Book Description

Excerpt from The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Scop or Gleeman's Tale, and the Fight at Finnesburg: With a Literal Translation, Notes, Glossary, Etc I N the prefatorv portion, preceding the first canto of Beowulf, we are presented with the genealogy of the Danish king Hrothgar, beginning with Scef (sceaf), and terminating with a prince named, like the hero of the poem, Beowulf. Now as this Beowulf the Scylding is, no doubt, to be considered identical with the Beaw who figures in the genealogies as an ancestor of Woden, there is a vast. Chasm to be filled up between him and Healfdene, the father of Hrothgar, the reigning prince at the time of the poem; although, judging from the text, it would seem that the line from Scef to Hrothgar was unbroken through out. But it may be right to observe, that the words (1. 1 1 2) oflxet him eft onw6c heah Healfdene do not ne cessarily imply any such uninterrupted line, but simply that, in course of time, not immediately, there sprang from him (scef) the lofty Healfdene. To have given all the inter mediate links of the pedigree would have been tedious and, therefore, unpoetical, and the poem of Beowulf is neither. This preface closes with the death of Scyld, and an account of his being laid in a ship, with his arms and treasures, and committed to the winds and waves, in manner like to that in which he had, in his infancy, been sent to the Danish shore. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.