An Introduction to Old English Edinburgh University Press

part, therefore, they belong more obviously to the Middle English
period. This is clearly true of words such as cancelere ‘chancellor’, castel
‘castle’ and prisun ‘prison’, which are all very late in terms of Old English.
Pryt ‘pride’ is a French loan which is often noted for its rather early use
in Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.
From the other Germanic languages we know of a handful of words
which appear to have been borrowed from Old Saxon. These include
stri
´
‘struggle’ and su¯ht ‘illness’. We know about these words because they
appear in a poem called Genesis B, which is a translation from Old Saxon.
But whether these are genuine loans, the result of close dialectal contact,
or accidentally missing from other texts is hard to decide. The com-
pound ı¯g
.
land ‘island’ may be a singular borrowing from Frisian.
Exercise
For this passage I have returned to Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos,
not because of its inherent literary merits, which are considerable, but
because this passage will exercise all your skills at deciphering all the
types of word formation I have been discussing in this chapter, including
loan words. By the end you will have a fair idea of how the Anglo-Saxons
were able to use all these resources for rhetorical effect.
Nis e¯ac na¯n wundor
t
e¯ah u¯s mislimpe, for 
t
a¯m we¯ witan ful g
.
eorne
t
æt nu¯ fela g
.
e¯ara mænn na¯ ne ro¯htan foroft hwæt hy¯ worhtan wordes
o
ee
e dæ¯de: ac wer
e t
es
t
e¯odsc
.
ipe, swa¯ hit
t
inc
.
an mæg
.
, swy
e
e
forsyngod 
t
urh mænig
.
fealde synna and 
t
urh fela misdæ¯da;
t
urh
mor
e
dæ¯da and 
t
urh mandæ¯da,
t
urh g
.
ı¯tsunga and 
t
urh g
.
ı¯fernessa,
t
urh stala and 
t
urh stru¯dunga, 
t
urh mannsylena and 
t
urh hæ¯
t
ene
unsida,
t
urh swicdomas and 
t
urh searacræftas, 
t
urh lahbrycas and
t
urh æ¯swicas, 
t
urh mæ¯g
.
ræ¯sas and 
t
urh manslyhtas, 
t
urh ha¯dbrycas
and æ¯wbrycas, 
t
urh sibleg
.
eru and 
t
urh mistlic
.
e forlig
.
ru. And e¯ac
syndan wı¯de, swa¯ we¯ æ¯r cwædan,
t
urh a¯
e
bricas and 
t
urh wedbrycas
and
t
urh mistlic
.
e le¯asunga forloren and forlogen ma¯
t
onne sc
.
olde;
VOCABULARY
113
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and fre¯olsbricas and fæstenbrycas wı¯de g
.
eworhte oft and g
.
elo¯me. And
e¯ac he¯r syn on eared apostatan a¯bro
t
ene and c
.
yric
.
hatan hetole and
le¯odhatan grimme ealles to¯ maneg
.
e, and oferhogan wı¯de godcunra
rihtlaga and crı¯stenra
t
e¯awa, and ho¯corwyrde dysig
.
e æ¯g
.
hwæ¯r on
t
e¯ode oftost on 
t
a¯
t
ing
t
e Godes bodan be¯oda
t
, and swy
t
ost on 
t
a¯
t
ing
t
e æ¯fre to¯ Godes lage g
.
ebyria
t
mid rihte.
114
AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD ENGLISH
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9
Variety
9.1 Introduction
The distance in time and the relatively small (compared with most later
periods) amount of Old English text available to us can both lead us to
the unfortunate view that Old English was a somewhat unvarying mass.
This view can be further exaggerated by the texts by which any intro-
ductory work, such as this, defines itself. This definition finds expression
in detail as much as in overall pattern. Thus, for example, in presenting
inflectional patterns I have almost always restricted myself to a single
pattern for any given set of forms. This may be inevitable, because an
attempt to give even a small proportion of variant forms would tend to
confuse rather than illuminate.
This chapter, therefore, is an attempt to demonstrate that there was
significant variation in the Old English period. I shall try to prove
the case by looking at four different areas: (1) chronology; (2) prose;
(3) poetry; (4) dialect. Having said that, it is also impossible to ignore the
presence of areas where there is no variation. Such lack of variation
arises from more than one source, but overall the lack results from the
fact that we are dealing with a language which exists only in written
form. As a result, virtually every text is composed in a formal style. That
is to say, we have no texts which are colloquial or deliberately reflect the
spoken language, although in, for example, the text presented at the end
of Chapter 7 I tried to remedy that in part. In §9.3 I shall mention a
further example, but it should be seen as genuinely exceptional.
Other related missing variations include class features and gender
features. The texts which we have are the product of an aristocratic or
religious group, which reflects the state of literacy during the period.
Even a reformer such as Alfred the Great was only interested in edu-
cating the elite of his society. This should not be read as a complaint
but merely as a sign of the time. Thus we do not know whether the un-
lettered peasant used language in a form close to that of his ‘betters’. The
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working class, to use an anachronistic term, was, literally, silent. Nor
were the benefits of literacy extended to women, so they too remain as
silent witnesses to the form of English at the time. So here, as elsewhere,
we have to make do with what we have.
9.2 Chronology
English, as you now know, was first brought to Britain around the first