¹ PMLA, lxxvii (March 1962), 1–7.

² See Rosier, p. 1.

³ Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae, iv, no. 124, p. 183. Alcuin's observations on histriones, mimi, et saltatores referred to by Rosier (p. 2) are from Augustine (see MGH note).

⁴ Ed. W. Lindsay, 1911, xvii, capp. 42 ff.

⁵ MGH, Epistolae, iv, no. 6a, pp. 142–143.

⁶ Etymologiae, x, 255.

⁷ MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi, xv, Epistle 5, p. 493. Verse De Virginitate, vss. 295, 2832–2835.

⁸ MGH, Epistolae Selectae, i, no. 92, p. 211.

⁹ P. 4.

¹⁰ To appreciate the difference between what the audience of a Germanic epic and a modern audience might find amusing, we might consider the closing lines of the Waltharius. Walter and his opponents, after lopping assorted limbs off each other, conclude a peace and sit down to a feast, at which they twit each other on the disabilities which these injuries will impose. For example, Walter, who has lost an arm, is asked how he is going to embrace Hiltgund, the heroine. A humor robust enough to accept such jokes might consider the exchange between Unferth and Beowulf mere badinage.

¹¹ P. 4.

¹² Cf. Beowulf's “þeah þin wit duge” (though you are clever enough) addressed to him (l. 589). The observation that both Hrothgar and Hrothulf “his ferhþe treowde, þaet he hæfde mod micel” (ll. 1166–67) may imply confidence in his intelligence rather than in his character, though mod often refers to character or courage.

¹³ P. 5, fn. 40. Wine druncen (l. 1467) is pretty obviously an excuse for overlooking Unferth's earlier speech in the hall (“The wine was in and the wit was out”) rather than a serious criticism.

¹⁴ John Earle, A Handbook to Land-Charters and other Saxonic Documents (Oxford: Clarendon, 1887), pp. 224 ff.; Dorothy Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge University Press, 1930), pp. 56 ff. For what may be actual rather than legendary weapons which can be traced through a number of generations in the Norse sagas, see H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), pp. 171 ff.

¹⁵ Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ii, 12 and 20; iii, 1, 3, 14, pp. 107–108, 126–128, 131, 154, Plummer's edition.

¹⁶ For an extensive treatment of the Ingeld passage, see Kemp Malone, Studies in Heroic Legend and Current Speech (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1959), pp. 1–81.

¹⁷ Oswy, whom Bede does not seem to regard as a particularly bad king, was responsible for the murder of his saintly cousin Oswin, who had been betrayed to him by Oswin's thane Hunwald. Historia Ecclesiastica, iii, 14: Plummer, p. 155. According to the Continuatio Bedae, sub anno 757, Offa seized the kingdom of Mercia sanguinolento gladio (Plummer, Bedae Opera Historica i, p. 362), having expelled Beornred (said to have murdered his predecessor Aethelbald). There are hints in the letters of Alcuin and Charlemagne that Offa's sword continued to drip with blood, much of it that of kinsmen who might be rivals for the throne and of their retainers. See MGH Epistolae iv, nos. 85 and 122: pp. 128 and 179.

¹⁸ This article was written some time before the appearance of Norman E. Eliason's “The þyle and Scop in Beowulf,” Speculum, xxxviii (1963), 267–284. Eliason also points out the license granted the þyle and his opponent in their speeches, and goes even farther than I in acquitting Unferth of wickedness. His suggestion that the scop of Heorot and Unferth may be the same person, though possible, does not seem very probable; and his suggestion that Hrothgar's court would have had only one entertainer is doubtful in view of Lul's reference to scurrœ (fn. 8 above) and other references to a number of entertainers in writings of the Old English period.

Other points in Eliason's article should be considered carefully before they are accepted: his assumption that Unferth is a Dane and his acceptance of druncen as a full synonym for modern drunk and drunken (pp. 267, 277); his explanation of the use of the two swords, Hrunting and the ealdsweord eotenisc, in the fight in Grendel's cave (pp. 278–281); and his suggestion that Unferth is an old man, of no account in battle (pp. 283–284).

Eliason's observation that Beowulf, a newcomer at Heorot, is unlikely to have known about Unferth (p. 272) is also open to question. After all, Unferth was widcuÐ man, and news about notables was carried far and reasonably fast by sailors (e.g., Beowulf, ll. 377–381).