Old English

• English is an IE language.
• It belongs to the (Low West) Germanic branch.
• Germanic languages are divided into East, West, and
North Germanic (e.g. Gothic, English, Norwegian).
• Some scholars claim that Germanic divided first into
East Gmc and North-West Gmc rather than splitting into
three varieties from the beginning.

• Welsh (Cymraeg [k@mrA:g]), Irish and Scottish Gaelic

are IE languages belonging to the Celtic branch.
• Scottish Gaelic is not the same as Scots.
• Scots is a Germanic language (related to the
Northumbrian dialect of Old English).
• An important sound-shift which marks off
Germanic from other IE languages is captured
by Grimm’s Law (advanced by Jacob Grimm in
1822).

• This shift was probably still occurring as late as

the 5th c. BC and may have been due to
language contact (between early Germanic
speakers and the Raeti to their south, see Smith
2007: 84-87).

[Smith, Jeremy. 2007. Sound Change and the

History of English. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.]
 Grimm’s Law
p>f b>p bh > B > b
IE *pisk- > OE fisc (‘fish’) *beu- > pyffan (‘puff’) *bhreg- > brecan (‘break’)
Later borrowing from L.: Pisces buccal fracture

t> T d> t dh > D > d

*tersk- > þerscan (‘thresh’) *dont- > tōþ (‘tooth’) *dhō- > dōn (‘do’)
trite dental fashion
k > x or h (word-initially) g> k gh > ◊ > g
*kaput > hēafod (‘head’) *gel- > kōl (‘cool’) *ghosti- > gestr (‘guest’)
capital glacial host

kw > xw or hw (word-initially) gw > kw gwh > b/gw, w

*kwo- > hw&t (‘what’) *gwā- > cuman (‘come’) *gwhormos > warm
quiddity advent furnace

NB sp, st, sk are not affected.

See table for Verner’s Law below for details as to the developments of the voiced fricatives.
• Certain exceptions to Grimm’s Law were
explained by Karl Verner (in 1875):

Latin centum vs. OE hundred

• Voiceless fricatives (by Grimm’s Law and

/s/) become voiced if the IE stress is not
on the immediately preceding syllable.
 Verner’s Law
f> B >b (initially, after nasals and in gemination)
Gmc *dreifan > OE drīfan (‘drive’, inf.)
Gmc *driBan > OE drifen (‘driven’, p.p.)

T> D >d (initially and also medially and finally in West Germanic, i.e. D
> d everywhere in OE)
Gmc *kweþan > OE cweþan (‘say’, inf.)
Gmc *kweDen > OE cweden (‘said’, p.p.)

x> ◊ >g (initially in lOE, always after nasals and in gem. (where it is dZ))
Gmc *teuxan > OE tēon (‘draw’, inf.)
Gmc *to◊an > OE togen (‘drawn’, p.p.)

s> z >r (in West and North Germanic)

Gmc *keusan > OE cēosan (‘choose’, inf.)
Gmc *kuzan > OE coren (‘chosen’, p.p.)
Why is OE drifen spelled with an <f>?

Gmc B > v (except initially, after nasals

and in gemination, see above) but v was
not an independent phoneme (as in PDE,
cf. fat vs. vat) but an allophone, alongside
f, of the phoneme /f/, which was written as
<f>.
 Second Sound Shift (or High German Shift)

between the 6th and 8th centuries AD

it affects /p/, /t/, /k/, /d/, /T/
English German

p > pf or ff (after vowels) pepper Pfeffer

t > z /ts/ or ss (after vowels) to zu

Water Wasser

k > ch /x/ (after vowels) make machen

d>t dream Traum

T>d that dass

Old English (450 – 1150)
Middle English (1150 – 1500)
Early Modern English (1500 – 1650/1700)
Late Modern English (1650/1700 – 1900)
Present Day English (1900 – )

English changed, over the centuries, from

a synthetic to an analytic language.
The division into three stages (OE, ME,
ModE) goes back to 19th c. linguist Henry
Sweet, who based it on the loss of
inflectional endings (i.e. based on internal
rather than external criteria).
 From Old English to Middle English
(‘external’ history):

• the Germanic conquest

• the Christianization of Britain and the
Benedictine Reform
• the Vikings’ raids and conquest
• the Norman conquest
 Britain before the Germanic conquest:

• the Celts
• the Romans:
55 and 54 BC (Julius Caesar)
43 AD (Claudius’ conquest)
410 AD (Roman troops’ withdrawal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads_in_Britain

• Latin coexsisted with Celtic.

 The traditional ‘story’:

• Wipeout theory: Celts from Central Europe

during the Bronze Age, c. 300 BC (replacing an
indigenous population), killed en masse by
Anglo-Saxons.

• English brought by the Anglo-Saxons (i.e. the

British Isles as a uniformly Celtic-speaking area
before the Germanic ‘conquest’)

• But e.g. Sykes (Blood of the Isles, 2006) and

Oppenheimer (The Origins of the British, 2006)
have disputed this account.
• Genetic evidence seems to suggest that most of the population is of
Iberian descent.

Sykes seems to equate the Iberians with Neolithic ‘Celtic’ farmers

who moved to the British Isles around 6000 years ago when Britain
had already separated from the European mainland.

Oppenheimer seems to identify the Iberians with Late Upper

Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Basque origin – they
allegedly moved to the British Isles between 15,000 and 7,500 years
ago – although he admits that there was also a (smaller) migration
of Neolithic ‘Celtic’ farmers. Crucially, Oppenheimer contends that
Celtic spread through cultural diffusion.

Look here for a summary of Oppenheimer’s study:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
• Oppenheimer also makes the interesting
suggestion that England was not a uniquely
Celtic speaking region prior to the the Germanic
‘conquest’:

“The interior of Britain is inhabited by people

who claim, on the strength of an oral tradition, to
be aboriginal; the coast, by Belgic immigrants
who came to plunder and make war – nearly all
of them retaining the names of the tribes from
which they originated – and later settled down to
till the soil.” (Caesar, De Bello Gallico)

This would explain the lack of Celtic inscriptions

in England!
Pre-conquest Germanic cemeteries
The earliest runic inscription in England is
the Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus (i.e.
ankle-bone) inscription, which dates from c.
400.

The inscription reads ᚱᚨᛇᚺᚨᚾ raihan ‘roe-

deer’.
The Germanic Conquest: 449 AD

• The traditional account is given in Bede’s

Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
(731) and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
(created during King Alfred’s reign, 871-
899, see http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/; it’s a
record - written in OE - of events in
England from the beginning of the
Christian era to 1154).
Anno 449. Hēr Martiānus and Valentīnus onfēngon rīċe,
and rīcsodon seofon winter. And on hiera dagum
Hengest and Horsa, from Wyrtġeorne ġelaþode, Bretta
cyninge, ġesōhton Bretene on þǣm stede þe is
ġenemned Ypwinesflēot, ǣrest Brettum tō fultume, ac
hīe eft on hīe fuhton.
Se cyning hēt hīe feohtan ongēan Peohtas; and hīe
swā dydon, and siġe hæfdon swā hwǣr swā hīe cōmon.
Hīe þā sendon tō Angle, and hēton him sendan māran
fultum; and hēton him secgan Bretwēala nāhtnesse and
þæs landes cyste. Hīe þā sendon him māran fultum. Þā
cōmon þā menn of þrim mǣġþum Germānie: of
Ealdseaxum, of Englum, of Īotum.
 Of Īotum cōmon Cantware and Wihtware
– þæt is sēo mǣġþ ðe nū eardaþ on Wiht –
and þæt cynn on Westseaxum þe man nū
ġīet hǣtt ‘Īotena cynn’. Of Ealdseaxum
cōmon Ēastseaxe and Sūðseaxe and
Westsexe. Of Angle cōmon – sē ā siððan
stōd wēste betwix Īotum and Seaxum –
Ēastengle, Middelengle, Mierċe, and ealle
Norþhymbre.
A.D. 449. This year Marcian and Valentinian assumed the empire,
and reigned seven winters. In their days Hengest and Horsa, invited
by Wurtgern, king of the Britons to his assistance, landed in Britain
in a place that is called Ipwinesfleet; first of all to support the Britons,
but they afterwards fought against them. The king directed them to
fight against the Picts; and they did so; and obtained the victory
wheresoever they came. They then sent to the Angles, and desired
them to send more assistance. They described the worthlessness of
the Britons, and the richness of the land. They then sent them
greater support. Then came the men from three powers of Germany;
the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. From the Jutes are
descended the men of Kent, the Wightwarians (that is, the tribe that
now dwelleth in the Isle of Wight), and that kindred in Wessex that
men yet call the kindred of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came
the people of Essex and Sussex and Wessex. From Anglia, which
has ever since remained waste between the Jutes and the Saxons,
came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all of
those north of the Humber.
• Incidentally, the King Arthur of romance is probably a military leader
of the Celts who opposed the Germanic invaders at the beginning of
the 6th century.

• There was no sense of national identity among the Germanic tribes.

• For centuries there was no collective name for the Germanic

peoples who settled in Britain.

• Anglo-Saxon (vs. Old Saxon) is a reconstruction.

• The Celts called the invaders Saxons (cf. modern Welsh Saeson
‘the English’ and Saesneg ‘the English Language’).

• The settlers called the Celts wēalas (cf. Wales) ‘foreigners’ (but the
term could also be used with the meaning of ‘servants’).
Bede (Book I, Chapter I)

Haec in praesenti … quinque gentium linguis, unam eandemque

summae veritatis et verae sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur, et confitetur,
Anglorum videlicet, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum et Latinorum, quae
meditatione scripturarum ceteris omnibus est facta communis.

This [island] at present … in the languages of five peoples manifests

and searches for one and the same knowledge of the highest truth and
true sublimity, namely [in the languages] of the Angles, of the Britons,
of the Scots, of the Picts and of the Latins, which [language] has
become common to all the others by the study of the Scriptures.
• The various Germanic tribes brought with
them dialects which resulted in the West
Saxon, Kentish, Mercian and
Northumbrian dialects (Mercian and
Northumbrian are collectively referred to
as Anglian).
 Leading powers

6th/7th c.: Kent & East Anglia

7th c.: Northumbria

8th c.: Mercia

9th c.: Wessex

Æthelberht’s law code

(602 or 603)
[justice administered by
means of wergild]

See
http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/abt/view/#edition,1/commentary,1_0_c_7
• But the surviving specimens of OE are in
fact the products of a small number of
centres of textual production.

• The only dialect in which there is an

extensive collection of texts is West
Saxon.

• Nearly all of OE literature is preserved in

manuscripts transcribed in this region.
There are close parallels between English and Frisian.

Did the Frisians join the Angles and Saxons in their

occupation of Britain ( Anglo-Frisian dialect
hypothesis)?

It has been recently hypothesised that, on the contrary,

many Anglo-Saxons stayed in Frisia rather than crossing
to Britain and retained North Sea Germanic features in
their language as a form of opposition against Frankish
influence. They also did the same when, much later (c.
1000), the continental Saxons began to expand in the
north. (see Bremmer, Rolf. 2009. An Introduction to Old
Frisian. Amsterdam: Benjamins. p.128)
• It is generally assumed that the Celts were
driven into “peripheral” areas (cf. also
Wales from OE wēalas ‘foreigners’)

• and that Roman civilization was destroyed.

• It was replaced by a society based on

clans, with a sharp distinction between
eorls (the aristocracy) and ceorls (simple
freemen).
• The traditional account apparently ties in well with the negligible
influence of Celtic upon Old English lexis [but see below on why this
may not be so after all!]:

- names of places and rivers (e.g. Dover, Cardiff, Carlisle, Glasgow,

London; Avon, Clyde, Severn, Thames)
- a few everyday words (e.g. binn ‘basket’)
- a few religious words introduced by Irish missionaries in the North
(e.g. cross)

• More recently, however, some scholars have “revived” the so-called

‘Celtic Hypothesis’, according to which features of Celtic are to be
found in English syntax (rather than/alongside vocabulary). See e.g.

Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Pitkänen. 2008. English

and Celtic in Contact. London: Routledge.

English Language and Linguistics 13.2 (2009) [special issue “Re-

evaluating the Celtic hypothesis”, edited by Markku Filppula and
Juhani Klemola]
A very accessible (i.e. non-scholarly)
account can also be found in:

McWhorter, John. 2008. Our Magnificent

Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of
English. Gotham.
The internal vs. external possessor construction

I cut off his head

Ich schlug ihm den Kopf ab (German)
(lit. I cut to-him the head off, cf. also Italian)
dativus sympatheticus
(sympathetic dative)

[NB Welsh also relies on the internal possessor

construction while Irish doesn’t. However, Irish uses
a type of external possessor construction with a
locative prepositional phrase (involving preposition
ag ‘at’) which may be due to Scandinavian influence,
see p.36]
Present-Day Irish:

Tá an srón ag cur fola aige.

is the nose at spreading of.blood at.him
‘His nose is bleeding’

Swedish:

Någon bröt armen på honom

somebody broke arm.the on him
‘Somebody broke his arm.’
OE bēon (*bheu-) vs. wesan (*es-)
[not found in other Germanic dialects]

The basic meanings of the b-forms, which

did not survive much beyond early ME,
seem to be generic/iterative (i.e.
consuetudinal, ‘is always/generally’) and
future activity (‘will be’), as in the Middle
Welsh b-forms.
The Northern Subject Rule

They peel them and boils them.

Birds sings.

A partly similar pattern is found in Brythonic languages,

cf. Modern Welsh:

1. maent are [they] – pl. verb

2. maent hwy are they – pl. verb
3. mae ‘r bechgyn is the boys – sing. verb

[but notice that northern English dialects group case 1

with case 3]
Periphrastic do

unstressed periphrastic DO found in some

south-western dialects and probably
originally a feature of the south-western
dialects of ME (and only later diffused to
other dialects)

[the existence of periphrastic tun/doen in

southern German and some Dutch
dialects could be explained as due to
continental Celtic influence]
(1) the boughs do grow like that (FRED Wil_003)

(2) If you don’t make up your mind with all the

sweets and all the medicines you do take
because if you do put a peppermint in your
mouth now after he’s gone you want another
one … (FRED Som_005)

(3) And then if they do catch a hare, the Master of

the Hunt do put the brush up against the nose
of the little Beagles … (FRED Wil_001)
The progressive

English:

to be (a) doing

Cymric:

be + preposition (now an imperfective aspect marker) +

verbal noun

mae yn dysgu
(he) is learning
(originally: (he) is at learning)
• Timing problem: the progressive construction seems to
emerge in the ME period.

• However, some scholars claim that because of the

stifling influence of the Anglo-Saxon literary tradition this
construction would have been banned as a ‘vulgar’
feature (i.e. used in everyday speech).

• Dal (1952) shows that in some OE texts of Midland and

northern provenance (where the West-Saxon literary
tradition was probably less prominent) the –inde/–ende
(i.e. the participial construction) and the –ung/–ing (i.e.
the verbal noun construction) forms could be used
interchangeably [these two constructions eventually
merged]:
appositional participial position, e.g.
spræc wēpende – spræc on wēpinge

as predicative with verbs of motion and stance, e.g.

cōm rīdende – cōm on rīdinge

as predicate with bēon, e.g.

wæs feohtende – wæs on feohtinge

as predicate of an object with verbs of perception and

feeling, e.g.
geseah hine rīdende – geseah hine on rīdinge
The cleft construction

(although other types of influence, e.g.

typological observation regarding rigidity of
word order and clefting, cannot be ruled
out)
Relative clauses

contact clauses (zero relatives)

I know a man ø will do for you

resumptive pronouns
That’s the chap that his uncle was drown

preposition stranding
the rock we sat down on
[note however that the stranded element is in fact a prepositional pronoun
inflected for gender and number in e.g. Welsh (but structures like this are
possible in earlier stages and dialects of English):

y garreg eisteddon ni arni

[the rocki sat.1PL we on-heri]

The fact that subject zero realtives are also found in other Germanic
language could be due to the fact that the Germanic type was not a relative
structure but an instance of asyndetic parataxis.
Other features:

the development of the self-forms as

reflexives and intensifiers

John hurt himself very badly.

John himself was very badly hurt.
Dialectal features

comparative nor (‘than’) in Scottish and

northern English dialects (variants: na, no,
nai, neg)

the ‘Cumbric score’, a.k.a. sheep-scoring

numerals, connected with knitting,
children’s games and nursery rhymes
(rather than sheep counting)
On Cumbric: see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbric

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera
Pronoun exchange
(use of subjective pronouns in non-subject
positions and use of objective pronouns in
subject positions)
in southwestern and West Midlands
dialects

The distinction between nominative and

accusative forms in pronouns has
disappeared from Welsh and Cornish.
Third person singular pronoun en /@n/
in southwestern dialects

Gender system in southwestern personal pronouns

The tripartite inflectional grammatical gender distinction

(m., f., n.) was lost both in Welsh and in English. Welsh
developed into a two-way grammatical gender system
(m., f.), English into a three-way natural gender system.

Southwestern dialects distinguish between count nouns

(m., with the exception of female humans) and mass
nouns (n.).
Pass me the bread. It’s on the table.

Pass me the loaf. He’s on the table.

Phonology

Preservation of /T/ and /D/ in both English and

Welsh. (Notice that no Germanic dialect
preserves both.)

OE i-mutation (which is similar to Welsh

‘affection’)

‘low-level’ influences (see Hickey 1995)

involving the weakening of unstressed syllables
in both British Celtic and OE
i-umlaut (or i-mutation or front mutation)

OE rǣran ‘cause to rise, rear’

(weak causative verb from past-tense sing. root ra i- s
of strong verb rīsan ‘rise’)

*raisján > *raizján (Verner) > *ráizjan (initial stress)

> *ráirjan (/z/ > /r/ in WG)
> *rārjan (/ai/ > /a:/ in prehistoric OE)
> rǣran (i-umlaut + loss of /j/)

See also Companion and BBS: 121-2.

Some pairs:

dole – deal (OE: ā vs. ǣ)

mouse – mice (OE: ū vs. ȳ)
full – fill (OE: u vs. y)
gold – gild (OE: o [from original /u/] vs. y)
fox – vixen
knot – knit
food – feed (OE: ō vs. ē)
doom – deem
goose – geese
tooth – teeth
blood – bleed
book – beech
man – men (OE: a vs. e)
wander – wend
Canterbury – Kent
long – length
tale – tell
straight – stretch
Lexis

Traditionally: few traces.

brat (obs.) “cloak”

bin (OE) “manger”
bannock “small Scottish cake”
brock “badger”
clock
curse
dun “dull greyish brown”
 Toponyms
Bernicia tribal name
Devon tribal name
Kent “border”
Deira “water”
Avon “river”
Esk “water”
Ouse “stream”
Thames “dark river”
Trent “strongly flooding” or from “over” + “way”

Lincoln lindon “pool” (from Celtic) + colonia “colony” (from Latin)

Lancaster River Lune (“pure?”) from Celtic + castrum “camp” (from Latin)
Cornwall Cornovii (a Celtic tribe) + wealas “foreigners” (from Germanic)
Cumberland Cymry (“Welsh”) + “land” (from Germanic)
Lexis

Recent research shows that the number of

place-names in England is probably greater than
has generally been assumed.

A large number of personal names in Anglo-

Saxon England are of British origin, e.g. in the
genealogies of the royal families of Wessex and
Lindsey (Cerdic, Ceawlin, Ceadda, Ceadwalla,
Ceadbead)  “their adoption by English royalty
must mean respect for Celtic traditions” (Clark
1992: 463)
Lexical borrowings

If ME and EModE loans are taken into

account, the number becomes much
larger (cf. also the time-lag observed for
Norse borrowings, see below).

The work of John Davies (in the 1880s)

points to over 1500 words of possibly
Celtic origin in English dialects.
Morphology: loss of inflections

vs. traditional account claiming it is due to

Germanic stress but cf. German and Icelandic!

Loss of inflections also related in the past to

contact with the Viking language but there are
signs of inflectional loss before their settlement,
so contact with Norse could be dismissed as a
determining factor (but not as a contributing
factor).
see e.g. Tristram:

http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/frontdoor.php?sou
rce_opus=697&la=de

All this is to be expected if Celtic is a

substratum language!
• This paper argues that the texts surviving from the Old English period do
not reflect the spoken language of the bulk of the population under Anglo-
Saxon elite domination. While the Old English written documents suggest
that the language was kept remarkably unchanged, i.e. was strongly
monitored during the long OE period (some 500 years!), the spoken and
"real Old English" is likely to have been very different and much more of the
type of Middle English than the written texts. "Real Old English", i.e. of
course only appeared in writing after the Norman Conquest. Middle English
is therefore claimed to have begun with the 'late British' speaking shifters to
Old English. The shift patterns must have differed in the various part of the
island of Britain, as the shifters became exposed to further language contact
with the Old Norse adstrate in the Danelaw areas and the Norman
superstrate particularly in the South East, the South West having been least
exposed to language contact after the original shift from 'Late British' to Old
English. This explains why the North was historically the most innovative
zone. This also explains the conservatism of the present day dialects in the
South West. It is high time that historical linguists acknowledge the arcane
character of the Old English written texts.
published in:
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia. - 40 (2004), S. 87 - 110

See also: http://www.joensuu.fi/fld/ecc/index.html

• Britain was clearly a multilingual society.
Alongside Celtic, Latin was not only
spoken at the time of the Germanic
conquest but was also re-introduced as
the language of the Church.

• For the latter reason (Latin was a

prestigious language, not the language of
a “submerged” people), the (lexical)
influence of Latin was much greater.
• First of all, the arrival of Christianity in
Britain meant the development of an Old
English script based on the Roman
alphabet.

• Previously, the only script available was

the runic alphabet (futhorc) developed
from the earlier Germanic futhark.
ᚠᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ
f u th a r k

ᚠᚢ ᚦ ᚩ ᚱ ᚳ
f u th o r c
• It was mainly used in carved inscriptions on stone but
could also appear on manuscripts and coins.

ᛦᚱᛁᛋᛏ ᚹᚨᛋ ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ ᚻᚹᛖᚦᚱᚨ

krist wæs on rodi hweþræ
Christ was on cross whether (=yet)
ᚦᛖᚱ ᚠᚢᛋᚨ ᚠᛠᚱᚱᚪᚾ ᛦᚹᚩᛗᚢ
þer fusæ fearran cwomu
there eager from-afar came
ᚨᚦᚦᛁᛚᚨ ᛏᛁᛚ ᚪᚾᚢᛗ
æþþilæ til anum
noble(men) to one-alone

(See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthwell_Cross)

Ruthwell ˈrʌT.wᵊl ; locally: ˈrɪð.ᵊl
Old English was written in a script known as ‘insular’ (because it
was used in the island of Britain, in contrast with Continental styles).

majuscule miniscule
a
Æ æ ‘ash’ (derived from Latin)
B b
c
D (d)
Đ Þ ð, þ (th, dh)
‘þ’ is a runic letter, t h o r n
‘ð’ derives from Irish writing, e t h
e
F (f)
(g) (y o g, from
h Irish writing)
h
I i
K k
L l
m
N n
O o
P p
R (r)
(s)
T
U u
Ƿ ƿ (w) (a runic letter, w y )n n
X x
Y ẏ
Z z

and
þæt
þōn þonne
þā þām
More information:

http://pages.towson.edu/duncan/brittene/brittene.htm

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/mss.html
See also: the Lindisfarne Gospels

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html
The Staffordshire Hoard:
http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157622378376316/
Sutton Hoo:

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo
• Three Latin influences on OE lexis (they can be established by
looking at the phonetic form of a word):

Continental borrowing (zero period)

 agriculture, war, trade, domestic life, foods, building arts; e.g.
strǣt, scōl, wall, pit, pound, mint, apple, wine, kitchen, cheese,
peas, pepper, butter, dish. But also suffix –er from Latin –ārius (e.g.
molīnārius ‘miller’)

Through Celtic transmission (1st period)

 very few, possibly e.g. ceaster (although absent in Celtic), ancor
“anchorite”, ass “donkey”, cross

Christianity (2nd period) – about 400 words (in OE)

 1) ‘cultural’ borrowing: church; domestic life; foods; trees, plants
and herbs; education
 2) Benedictine Reform (2nd half of the 10th c.): words of a more
scientific/learned/literary character (cypress, ginger, lily,
lobster, parsley, plant, purple, radish)
Latin Old English Modern English

abbas abbod abbot

apostolus apostol apostle
candela candel candle
cyriacum cyrice church
diabolus dēofol devil
discipulus discipul disciple
episcopus biscop bishop
martyr martir martyr
monachus munuc monk
nonna nunne nun
papa papa pope
presbyter prēost priest
templum tempel temple
• But remember that sometimes native
words were adapted to convey the
meaning of Latin words:

evangelium  gōdspell ‘good news’

dominus  hlāfweard ‘guardian of the loaf’

(cf. PDE lord)

Infernum  Hell ‘hidden place’

• Britain was christianised in Roman times.

• By the 3rd c., British bishops were regularly

attending Church Councils. (Constantine the
Great was acclaimed Emperor at York
(Eboracum) in 306.)

• Christianity kept up in Celtic areas after the

Germanic conquest: Celtic Britain  Ireland (5th
c.)  Iona  Northumbria (the Lindisfarne
Gospels, Bede, the Ruthwell Cross)
 Lindisfarne (Northumbria)

Iona (Inner Hebridies)

Whitby
(North Yorkshire)
• Two strains of Christianity:

1) Ionan (Irish) Christianity:

in the north, cf. Columba’s founding of the monastery of Iona in
563 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne)
2) Roman Christianity:
Augustine (sent by Pope Gregory I) landed in Kent in 597 (he
later became the first archbishop of Canterbury)

Within a hundred years of Augustine’s landing in Kent all England

was Christian.

One of the differences between the two was the calculation of

Easter.

The Synod of Whitby (664, in Northumbria) opted for the Roman

tradition.
Anno 565 (fīf hund and fīf and siextiġ). Hēr sende Gregorius ūs
fulluht, and Columba mæsse-prēost fērde tō Peohtum and hīe
ġecierde tō Crīstes ġelēafan. And hiera cyning him ġebōcode þæt
īeġ-land þe man Ii nemneþ. Þǣr Columba ġetimbrode mynster, and
hē þǣr wæs abbod fela ġēara, and þā forþfērde on þǣm ilcan
mynstre. Þā stōwe habbaþ ġīet his ierfenuman. Sūþ-Peohtas wǣron
ǣr ġefullode of Ninia biscope, þe wæs on Rōme ġelǣred, ǣr
Columba and his prēostas tō Ii ēoden. Fram Ii, fela ġēara æfter
þissum, fērde se biscop Aidan tō Norþhymbrum, þone sōþan
ġelēafan tō bodienne. Ā hē wilnode þæt þæt folc wǣre ġecierred tō
Crīste. Langlīce and geornlīce and ēaþmōdlīce hē bodode, and swā
dyde self swā hē ōþre lǣrde, þæt þā lēode hine lufodon and tō
Crīste cierdon.
• Various important schools were established in
the 7th century:

Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian at Canterbury

Aldhelm at Malmesbury

Benedict Biscop, founder of Wearmouth and

Jarrow (Bede was a pupil of Benedict Biscop at
Jarrow)

• In the 8th c. England held the intellectual

leadership of Europe: e.g. Alcuin of York was
called by Charlemagne in 782.
• Two causes for the decline of the Church
and the decay of learning (beginning with
the end of the 8th c.):

- the Vikings’ invasions (Lindisfarne was

burnt down in 793)

- the relaxing of religious discipline

• A first attempt at restoring learning was made by
King Alfred (871-899) of Wessex, who tried to
promote the vernacular language through a
series of translations:

Pope Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis (6th c.)

Orosius’ Historia adversum Paganos (5th c.)
Bede’s Historia (8th c.)
Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae (6th c.)

(Remember that Alfred was also responsible for the

creation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.)
Alfred’s Preface to the Pastoral Care:

King Alfred bids bishop Wærferth to be greeted with loving and friendly
words; and bids you to know that it very often comes to my mind what wise
men there formerly were throughout England, both of sacred and secular
orders; and how happy the times were then throughout England; and how
the kings who then had power over the people obeyed God and his
ministers; and they maintained their peace, their morality and their power
within their borders, and also increased their kingdom without; and how they
prospered both with war and with wisdom; and also how eager the sacred
orders were about both teaching and learning, and about all the services that
they ought to do for God; and how men from abroad came to this land in
search of wisdom and teaching, and how we now must get them from
abroad if we shall have them. So completely had wisdom fallen off in
England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could
understand their rituals in English, or indeed could translate a letter from
Latin into English; and I believe that there were not many beyond the
Humber. There were so few of them that I indeed cannot think of a single
one south of the Thames when I became king. Thanks be to God almighty
that we now have any supply of teachers. Therefore I command you to do as
I believe you are willing to do, that you free yourself from worldly affairs as
often as you can, so that wherever you can establish that wisdom that God
gave you, you establish it. Consider what punishments befell us in this world
when we neither loved wisdom at all ourselves, nor transmitted it to other
men; we had the name alone that we were Christians, and very few had the
practices.
Then when I remembered all this, then I also remembered how
I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burnt, how the
churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and
books, and there were also a great many of God's servants.
And they had very little benefit from those books, for they could
not understand anything in them, because they were not written
in their own language. As if they had said: 'Our ancestors, who
formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and through it they
obtained wealth and left it to us. Here we can still see their
footprints, but we cannot track after them.' And therefore we
have now lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we
would not bend down to their tracks with our minds.
Then when I remembered all this, then I wondered extremely
that the good and wise men who were formerly throughout
England, who had completely learned all those books, would
not have translated any of them into their own language. But I
immediately answered myself and said: 'They did not think that
men ever would become so careless and learning so decayed:
they deliberately refrained, for they would have it that the more
languages we knew, the greater wisdom would be in this land.'
Then I remembered how the law was first composed in the
Hebrew language, and afterwards, when the Greeks learned it,
they translated it all into their own language, and also all other
books. And afterwards the Romans in the same way, when they
had learned them, translated them all through wise interpreters
into their own language. And also all other Christian peoples
translated some part of them into their own language. Therefore
it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also
translate certain books, which are most needful for all men to
know, into that language that we all can understand, and
accomplish this, as with God's help we may very easily do if we
have peace, so that all the youth of free men now in England
who have the means to apply themselves to it, be set to
learning, while they are not useful for any other occupation,
until they know how to read English writing well. One may then
instruct in Latin those whom one wishes to teach further and
promote to a higher rank.
Then when I remembered how knowledge of Latin had formerly
decayed throughout England, and yet many knew how to read
English writing, then I began among the other various and
manifold cares of this kingdom to translate into English the
book that is called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English
"Shepherd-book," sometimes word for word, and sometimes
sense for sense, just as I had learned it from Plegmund my
archbishop and from Asser my bishop and from Grimbold my
masspriest and from John my masspriest. When I had learned
it I translated it into English, just as I had understood it, and as I
could most meaningfully render it. And I will send one to each
bishopric in my kingdom, and in each will be an æstel worth fifty
mancuses. And I command in God's name that no man may
take the æstel from the book nor the book from the church. It is
unknown how long there may be such learned bishops as,
thanks to God, are nearly everywhere. Therefore I would have
them always remain in place, unless the bishop wishes to have
the book with him, or it is loaned out somewhere, or someone is
copying it.
• The second important event was the
Benedictine Reform of the latter part of the
10th c., promoted by e.g.

Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (d.

998)

Athelwold, bishop of Winchester (d. 984)

Oswald, bishop of Worcester and

archbishop of York (d. 992)
• Significantly, the four codices preserving the
bulk of OE poetry

the Exeter Book

the Vercelli Book
the Beowulf Manuscript
the Junius (or Caedmon) Manuscript

date from this period.

[Beowulf is the oldest surviving Germanic epic

poem. It was probably composed in Mercia or
Northumbria in the 8th c.]
see http://www.heorot.dk/beo-intro-rede.html
 word-by-word translation
Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in gēardagum, What! We Spear-Danes’ in yore-days
 : gA:rA  :@rAm

þēodcyninga, þrym gefrūnon, tribe-kings’ glory heard

T:@kgA Trm fr:

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon. how the leaders courage accomplished

: TA: DgA : frm .. m rg 

Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum, Often Scyld Scef’s son (from) enemies’ bands,
f  :g @DA Tr:@m

monegum mǣgþum, meodosetla oftēah, (from) many tribes, mead-benches seized,

mm m:Dm m@A f:@

egsode eorlas, syððan ǣrest wearð terrorised earls, since first (he) was
@ @rA T:A :r @rT

fēasceaft funden; hē þæs frōfre gebād, destiture found; he for that consolation experienced,
f:@@f f : T fr:r :

weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þāh, grew under skies, (in) honours prospered,
@ks r km @rTmm TA:

oð þæt him ǣghwylc þ[ǣr] ymbsittendra until to him each of the neighbours
T T m : T:r m:rA

ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde, over whale-road obey must,

r rrA: :rA 

gomban gyldan. þæt wæs gōd cyning! tribute pay. That was good king!
gmA A T  g: kg
OE poetry is based on alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound
at the beginning of a syllable. In addition, any
syllable that begins with a vowel alliterates with
any other syllable that begins with a vowel. In
Old English poetry, only the alliteration of lifts is
significant. The combinations sc, sp and st may
alliterate only with themselves. In most poems,
however, ġ can alliterate with g and ċ with c.
(from
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/pometer.html#pometer:alliteration)
Along with the monastic reform came a renewal
of interest in the production of vernacular texts
for didactic purposes (poetry was mainly copied
in this period, not composed, see above).

Athelwold’s school tried to establish a ‘standard’

literary language (for the whole country), which
apparently developed from the West Saxon
dialect.

The works of one of the most important writers

of the period, Ælfric, provide evidence of the
attempts at ‘standardization’.
The language of poetry also exhibts
‘standardization’. It is largely late West
Saxon. But non-West Saxon elements
may have been felt appropriate to poetry.
• Another language of OE Britain was Norse,
because of the Vikings’ raids and later
settlement:

1) early raids (787-850) by plundering bands

2) attacks by large armies and colonization

(850-878): Wessex vs. the Danes

In 878 Alfred defeated Guthrum at Ethandum

(Eddington, in Wiltshire)  treaty of Wedmore 
Danelaw (Chester-London)
3) assimilation. This period culminated in
Cnut and his sons’ reign (1014-1042) over
the whole of England
• The origin of the word Viking is still
debated.

• In Old Norse sagas (12th & 13th c.),

víkingr used to refer to brutal and
unpleasant characters.

• In the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, only 5

occurrences of wīcing. Usual terms are
‘heathens’, ‘Northmen’, ‘Danes’.
• A crucial question is: were Old English (esp. the Anglian
dialect) and Norse mutually intelligible?

Townend (2002) contends that they were to a sufficient

extent to preclude a society made up of bilingual
individuals or a society which relied on a small number of
skilled interpreters.

OE gāt (‘goat’) - ON geit

It is also interesting to remember that with the exception

of a handful of runic inscriptions, Norse was never
written down in England (but see below).
PG /j/ lost at the beginning of a word:

English: year
German: Jahr
Gothic: jēr
Old Icelandic: ár
Swedish: år

PG /w/ lost before certain rounded vowels:

English: worm; wolf

Old Icelandic: ormr; ulfr
• Contact with Norse was very important.
• It is usually claimed that language contact may
have had a role in English losing inflexions
(many words differed chiefly in their inflectional
elements; other differences were predictable,
e.g. shirt vs. skirt).
• Support for this comes from the observation that
inflexions appear to have decayed most in the
north and east of England.
• Norse in England itself seems to have been
affected (as can be seen for example in the 12th
c. Pennington inscription in Cumbria).
• It should be pointed out however that the decay
of inflexions was already present in OE (see also
Celtic Hypothesis above).
• Evidence for the extensive Scandinavian
settlement in England comes from place-
names:

-thorp ‘village’
-by ‘town’
-thwaite ‘isolated piece of land’
-toft ‘piece of land’
• The earliest borrowings are few and refer to:
1) sea-faring and predatory people
2) social and administrative system of the Danelaw (e.g. the word
law itself)

• The period during which most Norse words made their way into
English was the 10th and 11th centuries.

• These are words from all semantic fields.This is important because it

shows that the new words were not really ‘needed’ but simply
resulted from the mixture of the two peoples.

• In total about 1,000 words in PDE traceable back to ON.

• Time-lag: Many however occur somewhat later in written records. A

considerable number makes their appearance in the Ormulum at the
beginning of the 13th c. This may be due to the scarcity of literary
texts of an earlier date, esp. in the Danelaw.

• Many Norse words are still part of the local speech of people in the
north and east of England, e.g. gate (gade) ‘street, road’, ken
(kende) ‘know’, lake (lege) ‘play’, neb (nœb) ‘beak, nose’, big ‘build’,
bairn ‘child’, kirk ‘church’ [modern Danish equivalents in parentheses]
 some ON loanwords
anger angr ‘sorrow’
bag baggi ‘bag, bundle’
cake kaka ‘flat round loaf of bread’
crook krókr ‘hook’
fellow félagi ‘sb who puts down
money’, ‘companion, partner’
flat flatr ‘level surface’
law lagu, plur. of lag ‘that which is
laid down’
outlaw útlagi, from útlagr ‘outlawed,
banished’
reindeer hreinn ‘reindeer’ + ME der
‘animal’

V: get, give, take

N: leg, sister, skin
A: low, odd, ugly
 some doublets

From OE From ON
craft skill
ditch dike, dyke
ill sick
rear raise
shirt skirt
• The influence of Norse on English also involved
function words (this is rare in language contact):

- they, their, them (vs. hīe, hiera, him)

- both and same as pronouns
- till (with the meaning of to)
- fro (as an equivalent of from)
- though (vs. OE þēah)
- infinitive marker at (cf. ado)
- adverbs aloft, athwart, aye (ever), seemly,
heþen (hence), hweþen (whence)
- are (in the verb be)
• Further effects on morphology and syntax:

-s in the 3rd person singular

- omission of the relative pronoun
- optional that
- preposition stranding
11th c. inscription on the sundial at
Aldbrough church in the East Riding of
Yorkshire:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kroch/scand/al
dbrough.html
 The northern islands
Norn spoken until
the 18th c. Shetland
Decline from the
15th c.
(ascendency of Orkney
Scots), when
Norway ceded the
islands to
Scotland.
McWhorter (2002) provides some examples of structures whose
disappearance he attributes to language contact:

Inherent reflexivity marker

þa beseah he hine to anum his manna and cwæð
“The he looked at one of his men and said”

External/Internal Possessor Construction (already optional in OE)

The mother washed the child’s hair.
þa cnitton hi rapas … hire to handum and fotum
“then they tied ropes … to her hands and feet”

But cf. PDE: She looked him in the eye

Grammatical gender marking on the article: se, seo, þæt  the

Loss of verb prefixes (not replaced by particles): be- (e.g. beseon ‘to look
at’), ge- (e.g. gewinnan ‘to conquer’), for- (forhelan ‘to conceal’)
Loss of directional adverbs: her vs. hider, þær vs. þider, hwær vs. hwider

Loss of be with past participles

Passive marking with become: in OE beon and wesan were already

easing out weorþan in the passive. By Middle English, the weorþan-passive
is nonexistent.

V2: V2 in English begins declining in the 15th century and is essentially

dead by the 17th.

The disappearance of thou

The disappearance of man: eroded phonetically to me by Middle English

Ac me ne auh to bien hersum bute of gode.
“But one should not be obedient except in good things”

Marginal use of subjunctive marking

Lack of a strong-weak distinction in adjectival inflection

 What was OE like?

see

http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/
OE word by word translation

Fæder ūre, þū þe eart on heofonum, Father our, thou art in heavens,

Sī þīn nama gehālgod. be thy name hallowed [@].
Tōbecume þīn rīce. Come thy kingdom.
Gewurþe ðīn willa Worth (i.e. be done) thy will
on eorðan swā swā on heofonum. on earth as in heavens.
Ūrne gedæghwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tōdæg. Our daily loaf (i.e. bread) sell (i.e. give) us today.
And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas, And forgive us our guilts (i.e. offences),
swā swā wē forgyfað ūrum gyltendum. as we forgive our offenders.
And ne gelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, And not lead thou us into temptation,
ac ālȳs ūs of yfele. Sōþlīce. but loose (i.e. deliver) us from evil. Truly.

King James Bible (1611) [Modern Spelling] Modern English (1991)

Our Father which art in heaven, Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name. hallowed be your name.
Thy kingdom come. Your kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth Your will be done,
As it is in heaven. on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors. as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, And do not bring us to the time of trial,
But deliver us from evil. but rescue us from the evil one.
Amen.
S p e l l i n gS o u n d E x a m p l e

a [A] camp [kAm] ‘battle’

ā [A:] hlāf [A:f] ‘loaf’
æ [] æt [] ‘at’
ǣ [:] lǣst [l:] ‘least’
e [] wel [] ‘well’
ē [:] cwēn [k:] ‘queen’
i [] hit [] ‘it’
ī [:] wīs [:] ‘wise’
o [] folc [fk] ‘people’
ō [:] sōð [:T] ‘truth’
u [] hund [] ‘dog’
ū [:] nū [:] ‘now’
y [] wyrm [rm] ‘warm’
ȳ [:] hȳd [:] ‘hide’
ea [@] heall [@] ‘hall’
ēa [:@] dēad [d:@] ‘dead’
eo [@] deorc [@rk] ‘dark’
ēo [:@] frēond [fr:@] ‘friend’
ie [@] scieppan [@A] ‘create’
īe [:@] frīend [fr:@] ‘friends’
: : :
  

: : :
 
@
:
 

A:
A

Diphthongs

<īe> : > :@

<ie>  > @

<ēo> : > :@

<eo>  > @

<ēa> :A > :@

<ea> A > @
Some prehistoric changes:

- breaking (or fracture)

- palatal diphtongisation
- i-umlaut (or front mutation)
- back mutation (or velar umlaut)
breaking (or fracture)

front vowels before /l/+cons., /r/+cons., /h/

Especially in West Saxon:

WS ċeald vs. Angl. cald

see strong verbs and exercise from

Companion, p. 53
palatal diphtongisation

of some front vowels after initial /j/ and palatised

/k/

Especially in West Saxon (and to some extent in

Northumbrian), but not in Kentish or Mercian:

WS ġeaf – Mercian ġæf

WS ġiefan – Mercian ġefan
WS ġēar – Mercian ġēr
WS ġīe – Mercian ġē
i-umlaut (or front mutation or i-mutation)

OE rǣran ‘cause to rise, rear’

(weak causative verb from past-tense sing. root *rais-
of strong verb rīsan ‘rise’)

*raisján > *raizján (Verner) > *ráizjan (initial stress)

> *ráirjan (/z/ > /r/ in WG)
> *rārjan (/ai/ > /a:/ in prehistoric OE)
> rǣran (i-umlaut + loss of /i/)

See Companion: p.52 and BBS: 121-2.

Some pairs:

dole – deal (OE: ā vs. ǣ)

mouse – mice (OE: ū vs. ȳ)
full – fill (OE: u vs. y)
gold – gild (OE: o [from original /u/] vs. y)
fox – vixen
knot – knit
food – feed (OE: ō vs. ē)
doom – deem
goose – geese
tooth – teeth
blood – bleed
book – beech
man – men (OE: a vs. e)
wander – wend
Canterbury – Kent
long – length (OE: o vs. e)
tale – tell
straight – stretch
back mutation (or velar umlaut)

esp. in Kentish and Anglian

heofon ‘heaven’
Some changes in the vowels illustrated
through the strong verbs
 infinitive Preterite (singular) Preterite (plural) Past Participle

Class I
IE ei oi i i
Gm ei ai i i
OE grīpan grāp gripon ġegripen

Class II
IE eu ou u u
Gm eu au u u
OE ċēosan ċēas curon ġecoren
Class III
IE el ol ḷ ḷ
Gm el al ul ul
OE helpan healp hulpon ġeholpen

IE er or ṛ ṛ
Gm er ar ur ur
OE weorþan wearþ wurdon ġeworden

IE en on ṇ ṇ
Gm in an un un
OE drincan dranc druncon ġedruncen

IE em om ṃ ṃ
Gm im am um um
OE swimman swamm swummon ġeswummen
Class IV (ǣ stands for a sound which can vary from /e/ to /a/, and even /o/ before nasals)
IE er or ēr ṛ
Gm er ar ǣr ur

OE beran bær bǣron ġeboren

IE em om ēm ṃ
Gm im am ǣm um
OE niman nam nōmon ġenumen

Class V
IE e o ē e
Gm e a ǣ e
OE cweþan cwæþ cwǣdon ġecweden
OE ġiefan ġeaf ġēafon ġegiefen
Class VI
IE a ō ō a
Gm a ō ō a
OE faran fōr fōron ġefaren
OE hebban* hōf hōfon ġehafen
* from: xaBjan > habbjan > hæbbjan > hebban

Class VII
OE healdan hēold hēold ġehealden
OE grōwan grēow grēowon ġegrōwen

OE hātan hēt hēton ġehāten

OE lǣtan lēt lēton ġelǣten
 Present Preterite

iċ cēose cēas
þū cīest (i-mutation, *sst) cure
hē, hēo, hit cīest (i-mutation, *sþ) cēas
wē, ġē, hīe cēosaþ curon
VI faran fōr fōron ġefaren
2nd pers. Pres. sing. færst (i-mutation)
3rd pers. Pres. sing. færsþ (i-mutation)

III feohtan feaht fuhton ġefohten

2nd pers. Pres. sing. fiehtst (i-mutation)
3rd pers. Pres. sing. fieht (i-mutation, *htþ > *htt)

II flēotan flēat fluton ġefloten

2nd pers. Pres. sing. flīetst (i-mutation)
3rd pers. Pres. sing. flīett (i-mutation, *tþ)
I bīdan bād budon ġeboden

IV brecan bræc brǣcon ġebrocen

2nd pers. Pres. sing. bricst (i-mutation)
3rd pers. Pres. sing. bricþ (i-mutation)

IV cuman cōm cōmon ġecumen

2nd pers. Pres. sing. cymst (i-mutation)
3rd pers. Pres. sing. cymþ (i-mutation)

V ġiefan ġeaf ġēafon ġegiefen

Some points about OE grammar:

- cases ( complements also in the dative (e.g. helpan) and in the

genitive (e.g. beniman); these can’t be passivised)
- strong vs. weak nouns
- strong vs. weak adjectives
- strong vs. weak verbs
- word order
- lack of progressive and do-support
- (multiple) negation
- demonstratives
Perfect:

have

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Parker MS):

oþ þæt hīe hine ofslægenne hæfdon

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Laud MS):

oþ þet hig hine ofslægen hæfdon

be

þā wæs þæs folces fela on ān fæsten oþflogen

 Vocabulary

• affixation:
blōdig, frēondlēas, þancful
fūl vs. fȳlþ

forhergian
gerīdan

• compounding

• borrowing
 OE literature

• Secular poetic (e.g. Beowulf),

• religious (e.g. the Wanderer, Caedmon’s
Hymn),
• state-oriented (e.g. Æthelberht’s law code,
the Anglo-Saxon chronicle),
• patriotic (The Battle of Brunanburh, The
Battle of Maldon)
• riddles (in the Exter Book).
 The Wanderer (ll. 1-14)

Often the solitary man himself experiences favour,

the mercy of the Lord, although sorrowful in heart he
must long throughout the waterways
stir with his hands the ice-cold sea,
travel the paths of an exile. Fate is very inflexible.
So spoke the earth-stepper, mindful of miseries,
of the cruel battles, the deaths of kinsmen:
‘Often, at every dawn, I alone must
lament my sorrows. There is now no one living
to whom I might dare to reveal clearly
my heart. I know too truly
that it is a noble custom that a man
should bind fast his breast,
should hold fast his thoughts, think as he will.

Treharne, Elaine (ed.). 2004 (2nd ed.). Old and Middle English c.890-c.1400: An
Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
 The Battle of Maldon (ll. 42-61)
Byrhtnoth made a speech; he lifted his shield,
shook his slender ash spear, spoke forth with words
angry and resolute, and gave him an answer:
‘Do you hear, seafarer, what this army says?
They will give you spears as tribute,
the poisoned spear-tip and ancient swords,
that war-gear that will not be of use to you in battle.
Messenger of the seamen, report back again,
tell your people a much more hateful message:
that here stands, with his troop, an earl of untainted reputation,
who will defend this native land,
the country of Æthelred, my lord’s
people and ground. The heathens
will fall in battle. It seems so shameful to me
that you should go to your ships with our tribute
without a fight now that you have come this far
here into our land.
You shall not get treasure so easily:
weapon-tip and edge shall arbitrate between us first,
the fierce game of battle, before we give you tribute.’
 Caedmn’s Hymn

From: Marsden, Richard. 2004. The Cambridge Old English Reader. CUP.