¹ Lawrence, W. W., ‘The Song of Deor,’ Modern Philology 9 (1911–12) 23–45; here 23. This paper has been presented in various forms before various audiences, but I particularly wish to thank a number of colleagues who have read and commented on early written versions: Morton Bloomfield, Heinrich Beck, R. E. Kaske, T. D. Hill, Gerd Wolfgang Weber, and Lawrence Besserman.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Bloomfield, Morton W., ‘The Form of Deor,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 79 (1964) 534–41; here 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Markland, Murray F., ‘Boethius, Alfred, and Deor,’ Modern Philology 66 (1968) 1–4; Whitbread, L., ‘The Pattern of Misfortune in Deor and Other Old English Poems,’ Neophilologus 54 (1970) 167–83; Bolton, W. F., ‘Boethius, Alfred, and Deor Again,’ Modern Philology 69 (1972) 222–27; Kiernan, Kevin S., ‘Deor: The Consolations of an Anglo-Saxon Boethius,’ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (hereafter NM) 79 (1978) 333–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ E.g., Boren, James L., ‘The Design of the Old English Deor,’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard , edd. Nicholson, Lewis E. and Frese, Dolores Warwick (Notre Dame, Indiana 1975) 264–76; and Tuggle, Thomas T., ‘The Structure of Deor,’ Studies in Philology 74 (1977) 229–42.Google Scholar

⁵ An example of the standard interpretation: Opland, Jeff, Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions (New Haven 1980) 216; a little less traditional: Lee, Alvin A., The Guest-Hall of Eden: Four Essays on the Design of Old English Poetry (New Haven 1972) 166; probably the best that this reading has to offer: Shippey, T. A., Old English Verse (Hutchinson University Library; London 1972) esp. 78; and Grubl, Emily D., Studien zu den angelsächsischen Elegien (Marburg 1948) esp. 120. A new suggestion, independent of the literature cited here, comes from Jacobs, Nicolas, ‘The Old English Heroic Tradition in the Light of Welsh Evidence,’ Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 2 (Winter 1981) 19–20, but the attempt to relate the Old English poem to the Welsh genre of dadolwch, ‘a type of poem designed to recover the favour of an offended patron’ (9 n. 2), is unconvincing. That there were such poems in Germanic oral literature is argued by the ‘head-ransoming’ praise-poems of Old Norse, but for Deor the comparison has little to recommend it; nor is it clear to me why ‘the closing lines [of Deor] must be taken as an interpolation, probably of the tenth century’ (19).Google Scholar

⁶ For a direct assault on the Boethian position, see Bloomfield, Morton W., “‘Deor” Revisited,’ forthcoming in the festschrift for Stanley B. Greenfield.Google Scholar

⁷ Sketched in Harris, Joseph, ‘Die altenglische Heldendichtung,’ in Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft 6: Frühmittelalter, Europäisches, ed.Klaus von, See (Wiesbaden 1985) 237–76, esp. 246–47.Google Scholar

⁸ Especially von Grienberger, Theodor, ‘Déor,’ Anglia 45 (1921) 398–99; Schibsbye, Knud, ‘Þæs ofereode, Þisses swa mæg,’ English Studies 50 (1969) 380–81; Markland, Murray F., ‘Deor: Þæs ofereode; Þisses swa mæg,’ American Notes and Queries 3 (Nov. 1972) 35–36; Erickson, Jon, ‘The Deor Genitives,’ Archivum Linguisticum, n.s. 6 (1975) 77–84; Mandel, Jerome, ‘Exemplum and Refrain: The Meaning of Deor,’ Yearbook of English Studies 7 (1977) 1–9. I have not suceeded in obtaining Banerjee, Jacqueline, ‘Deor: The Refrain,’ The Explicator 42 No. 4 (1984) 4–6; cf. Old English Newsletter 19 (Fall 1985) 80. The allusion in Weber, Gerd Wolfgang, ‘Altenglische Literatur: Volkssprachliche Renaissance einer frühmittelalterlichen christlichen Latinität,’ in Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft (op. cit. n. 7 supra) 290 (and his n. 12) derives from the present article.Google Scholar

⁹ This question, important in the present context, seems to have been settled by Bloomfield, (op. cit. n. 2) 536.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Malone, Kemp, ed., Deor, 4th ed. (London 1966) 17.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Taylor, Archer, The Proverb and An Index to The Proverb (Hatboro, Penn. 1962) 6–7, on grammatical and syntactical variation from ordinary usage as indications of proverbial nature.Google Scholar

¹² Cf. ibid. 52–61 for Biblical proverbial background in general and for the two alternatives entertained below.Google Scholar

¹³ Whiting, Bartlett Jere, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly before 1500 (Cambridge, Mass. 1968). In a letter Whiting added that Troilus 5.1085 (cited below) belongs here; cf. further his S185, T87, and n. 20 below.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Taylor, Archer, ‘“This Too Will Pass” (Jason 910Q),’ in Volksüberlieferung: Festschrift für Kurt Ranke zur Vollendung des 60. Lebensjahres, edd. Harkort, Fritz, Peeters, Karel C., and Wildhaber, Robert (Göttingen 1968) 345–50; here p. 348. Whiting and Taylor corresponded about the saying, probably in the mid-1960s and in connection with Taylor's article, which was written in 1966; cf. Taylor, 348.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Imelmann, Rudolf, Forschungen zur altenglischen Poesie (Berlin 1920) 233.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Imelmann is easy to misunderstand at this point; he is apparently citing the Latin proverb as evidence that the proverb ‘misery loves company,’ with Virgilian tinge, could derive ultimately from Virgil; by analogy, then, and by implication, so could the Deor refrain with the same meaning. Cf. his Ch. VII. The discussion of ‘solamen miseris,’ etc., in Büchmann, Georg, Geflügelte Worte: Der Zitatenschatz des deutschen Volkes, 30th rev. ed., edd. Rust, W. and Haupt, G. (Berlin 1961) 467 does not connect it with Virgil.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Among possible instances of Virgilian influence outside Beowulf, Klaeber, F., ‘Aeneis und Beowulf,’ Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (ASNSL) 126 (1911) tentatively (‘lediglich als Parallele’) compares the Deor refrain to Aeneid 1.198f.: ‘o socii — neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum — o passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem’ (‘Postskriptum’ 358). Imelmann cites this passage from Klaeber with some approbation, but prefers his own more general idea of an impulse: ‘Das ist bestechend, doch wäre eine Anregung für den Kehrreim als solchen hier nicht zu finden’ (op. cit. 232). Klaeber's ‘parallel’ is, as Imelmann implies, strained, too distant to supply an impetus; it is also compromised by the same set of assumptions as I criticized in Imelmann.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Walther, Hans, Carmina medii aevi posterioris Latina II: Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi: Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordnung, 8 vols. (Göttingen 1963–83).Google Scholar

¹⁹ For example, Rabanus Maurus comments in language that resembles those items from Walther with the structure ‘all passes, except…’ (20092, 20038, 20040, 16849; also Whiting, , op. cit. n. 13): ‘… sic transitoriæ vitæ instabilis et incertus semper est cursus, nec aliquid ex eo fixum manebit, nisi quod pro adeptu vitæ æternæ pio labore expenditur …’; also: ‘Hæc enim omnia in præsentis vitæ ærumna versantur, sed post peractum finem …’ (Commentariorum in librum Sapientiae libri tres 1.10 [PL 109.688–90]).Google Scholar

²⁰ Archer Taylor's well-known article 'Method in the History and Interpretation of a Proverb, : “A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place,”’ Proverbium 10 (1968) 235–38 (repr. in Readings in American Folklore, ed. Jan Harold Brunvand [New York and London 1979] 263–66) illustrates both the difficulty and the possibility of an historical approach of the type undertaken here.Google Scholar

²¹ Op. cit. n. 14 supra, p. 349. Proinsias Mac Cana kindly checked Taylor's Irish material for me and points out that this saying is not strictly a proverb but more of a proverbial saying or even a simple cliché.Google Scholar

²² A possible further addition from Chaucer is ‘Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan’ 41: ‘But al shal passe that men prose or ryme; / Take every man his turn, as for his tyme.’ A similar structure — general principle plus particular application — is evident here.Google Scholar

²³ An interesting addition to Taylor's examples comes from Brentano's poem ‘Schweig, Herz! kein Schrei!’ where the maxim ‘Denn alles geht vorbei!’ is used as a refrain. A second German addition could be credited to the dossier of ‘mortal consolation’: ‘Heile, heile Gänschen, / Es wird schon wieder gut / … In hundert Jahr ist alles weg!’ I list here another addition: Bruner, Charlotte H., ‘Fadhma and Marguerite Amrouche of the Kabyle Mountains,’ in The Word-Singers: The Makers and the Making of Traditional Literatures, ed. Simms, Norman (= Pacific Quarterly Moana 8 No. 4; Hamilton, N.Z. 1984) 34: “‘Patience and courage.” All passes, all fades away, and all flows into the current of eternity.’Google Scholar

²⁴ Whiting (op. cit. n. 13) xi–xii.Google Scholar

²⁵ Wackernagel, Wilh., ‘Salomonis Proverbia in lateinischen Reimversen,’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 3 (1843) 128–30.Google Scholar

²⁶ The instance in The Fall of Princes , ed. Bergen, Henry (EETS, es 122 [Oxford 1924]) II 338 vv. 355–57, is spoken by one of the characters in an allegorical debate, but the occurrence in ‘The Pageant of Knowledge’ in Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. MacCracken, Henry (EETS, os 192 [Oxford 1934]) II 733 vv. 268–69, is in an encyclopedic poem that contains a section ‘Septem Pagine sequntur Sapiencie’ (p. 725).Google Scholar

²⁷ Brunner, Karl, ‘With an O and an J,’ Anglia 54 (1930) 288–96, poem on 291. The poem includes several sayings about mutability, but no analogues to Deor.Google Scholar

²⁸ Brunner, Karl, ‘Spätme. Lehrgedichte: 1. Proverbs of Salamon,’ ASNSL 161 (1932) 191–95; 164 (1933) 178–91 (‘Here endyth Þe prouerbys of Salamone’).Google Scholar

²⁹ Zupitza, Julius, ‘The Prouerbis of Wysdom,’ ASNSL 90 (1893) 241–68; Schleich, G., ‘Die Sprichwörter Hendings und die Prouerbis of Wysdom,’ Anglia 51 (1927) 220–77, esp. 221–24. Zupitza's text carries the title (‘This folowyng ben the Prouerbis of Wysdom,’ repeated in the table of contents of the manuscript; but also labeled ‘Expliciunt vulgaria prudentum’); Schleich does not report on the manuscript context but apparently assigns this title because his poem is an earlier and shorter version of Zupitza's.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘Spätme. Lehrgedichte: 2. Cantus cuiusdam sapientis. A lovely song of wisdom,’ ASNSL 164 (1933) 192–99.Google Scholar

³¹ Robbins, Rossell Hope and Cutler, John L., Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington 1965) 434 No. 3823.5: ‘Understonde Þis verse and have mynde Þeron / All Þinges schul passe save to love god aloone,’ repeated in Latin.Google Scholar

³² In the youthful enthusiasm of an earlier version of the present argument I oversimplified at this point: ‘Heldendichtung’ (op. cit. n. 7 supra) 246–47.Google Scholar

³³ Cf., e.g., Taylor, , The Proverb (op. cit. n. 11 supra) 10–15.Google Scholar

³⁴ Taylor, (op. cit. n. 14 supra, p. 348) cites Milton Mayer's ‘Modern man is actually anticipative, perhaps the first in all history to accept the ancient dictum that “this, too, shall pass away”’ (‘On Death,’ in The Great Ideas of Today [Chicago 1965] 125) with the comment: ‘The citation of an “ancient dictum” seems to exclude a reference to a tale [such as the ones Taylor is principally interested in] and to suggest rather such a text as “Nomen nostrum oblivionem accipiet per tempus…. Umbrae enim transitus [supply est] tempus nostrum” that we find in the Wisdom of Solomon (ca. 100 b.c.).’ Taylor's reference is to 2.4–5.Google Scholar

³⁵ The Marble Faun (1860); cited from Taylor (op. cit. n. 14 supra) 348.Google Scholar

³⁶ Andersson, Theodore M., ‘Tradition and Design in Beowulf,’ in Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. Niles, John D. (Cambridge 1980) 90–106: ‘Beowulf is a kind of memento mori dwelling insistently on the transitoriness of earthly things…. In the final encounter with the dragon the peaks and valleys of experience tend to collapse into a uniform mournfulness over a life committed to heroism, but confined by the decrees of mortality’ (pp. 104–106).Google Scholar

³⁷ PL 75.1004 (Moralia in Job 12.33).Google Scholar

³⁸ A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York 1965) 228.Google Scholar

³⁹ ‘Deor’ (op. cit. n. 3 supra) 334–36.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Old English and Middle English Poetry (Routledge History of English Poetry 1; London 1977) 5. Anderson, Similarly George K., The Literature of the Anglo-Saxons (Princeton, N.J. 1949) mixes the traditional consolation (p. 156) with characterization of the poem as a ‘celebration of the most permanent of all verities — change,’ at the core of which is the idea: ‘time passes, and mankind with it’ (p. 157). Isaacs, Neil D., Structural Principles in Old English Poetry (Knoxville, TN 1968) gives the possible range of meanings of the refrain; but his ‘all things pass — wait till next year’ would seem to be an instance of the optimistic interpretation of the modern saying (p. 109). Cf. further Göller, Karl Heinz, Geschichte der altenglischen Literatur (Grundlagen der Anglistik und Amerikanistik 3; Berlin 1971) esp. 108; Gatch, Milton McC., Loyalties and Traditions: Man and his World in Old English Literature (New York 1971) 29. Bloomfield, Morton, “‘Deor” Revisited,’ also refers to the ‘notion that everything passes’ as ‘a commonplace applied to both good and bad fortune.’ In their teaching R. E. Kaske and Gerd W. Weber regularly question the standard reading along these lines (private communication).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Cf. Kiernan, , ‘Deor’ (op. cit. n. 3 supra) 335; Bolton, (op. cit. n. 3 supra) 225; and Mandel, (op. cit. n. 8 supra) 7.Google Scholar

⁴² Mandel, (op. cit. n. 8 supra) 7; also, esp. 9.Google Scholar

⁴³ A Study of Old English Literature (London 1967) 82.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ One colleague suggested that the deep structure of the saying was ‘eal Þæs’ and ‘eal Þisses’ with the dependent genitives left isolated in the surface form; cf. Erickson in n. 8 above.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ ÞiÐriks saga of Bern, ed. Bertelsen, Henrik (Copenhagen 1905–11) 173–134.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Probably the best studies of the Weland legend are Jiriczek, Otto Luitpold, Deutsche Heldensagen I (Strassburg 1898) 1–54 and Schneider, Hermann, Germanische Heldensage II pt. 2 (Berlin 1934) 72–95.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Jiriczek, op. cit. 50–51.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Waldere 2.8, The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6; New York and London 1942) 6.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Schneider: ‘also hat wohl eine Versöhnung mit der großväterlichen Familie stattgefunden’ (op. cit. n. 46, p. 87). The saga says explicitly that Velent's legs were never normal again (op. cit. n. 45, pp. 114–15).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Norman, Frederick, ‘“Deor”: A Criticism and an Interpretation,’ Modern Language Review 32 (1937) 374–81; and ‘Deor and Modern Scandinavian Ballads,’ London Mediaeval Studies 1 (1937–39) 165–78. Cf. his ‘Problems in the Dating of Deor and its Allusions,’ in Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., edd. Bessinger, Jess B. and Creed, Robert P. (New York 1965) 205–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ Malone, Kemp, ‘Mæðhild,’ ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 3 (1936) 253–56; ‘The Tale of Geat and Mæðhild,’ English Studies 19 (1937) 193–99; ‘On Deor 14–17,’ Modern Philology 40 (1942) 1–18, reprt. in his Studies in Heroic Legend and in Current Speech, edd. Einarsson, Stefán and Eliason, Norman E. (Copenhagen 1959) 142–57; also in second and later editions of Malone's Deor.Google Scholar

⁵² Cf. Hallmundsson, Hallberg, ‘A Northern Orpheus,’ American-Scandinavian Review 50 (1962) 267–71; the author thinks the Norwegian happy end was made tragic in Iceland to suit national temperament. The standard study of this ballad should now be Ólason, Vésteinn, The Traditional Ballads of Iceland: Historical Studies (Reykjavik 1982) 126–31, but the Old English analogue to the ballad is not mentioned; this omission makes it the more significant that Vésteinn Ólason seems to believe the tragic Icelandic ending the older. I hope to write a separate study of the ballad in the light of Deor.Google Scholar

⁵³ ‘Deor and Wulf and Eadwacer: Some Conjectures,’ Medium Ævum 31 (1962) 161–75. Malone's identification of the figure from Deor with the Frankish Theodoric is argued in his edition and in ‘The Theodoric of the Rök Inscription,’ Acta Philologica Scandinavica 9 (1934) 76–84.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ ‘Dietrichs dreißig Jahre,’ in Märchen, Mythos, Dichtung: Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag Friedrich von der Leyens am 19. August 1963, edd. Kuhn, Hugo and Schier, Kurt (Munich 1963) 117–20; Kuhn differs from Frankis in supposing that the historical Sage here is (oral) traditional, not ecclesiastical and learned. One weakness of Kuhn's argument — the assumption that all the examples originally showed woes overcome and that a reviser was responsible for the shift from the exiled Theodoric of legend to the thirty-year rule of history — is easily repaired; a more serious weakness resides in Kuhn's flat statement that the Mærings were the East Goths. If this is so, of course, the problems are solved; but see Malone's edition and ‘Rök Inscription’ for his impressive arguments to the contrary.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ This tentative suggestion would not seem to be out of harmony with major studies of the Eormanric legend; cf. Brady, Caroline, The Legends of Ermanaric (Berkeley 1943) esp. 161–68; on p. 165 Brady nominates the Heruli and the Venethi for this role.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Cf. Irving, Edward B. Jr., ‘Image and Meaning in the Elegies,’ in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, Robert P. (Providence 1967) 158; and Imelmann, (loc. cit. n. 15).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cited from Menner, Robert J., The Poetical Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn (New York 1941). More accessible is the edition in The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems (op. cit. n. 48 supra). Grinda, K. R., ‘Deor,’ in Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd rev. ed., edd. Beck, Heinrich et al., V, Lieferung 3/4 (Berlin 1983) 315–19, also compares the poem to Solomon and Saturn II, but Grinda's article appeared too late to be used here.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Cross, James E. and Hill, Thomas D., The Prose Solomon and Saturn and Adrian and Ritheus (McMaster Old English Studies and Texts 1; Toronto 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁹ Menner, (op. cit. n. 57) 21–70, esp. p. 25; see Menner, , Cross, and Hill, (op. cit. n. 58), and Hill, (cited below) on Irish or ‘Insular’ affinities.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cf. Hill, T. D., ‘The Falling Leaf and Buried Treasure: Two Notes on the Imagery of “Solomon and Saturn”, 314–322,’ NM 71 (1970) 571–76.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Cf. Hill, T. D., ‘The Tropological Context of Heat and Cold Imagery in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,’ NM 69 (1968) 527–30.Google Scholar

⁶² The translations are from Shippey, T. A., Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge 1976); here p. 95. Shippey's analysis, pp. 21–28, can be supplemented by Dane, Joseph A., ‘The Structure of the Old English Solomon and Saturn II,’ Neophilologus 64 (1980) 592–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶³ Menner comments that the poet of Solomon and Saturn II ‘would hardly have written just as he did if Augustine and Boethius had not speculated on these problems before him’ (op. cit. n. 57, p. 55), but he maintains a traditional view of Germanic ‘wyrd’ (pp. 62–64, 138–39). Cf., however, Weber, Gerd Wolfgang, Wyrd: Studien zum Schicksalsbegriff der altenglischen und altnordischen Literatur (Bad Homburg v.d.H. 1969) esp. 104.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Cf. Cross, J. E., ‘The Old English Poetic Theme of “The Gifts of Men,”’ Neophilologus 46 (1962) 66–70, and Latin Themes in Old English Poetry, with an Excursus on the Middle English Ubi Sount qui ante nos fuerount (Bristol 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ Mandel, (op. cit. n. 8) 6–7 compares these lines to the message and form of the refrain, but at this point he is thinking not of mutability as mortality but as amelioration.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Cf. Weber, (op. cit. n. 63) 72, and Fry, Donald K., ‘Two Voices in Widsith,’ Mediaevalia 6 (1980) 50–51.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Would Cross, J. E. support this contrast? In his learned ‘On the Genre of The Wanderer,’ Neophilologus 45 (1961) 63–75, Cross discusses ‘consolation,’ especially as a literary form, but never mentions Deor; the article, n.b., antedates the Boethian trend in Deor studies. On the other hand, Cross considers the theme of ‘the transience of life’ here and in several other places and never applies the idea to Deor. Cf. esp. Latin Themes (op. cit. n. 64).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ ‘Auzon, das Bilder- und Runenkästchen,’ in Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, edd. Beck, Heinrich et al., I (Berlin 1973) 514–22. Cf. also Hauck's, Wielands Hort: Die sozialgeschichtliche Stellung des Schmiedes in frühen Bildprogrammen nach und vor dem Religionswechsel (Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien: Antikvariskt arkiv 64; Stockholm 1977). I have not been able to obtain Hauck's Kästchen von Auzon: Zur Rezeption spätantiker Genealogien im Frühmittelalter (Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 5; Munich 1970).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ ‘Solomon's ring’ was treated as a relic in early medieval Jerusalem; references, Menner (op. cit. n. 57) 24. Some of the lore on Solomon's ring is summarized by Salzberger, Georg, Die Salomosage in der semitischen Literatur: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Sagenkunde I: Salomo bis zur Höhe seines Ruhmes (Berlin 1907) esp. 115, 124, and 128; on the influence of the Solomonic relics in the West, see Hauck, Karl, ‘Die Ausbreitung des Glaubens in Sachsen und die Verteidigung der römischen Kirche als konkurrierende Herrscheraufgaben Karls des Großen,’ Frühmittelalterliche Studien 4 (1970) 152–60; Scheja, Georg, ‘Hagia Sophia und Templum Salomonis,’ Istanbuler Mitteilungen 12 (1962) 49–51; and Šnevčnenko, Ihor, ‘The Greek Source of the Inscription on Solomon's Chalice in the Vita Constantini,’ To Honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday 11 October 1966 III (Janua linguarum, series maior 33; The Hague and Paris 1967) 1806–17.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ E.g., Halldórsson, Halldór, ‘Hringtöfrar í islenzkum orđtökum,’ Íslenzk tunga 2 (1960) 18–20. For a good survey, see Grimstad, Kaaren, ‘The Revenge of Vǫolundr,’ in Edda: A Collection of Essays, edd. Glendinning, Robert J. and Bessason, Haraldur (University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies 4 [Winnipeg] 1983) 191–92 and notes.Google Scholar

⁷¹ ‘Bemerkungen zur Wielandsage,’ in Edda, Skalden, Saga: Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Felix Genzmer, ed. Schneider, Hermann (Heidelberg 1952) 173–99; here p. 175. More generally on the ring in the Weland story: Jiriczek, (op. cit. n. 46) 11–15.Google Scholar

⁷² Franks Casket: Zu den Bildern und Inschriften des Runenkästchens von Auzon (Sprache und Literatur 5; Regensburg 1973) esp. 179–81; cf. Grimstad (op. cit. n. 70 supra).Google Scholar

⁷³ For a survey with rich references, Menner, (op. cit. n. 57) 46–47.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Taylor, (op. cit. n. 14) 345–46.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ ‘Der kunstfertige Schmied — ein ikonographisches und narratives Thema des frühen Mittelalters,’ in Medieval Iconography and Narrative: A Symposium, edd. Andersen, Flemming G. et al. (Centre for the Study of Vernacular Literature in the Middle Ages, Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium; Odense 1980) 15–37; and ‘A Runological and Iconographical Interpretation of North-Sea-Germanic Rune-Solidi,’ Michigan Germanic Studies 7 (1981) 69–88.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Kaske, R. E., ‘Weland and the wurmas in Deor,’ English Studies 44 (1963) 190–91.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The history of the motif might be as follows: (1) The Germanic original had binding (together with imprisonment; cf. Shetelig, Haakon, ‘En historisk parallell til volundsagnet,’ Maal og minne 24 [1932] 113–16); the binding motif survives on the Harlingen solidus and side by side with hamstringing in VǫolundarkviÐa and ÞiÐreks saga. (2) The crippled smith-gods of antiquity influenced the conception of the Germanic smith; the skewed legs of figures on classical models of Beck's bracteates and solidi were interpreted to fit this newer conception, and this part of the iconography of Weland is evident on the Franks Casket. The fact that this feature is missing on the Gotland stone Ardre VIII and elsewhere indicates that stages (2) and (3) are typologically later than (1). (3) The connection between (1) binding, and (2) the crippled smith-god, was forged when the crippling was made to serve the same narrative ends as the older binding; thus hamstringing became the specific cause and form of Weland's lameness. This stage is present in VǫolundarkviÐa and ÞiÐreks saga. What is the position of Deor in this sequence of stages? Malone originally rejected the widespread emendation to seonobenne (i.e., sinew wound) and argued that hamstringing was a metaphorical ‘bond’ (bend). Jost, Karl, ‘Welund und Samson: Ein Beitrag zur Erklärung der 1. Deor-Strophe,’ in Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Theodor Spira, edd. Viebrock, H. and Erzgräber, W. (Heidelberg 1961) 86–87, pointed out weaknesses in this interpretation, and Malone subsequently accepted literal bonds; but Jost's further argument that the literal sinew bonds were borrowed from Samson is completely unnecessary and unsuitable. (Jost missed the Germanic parallels to be found in Vǫoluspá and Gylfaginning, as Stephens, John, ‘Weland and a Little Restraint: A Note on Deor 5–6,’ Studia Neophilologica 41 (1969) 371–74, also observed; and Jost overlooked the binding motif in other Weland material, as in [1] above.) The ‘supple sinew bond’ of Deor may be quite literal and thus belong with the oldest stage of the motif along with the Harlingen solidus and vestiges in VǫolundarkviÐa and ÞiÐreks saga. Cf. Beck, , ‘Schmied’ (op. cit. n. 75 supra), esp. 27–28 and 35; and ‘Rune-Solidi’ (op. cit. n. 75) 76–77.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Cf. Stark, Franz, Die Kosenamen der Germanen: Eine Studie (Vienna 1868; repr. Wiesbaden 1967) 12–46, and Redin, Mats, Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English: Inaugural Dissertation (Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 1919, Filosofi, Sprákvetenskap och Historiska Vetenskaper 2; Uppsala 1919) xxv–xxxvii. Redin points out that Hadda (various spellings) probably abbreviated compounds in heaÐu- most frequently but allows that ‘one might also think of OE had’ (p. 66). W. G. Searle lists only one Nithhad besides the one in Deor (Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum: A List of Anglo-Saxon Proper Names from the Time of Beda to that of King John [Cambridge 1897]).Google Scholar

⁷⁹ In addition to the normal risks of piling up speculations, one objection is that Karl Hauck has set forth a completely different interpretation of Beck's solidi and bracteates in ‘Zur Ikonologie der Goldbrakteaten, V: Ein neues Drei-Götter-Amulett von der Insel Fünen,’ in Geschichte in der Gesellschaft: Festschrift für Karl Bosl zum 65. Geburtstag, edd. Prinz, F. et al. (Stuttgart 1974) 92–159.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Cf. Beck's remarks, ‘Schmied’ (op. cit. n. 75) 26.Google Scholar