ing, and the lection phrase by phrase as it iscommented upon, picked out in majuscules, asalready noted, and by marginal signs (see lines 4and 5 of Bishop's Plate XVI). With allowancesmade for this difference between the manu-script and the printed text, it is clear that themissing material would have occupied twofolios.

In May 1939 Vaughan commented that 'Thebook has been bound twice before - the secondbinding, which I pulled to pieces, was probably13th century work'. Since the surviving part ofthe manuscript shows no signs of maltreatment,we may presume that the leaves missingbetween folios 205 and 206, as also the leafmissing between folios 98 and 99, noted byBishop, were lost at the time of one of the bind-ings. Whether it was carelessness in binding orsome other circumstance which caused thelarge loss of the manuscript's first six quires issomething that we cannot guess.

JOYCE HILLUniversity of Leeds

BEOWULF 875-902 AND THESCULPTURES AT SANGUESA, SPAIN

SANGUESA, situated 25 miles east-south-eastof Pamplona and about 30 miles from theFrench border, is a quiet country town in theSpanish province of Navarre. Its finest monu-ment is the church of Santa Maria la Real,whose south doorway is encrusted with a profu-sion of twelfth- and early thirteenth-centurysculpture (see Plate 1). Amongst the subjectsrepresented are Christ in Majesty, the Virginand Child, the twelve Apostles, the symbols ofthe Evangelists, the Fall of Man, and the Last

Judgement, as well as craftsmen, musicians,acrobats, animals and monsters. However, themost interesting of the sculptures for Anglicistsare those of scenes from the legend of Sigurd,including Sigurd's fight with the dragon Fafnir,the smith Regin at his anvil, and Sigurd bringingRegin the dragon's heart. As the earliest literaryreference to the dragon-killing is very likely thatat Beowulf884-97 (where it is related as a feat ofSigurd's father, Sigemund), these Spanish sculp-tures have a special link with Old English studies.

Apart from Beowulf, the legend of Sigurd alsofigures in the Old Norse Edda and Vplsungasaga, the Middle High German Nibelungenliedof c. 1200 (as the legend of Siegfried), and earlymedieval sculpture from Winchester, Lanca-shire, Cumberland, Norway, and Sweden. It hasbeen claimed that it appears too in sculpturefrom Cambridgeshire, Leeds, and the Isle ofMan, and that elements of it influenced Irishlegends of Finn mac Cumhaill and Welshlegends of the poet Taliesin. Apart from theirimportance for Anglo-Saxon literature andarchaeology, therefore, the sculptures at San-giiesa are of interest for Germanicists and evenCelticists as evidence for one of the most vigor-ous of northern legends.

The fundamental discussion of the Sangiiesasculptures, and the basis for the present note, isCynthia Milton Weber's 'La portada de SantaMaria la Real de Sangiiesa', Principe de Viana,xx (1959), 139-86. Principe de Viana (Pam-plona, 1940- ) is the leading journal for thestudy of theart and history of Navarre. However,for some reason it reaches few British libraries,and Cynthia Milton's paper has not had theattention from Anglo-Saxonists it deserves. Asits account of early medieval sculpture in Britainand Scandinavia is now also seriously out of date,it is hoped the present note will prompt a newstudy by a specialist in Scandinavian art withaccess to the appropriate libraries. It has to besaid too that Miss Milton's paper is not alwaysaccurate, especially on geography: for example,it locates certain Manx towns and villages (Jurby,'Malem', Ramsey, and 'Maughola') in Ireland(pp. 168-9). So a fresh note on the Sangiiesasculptures is in order.

The facade at Sangiiesa is arranged as follows.On each side of the door are three jambs, five ofthem with elongated figures of the Virgin andsaints showing the influence of twelfth-century

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Chartres. Above the door is a tympanum withrepresentations of Christ in Majesty, the LastJudgement and the Twelve Apostles. Aroundthe tympanum are three mouldings, forming apointed arch lined with human and allegoricalfigures. Above the arch are spandrels filled witha medley of carvings. These include, on the left, adog with a huge tongue lolling out, an Old Testa-ment king with two women, Adam and Eveplucking the forbidden Fruit, two men wrestling,a serpent swallowing a woman, a knotted strap,the ox of St Luke, a basilisk, and two snufflingcreatures with wings and snaky tails; and, on theright, a bird pecking its back, a spearman, ahound chasing a hart, a griffin taking flight, alarge quadruped with a woman's face, fivewinged monsters, one with a 'Chinese grin'(sonrisa china), and five carvings relating to theSigurd legend. Above the spandrels are twoblind arcades containing statues of the apostlesand, in the centre of the upper row, a Christ inMajesty surrounded by the symbols of the Evan-gelists.

The work in the facade, by several hands,dates from various periods; the jumble of sculp-ture in different sizes and styles within the span-drels is amongst the clear evidence forreconstruction, carried outperhaps about 1230.J. M. Lacarra, in his Historia del Reino deNavarra en la edad media (Pamplona, 1976),266, suggested rebuilding followed flooddamage: the church stands by the river Aragon,swollen each spring with meltwater from thePyrenees. However, we are here concerned withthe Sigurd sculptures rather than the facade as awhole. Various oddities of their style fortunatelyallow us to date them fairly exactly. The bulgingeyes and calligraphic decoration of the wingedmonsters and certain of the Sigurd figures showthe hand of the 'Master of San Juan de la Pefia',who left work dated to 119 7 in the cloister of SanPedro el Viejo in Huesca. He worked as well atchurches at Agiiero (24 miles north-west ofHuesca) and Ejea de los Caballeros (34 mileswest), besides the monastery of San Juan de laPefia itself, 30 miles north-north-west ofHuesca. All of these are in Aragon. In Navarreone of his sculptures also occurs at Puente laReina, 13 miles south-west of Pamplona.

The story of Sigurd is told in the tenth-centuryFdfrtismdl and Eiriksmdl in the Edda, and thethirteenth-century Volsunga saga and (in a

different form) Thidriks saga. Regin the smithwas the tutor of Sigurd, and reforged Odin'ssword Gram for him. With the sword Sigurd killsthe dragon Fafnir and roasts its heart for Regin toeat, but burns his finger while prodding it to see ifit is cooked, and having sucked it discovers heunderstands the language of birds. The birds tellhim Regin is his enemy, and that whoever eats theheart will be the wisest of men; he therefore killsRegin with the sword and eats the heart himself.

The parallels between Sigurd's discovery ofknowledge by burning himself while cooking adragon's heart, and similar stories of Finn (cook-ing a magic salmon from the river Boyne), andGwion Bach (stirring a cauldron of inspirationfor the witch Ceridwen, who lived in Bala Lake),who was later reborn as Taliesin, are worthnoting as a comment on the diffusion of thisstory: cf. T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History andMythology (Dublin, 1946), 329-34; TrioeddYnys Prydein, ed. Rachel Bromwich (Cardiff,1978), 308-9, and Daithf 0 hOgain, An File(Baile Atha Cliath, 1982), 233-42. It is morelikely Norse tradition influenced Celtic than viceversa. Even so, the thumb-sucking motif is farfrom limited to Norse and Celtic; see KennethJackson, The International Popular Tale andEarly Welsh Tradition (Cardiff, 1961), 115-16,132, where Jackson quotes Sir Ifor Williams'sdate of the ninth century for the Welsh text; cf. SirIfor's Chwedl Taliesin (Caerdydd, 1957), 18-19,22-4. The poem Finn utters after burning histhumb is certainly ninth century; see Early IrishLynched.GerardMurphy(Oxford,1956),234.If (besides the dubious evidence of the FranksCasket) the evidence of Beowulf and the Burwellworkbox cited below can be accepted, this ele-ment of the story may have been known inBritain as early as the seventh century. Irishscholars tend to assume the tale entered Celtictradition from Norse, but the possibility that itcame from England should not be ruled out. If itdid, it could be contrasted with the themes dis-cussed in the late James Carney's 'The Irish Ele-ments in Beowulf in his Studies in IrishLiterature and History (Dublin, 1955), 77-128.

The Sigurd sculptures at Sangiiesa are heredescribed following Cynthia Milton's analysis(166-70). The first (see Plate 2) is that ofSigurd, presenting his right profile, and plunginga broad-bladed sword upwards into the throat ofthe dragon Fafnir with his right hand while his

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March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIESleft arm is thrust up to the elbow between itsjaws (gripping its tongue?): Milton, pi. 24; cf.L. M. de Lojendio, OSB, Navarre Rornane(Paris, 1967), pi. 54. The close resemblance ofthe Sanguesa dragon-slaying to that at Hyle-stad in Norway proves the Sanguesa sculptor'ssource was visual, not narrative: cf. PeterAnker, L'Art Scandinave (Paris, 1969), i,pi. 222.

Next is the scene of Sigurd bearing Fafnir'sheart to the smithy of his tutor, Regin. Thisappears below the sculpture of Sigurd and thedragon in the present facade, and consists ofthree separate pieces of sculpture, whose origi-nal arrangement may not have been the presentone. Nor is the figure of Regin by the Master ofSan Juan de la Pena (Milton, 166 n. 153). Atpresent Sigurd, whose head has been lost,approaches Regin from behind, bearing in bothhands an object which must be the dragon'sheart. The sculpture of Regin at his anvil is wellpreserved. He is shown in left profile, strippedto the waist as he raises a hammer with his righthand and grips the piece of metal he is forgingwith tongs in his left. His head is sharply indi-vidualized: bald, bearded, and with a long,powerful face (see Plate 3; Milton, pi. 24,Lojendio, pi. 56). To the left of him is a figure(now headless) similar to that holding Fafnir'sheart; it has been identified from the Hylestadcarving in Norway as Sigurd holding the bel-lows (now lost at Sanguesa) in Regin's forge; cf.Anker, i, pi. 219. The similarity between theSpanish and the Norwegian scenes of Regin andSigurd at the forge is remarkable.

The next scene is that of Sigurd testing thesword Gram. This is shown in a figure to the leftof a woman-faced quadruped (pror-mbly theDevil) which is itself to the left of the scene ofFafnir's slaying. Sigurd must have been holdinghis sword (now lost) with his right hand, whilegripping the scabbard in his left; he appearsabout to fight the quadruped. But this is an acci-dent of reconstruction, as the woman-facedbeast is by a different hand, and originally boreno relation to the sculptures now each side of it(see Plates 4 and 5; Milton, pi. 20).

The five pieces of sculpture described aboveare easy to identify. Two other possible scenesfrom Sigurd's story are more problematic. Onthe left side of the facade, in the lower part ofthe spandrel, is a small carving of a tree with

large spherical fruits, intertwined branches, andleaves like fish-tails. Cynthia Milton claimed toidentify one 'fruit' as a bird (178, pi. 25),thereby suggesting another incident from theSigurd legend. But the bird is not discernible tothe present writer.

Finally, near the top of the left spandrel is aninteresting carving of a spurred and stirrupedrider, his head lost and his right hand holding anobject also lost (probably a sword), whosehorse is trampling a nude prone figure with alarge head, protuberant eyes, and long, neatlycombed moustache and beard. The pronefigure stares downwards as the horse's fronthoof rests on the back of his head (see Plate 6).This scene has been variously identified. Cyn-thia Milton cites a picture of St James on horse-back trampling Moors in Santiago deCompostela, Cathedral Archive, CodexTumbo A, and (much closer to the Sanguesafigure) an illustration of Catalan origin showinga crusader trampling Moors in the Ripoll Bible,fo. 342. The exotic face of the fallen man couldbe that of a Moor. However, she also suggests apossible identification with Sigurd on the horseGrane, killing the traitor Hunding when hethrew himself down on the river bank to drink.She notes that although the sculpture is not bythe master of San Juan de la Pena, it has similar-ities with that of Regin, and could be by thesame hand (173-4, pi. 18).

The above does not exhaust the Scandinavianlinks of the Sanguesa doorway. One curiousfeature is that of the knotted beaded strap. Twoof these appear at Sangiiesa, one in four loops inthe upper part of the left spandrel, the other, oftwo intertwined straps in six loops, at the bot-tom of the right spandrel (Milton, pi. 29;Lojendio, pi. 54, 58). This is familiar from Irishand Scandinavian art; none the less, CynthiaMilton suggests the fact that it exists elsewherein Spain (at the abbey of Leyre, near Javier, andat Santillana to the west of Santander on thenorth coast of Spain) implies it need not here bedue to direct influence from beyond Spain.

Volume iv/2 of the Catdlogo Monumental deNavarra, ed. Maria Conception Garcfa Gainzaet al. (Pamplona, 1980- ), which will describethe town of Sanguesa, is at press. But it would besurprising if even so detailed a survey as thisexhausted the possibilities of the Sanguesadoorway for researchers. The figures on the

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jambs, linked with the influence of Chartres andAutun (45 miles west-south-west of Dijon inBurgundy), also have parallels at the churchesof San Martin in Segovia and San Vicente inAvila; the tympanum has its closest links withthe south of France; and the upper arcades havetheir antecedents in Saintonge, the region northof the Gironde estuary in south-west France,and at Angouleme a little way to the east. It is astructure of great complexity, quite apart fromthe Germanic and Nordic aspects of its art dis-cussed here.

In her analysis Miss Milton describes theclose parallels between the Sanguesa figuresand sculpture in Norway and Sweden, noting in ,particular that all five of the following scenesappear in wooden carvings from the church atHylestad in south-west Norway, approximatelymidway between Oslo and Stavanger, thoughthe Hylestad doorway is now in the universitymuseum, Oslo. (The present writer has tried,where possible, to give locations and currentname-forms of the Norwegian and Swedishplaces below.)

Cynthia Milton sets out the Hylestad paral-lels thus:

1. Sigurd kills the dragon.2. Regin and the sword.3. Sigurd tests and shatters the sword.4. The tree and the speaking birds.5. The horse Grane.

On this analysis, scenes 1,2, and 3 appear at anold house at Gaulstad, near Drammen to thesouth-west of Oslo; 2, 3, 4, and 5 at Vegusdal,some 40 miles south-south-east of Hylestad; 1and 4 at Versos, between the great lakes ofVanern and Vattern in southern Sweden; and'other scenes' at Austad, seven miles south ofHylestad. These carvings, all in wood, date fromabout 1200, but derive from older models.Not all are in situ. The Norwegian Sigurdscenes are discussed in Anker, i.413-15, whobases his account on Roar Hauglid, 'Setes-dalens stavkirkeportaler', in UniversitetetsOldsksamlings Arbok (1937), and MartinBlindheim, Norwegian Romanesque DecorativeSculpture 1090-1210 (London, 1965), 52.

Cynthia Milton goes on to list earlier ex-amples of these scenes, more distant in style, inrunic monuments of the tenth century and later:1 and 4 on the Leeds Cross; 4 and 5 on the

Ramsund stone in the parish of Jader, and 1, 2,4, and 5 on the Gok stone, both in the Swedishprovince of Sodermanland south-west of Stock-holm; and 1 on the Drafie stele and Manads-bladet monolith, from Sweden, and theNorderhov block from near Honefoss, a fewmiles north of Oslo. There is a drawing of theRamsund stone in Anker, i. 202.

Cynthia Milton also lists scenes 2, 4, and 5from the eleventh-century cross shaft at Halton,near Lancaster; in sculptures built into atwelfth-century wall at Gosforth, on the Cum-berland coast south of Whitehaven; and inmonuments from the Isle of Man, with unidenti-fied evidence from Michael; scenes 1, 4, and 5from Jurby; 1, 4, and 5 from Andreas; 4 fromMaughold, near Ramsey; and 1 and 5 fromMalew, in the south of the island. Finally, sherefers to a sculpture of Sigurd in the crypt ofFreising Cathedral, some 20 miles north ofMunich.

It has not been possible to provide any kindof systematic updating of the above analysisfrom resources in Pamplona libraries. How-ever, the fundamental account of Sigurd inHilda Ellis Davidson, 'Gods and Heroes inStone', The Early Cultures of North-WestEurope, ed. Sir Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickens(Cambridge, 1950), 121-39, with importantreferences to her earlier research on this sub-ject, is worth noting for scepticism as to Sigurd'spresence on the Leeds cross; compare thepopular account in Mary Anderson, Historyand Imagery in British Churches (London,1971), 59. Dr Ellis Davidson also rejects (at137) any link between the horse on thedetached right side of the Franks Casket (atFlorence) and Sigurd's horse Grane mourninghis dead master, though this identification is stillmade, for example in R. M. Wilson's study citedbelow, and Henry Mayr-Harting, The Comingof Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (Lon-don, 1972), 221-2 (and cf. 232-3). Morepositively, Dr Ellis Davidson mentions (135-6)a figure, who may represent Sigurd, plunging aweapon into the underside of a dragon on thebronze cylindrical workbox of the mid-seventhcentury from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Bur-well, nine miles east-north-east of Cambridge.She refers as well (126) to an Old Norse verse,perhaps of the early eleventh century, describ-ing scenes of dragon slaying and roasting on a

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tapestry in the hall of St Olaf, King of Norway;the verse is a neat piece of evidence for theSigurd story in both art and literature. TheEnglish and Manx carvings surveyed by DrEllis Davidson are also discussed in threearticles I have not seen: H. M. Taylor, 'HaltonCrosses', Archaeological Journal, cxxvii(1971), 287-8; D. M. Wilson, 'Manx MemorialStones of the Viking Period', Saga-Book of theViking Society, xviii (1971), 1—18; and JamesLang, 'Sigurd and Weland in pre-ConquestCarvings from Northern England', YorkshireArchaeological Journal, xlviii (1976), 83-94.

If Sigurd and the dragon appeared in needle-work at the court of King Olaf, they may alsohave appeared in stone at the court of hisDanish contemporary King Cnut, as suggestedin Martin Biddle, 'Excavations at Winchester1965', The Antiquaries Journal, xlvi (1966),308-32, at 329-32. Biddle describes the dis-covery by. archaeologists at Winchester of astone carving thought to show Sigmund,Sigurd's father, as a bound man tearing out withhis teeth the tongue of a wolf attacking him. Thisincident occurs in chapter 5 of Vplsunga saga;although the saga in its present form is said tohave been compiled 'not later than c. 1260-70,probably in Iceland, though possibly in Nor-way', Biddle speaks of 'references to the Vol-sung legend in Beowulf, Widsith and Walderein Old English [in the last two, presumably theallusions to the Burgundian king Guthhere,d. 436/7], and in the fragmentary tenth-centuryNorse poem Eiriksmdt. He argues that thescene comes from a frieze erected in 1016-35by Cnut at the Old Minster, Winchester, tocommemorate his ancestors. As the originalfrieze may have been 80 feet long (a kind ofBayeux Tapestry in stone), it might haveincluded scenes from the Sigurd legend likethose at Sanguesa, as well as those mentionedby St Olafs poet. The frieze was destroyedwhen the Old Minster was demolished in 1093-4. Biddle also cites proof for the knowledge ofVplsunga saga in art from England, Norway,and Sweden, but is cautious about evidence forthe Sigurd legend from the Isle of Man.

This evidence for the knowledge of Vplsungasaga in royal circles at Winchester casts newlight on the locus classicus for the legend inEnglish poetry, Beowulf 815-902. This relateshow one of Hrothgar's retainers at Heorot told

the mighty deeds, far journeys, feuds, andcrimes of Sigemund, the tribes of giants he andhis nephew Fitela killed, and the fame heachieved after death by killing the dragon, 'theguardian of the treasure'.

Under the gray stone the son of the princehad ventured alone, a daring deed, nor wasFitela with him. Yet it was granted to him thathis sword pierced the gleaming dragon, andstood fixed in the wall, the noble weapon. Thedragon lay dead from the murderous stroke.

Sigemund loads the dragon's bright treasure-hoard into his ship as the dragon dissolves in itsown heat (wyrm hat gemealt), and the poetcomments on Sigemund's reputation amongstmen that he was 'by far the most famous ofadventurers amongst nations for his bravedeeds'.

It is worth emphasizing that if this passage onthe dragon-killing and other legends is originalto Beowulf as composed about 750, it is theoldest literary evidence for what we know asVplsunga saga; hence its importance. In his TheLost Literature of Medieval England (London,1970), 18-19, from which the above transla-tion is quoted, R. M. Wilson claims (despite thescepticism of Hilda Ellis Davidson cited above)that whether this passage is a late one brought toEngland by the Vikings or not, the right panel ofthe Franks Casket may be evidence that thestory was known in Northumbria about 700.Finally, C. L. Wrenn in his edition of Beowulf(London, 1973), 47, argues that, althoughSigurd's killing of the dragon in the Norseaccounts is transferred to his father Sigemundin Beowulf, 'it is quite as likely that the OldEnglish, being set down several centuriesbefore the Norse accounts, has the older tradi-tion, and that it is right in that sense in attribut-ing the dragon-slaying to Sigemund rather thanto his son'. Wrenn clearly did not regard thepassage as a post-Viking interpolation.(Another account of Beowulf, Sigurd and thedragon, in G. V. Smithers, The Making of 'Beo-wulf (Durham, 1961), 14-16,1 have not seen.)

The above material indicates that knowledgeof the legends found in the Sanguesa sculptureswas widespread in England, Norway, andSweden. But the problem of how these talesreached Spain remains. Here Cynthia Milton'sexplanation is very plausible. Sanguesa was

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founded at a crucial bridgehead on the Navar-rese-Aragonese border shortly before 1131, inwhich year the King of Navarre, Alfonso I 'theBattler', made town and church over to the mili-tary order of Knights Hospitallers or Knights ofSt John, who remained in charge of its defenceuntil 1351; cf. Lojendio, 153, and Jose GoniGaztambide, Historia de los Obispos de Pam-plona, i (Pamplona, 1979), 372-3. (Anotherfrontier relic, the castle of Javier 3 miles fromSangiiesa, reappears in history as birthplace ofSt Francis Xavier in 1506.)

Now, the Knights of St John were an interna-tional order who maintained especially stronglinks with Scandinavia; and Cynthia Miltonpoints out the Crusades had already broughtScandinavia into contact with southern Europein the persons of Sigurd Jorsalafak, King ofNorway (1109-10), and Karl the Dane,Alfonso's kinsman; while Sangiiesa's positionon the new pilgrim route to Santiago de Com-postela via Puente la Reina and Burgos, sup-planting the old route hugging the north coast ofSpain, ensured the passage of thousands ofpilgrims from northern Europe through thetown.

As a trouble spot and dangerous posting fre-quented by pilgrims, Sangiiesa was no doubtwell-sited for its fighting men to learn and valuetales of Sigurd's prowess. But there may bemore to the sculptures than that. Sangiiesa inthe twelfth century was a new town as well as agarrison town, full of newcomers making aliving by supplying bread, wine and lodging topilgrims. Many of these inhabitants wereforeigners, including the Gascons, Provencals,Poitevins, Auvergnats, Jews, and other immi-grants who staged a peaceful 'invasion' ofNavarre (punctuated with massacres) betweenthe late eleventh century and the thirteenth. Atleast two of the Volsung cycle monuments, atWinchester and Halton, were apparently put upto commemorate ancestors; the Halton shaftstands in a manor owned by Earl Tostig, whoclaimed descend from Sigurd via Harald Blue-tooth and Ragnarr Hairybreeks, as Dr EllisDavidson points out (134). It is tempting toassociate the Sangiiesa sculptures with someNorwegian knight of St John living south of thePyrenees some time in the late twelfth century.If no such soldier-monk appears amongst thecomendadores of the encomienda of Sangiiesa

listed in Santos Garcia Larragueta, El granpriorado de Navarra de la orden de San Juan deJerusalen (Pamplona, 1957), i.96, 269, DrGarcia himself points out (248) how little weknow of the Hospitallers in Navarre at this date,especially of their intellectual culture, for whichalmost the only scraps of evidence are thesanjuanista churches and hospitals (many inruin) which still dot Navarre long after theOrder's libraries and other treasures havevanished. We are lucky that the Sangiiesa sculp-tures have survived centuries of weathering,flood, and warfare to demonstrate the linksbetween the twelfth-century knights who hadthem carved, and the audience of Beowulf.

ANDREW BREEZEUniversity of Navarre, Pamplona

SINDRUMBEGRUNDEN IN EXETERBOOK RIDDLE NO. 26

RIDDLE No. 26 in The Exeter Book of OldEnglish poetry is interpreted as 'a sacred codex'.It describes in the first person various stages inthe manufacture of a book - obtaining and pro-cessing the parchment, writing the text, encas-ing the gatherings within jewelled boards - andit ends by commending the saving powers of thesacred writings themselves. Lines 5b-7 containthe statement

Heard mec sit>)?ansnaS seaxses ecg. sindrum begrunden;fingras feoldan...'

of which the widely accepted translation is:'Afterwards the hard edge of the knife cut me,with all impurities ground off; fingers foldedme.. .'.2

1 C.oWilliamson (ed.), The Old English Riddles of the•Exeter Book' (Chapel Hill, 1977), 83; ecg is emended frommanuscript ecge. Williamson departs from ASPR in number-ing this Riddle 24.

1 R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, rev. edn,1954), 297. The same sense with different wording is foundin the translation which replaced Cordon's, that of S. A. J.Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1982), 374: 'a hardknife's edge dissected me, buffed clean of blemishes. Fingersfolded me. . . ' . ' With all impurities ground off,... apparentlywith reference to the sharpness of the seaxses ecg' is againproposed in Williamson, 213, citing the support of Bos-worth-Toller s.v. seax. Williamson also makes reference toL. K. Shook, 'Riddles relating to the Ango-Saxon Scrip-torium', in R. CDonnell (ed.), Essays in Honour of Anton

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