Runes, in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature (1000 word entry

Birkett, Thomas

Cork Open Research Archive

Title 'Runes' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval LiteratureAuthor(s) Birkett, ThomasEditor(s) Echard, SiânRouse, RichardPublication date 2017-08Original citation Birkett, T. (2017) 'Runes', in Echard, S. and Rouse, R. (eds.) TheEncyclopedia of British Medieval Literature, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.isbn: 978-1-118-39698-8Type of publication Book chapterLink to publisher'sversionhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781118396957Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley &Sons, LtdItem downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/5088Downloaded on 2018-08-23T18:56:22ZRunesTOM BIRKETTUniversity College Cork, IrelandThere is still considerable uncertainty aboutthe origin of the runic writing system, butit was almost certainly developed by a Ger-manic community in contact with the RomanEmpire in the first or second centuries CE, andwas inspired by one of the Mediterranean al-phabets (see Moltke 1985; Barnes 2012). Thescript is angular in nature and was probablyintended for engraving into wood, and it isunusual for a derivative writing system inhaving a nonalphabetic arrangement, the firstletters in the sequence of the oldest alphabetgiving us the name futhark. The script wasoriginally used for only very limited purposes,often inscriptions of ownership on portableobjects, but these laconic inscriptions never-theless provide important information aboutearly Germanic languages and culture. Olderfuthark inscriptions have been found as farapart as central Norway and Ukraine, thoughthe earliest examples cluster around southernScandinavia.The runic script was first brought to theBritish Isles by Germanic peoples migratingfrom Continental Europe, and early inscrip-tions from Anglo-Saxon England have aparticular affinity with the small corpus ofFrisian runic inscriptions. The runic systemoriginally followed a phonemic principle, butdue to linguistic changes this one-to-one cor-respondence between letter and sound waseventually lost. It was perhaps in response tothese linguistic shifts that the runic systemThe Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse.© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.DOI: 10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb370underwent several changes, being reducedfrom 24 to 16 characters in the Scandinavianyounger futhark (before being expanded inthe later medieval period), and modifiedwith the addition of several new charactersin Anglo-Saxon England, a reform perhapsundertaken by seventh-century ecclesiasts(Parsons 1999).The script was used in a variety of ways inearly Anglo-Saxon England, from informalscribbles to runic coin legends. Despite anumber of popular books stating the con-trary, there is very little evidence for paganritual associated with Anglo-Saxon runes:the alu stamp on the Spong Hill cremationurns is one of only a few inscriptions crediblylinked to pre-Christian religious practice(Page 1999). Perhaps the best evidence thatrunes were treated as little more than analternative writing system is the fact that theyoccur on such overtly Christian monumentsas the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses, withobjects such as the Franks Casket represent-ing an ambitious synthesis of Christian andGermanic traditions. However, runic inscrip-tions could also be informal and personal – aprayer, partly in Latin, is found inscribed ona seventh-century bone comb from Whitby,whilst the inscription on the reverse of theHarford Farm Brooch simply reads “Ludarepaired the brooch.”Inscriptions in the Anglo-Saxon futhorcare found predominantly in the north andeast of England, though new finds continueto refine our understanding of runic activityin the British Isles. The question of howlong the runic script continued in use inAnglo-Saxon England is a more difficult one,2 RUNESnot least because informal inscriptions – orwhat Parsons refers to as “ephemeral literacy”(1994) – may be unlikely to survive in thearchaeological record. There are few monu-mental inscriptions produced after the ninthcentury, and the latest Anglo-Saxon runiccoins also date from this period. However,several critics have cautioned against de-marking a clear cut-off point for the traditionin England or a fundamental division be-tween the epigraphical tradition and runesrecorded in the scriptorium (see Derolez1983; Parsons 1994). Indeed, runes contin-ued to be copied in manuscripts up to theend of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whilstthese often have a distinctly antiquariancharacter, the ingenious use of runes in theExeter Book riddles suggests that the readerwas expected to be able to understand thescript. The so-called runica manuscriptainclude the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, whichgives us an insight into the common namesgiven to individual runes, a feature of thescript also exploited by Cynewulf in hisrunic colophons. A further way in whichthe script survived in Anglo-Saxon Englandis through the incorporation of the runesnamed wynn and þorn into the Insular scriptsystem (as and þ) – characters that con-tinued in use well into the post-Conquestperiod.The runic tradition in Scandinavia enduredfor much longer – into the early modern pe-riod in some parts of Sweden. During theViking Age, Scandinavian settlers broughtknowledge of the younger futhark with themto the British Isles, and there is a growingcorpus of Scandinavian inscriptions fromBritain (see Barnes and Page 2006). Partic-ularly impressive is the runic graffiti fromMaeshowe in Orkney. These inscriptionsinclude boasts of runic dexterity and sexualconquest, as well as references to “Jerusalemfarers” breaking into the Neolithic tomb(Barnes 2012). Scandinavian runes are foundscattered sporadically throughout areas ofViking settlement in Britain and Ireland,and often attest to cultural integration, aswell as connections with the wider Vikingworld.Runes have a long postmedieval historyof appropriation for a variety of purposes,including in the iconography of Nazi Ger-many and in the fantasy writing of Tolkienand his many imitators: an area of receptionthat is gaining increasing scholarly attention.Neopagan appropriations of the runic scriptmostly ignore the fact that the runes were firstand foremost written letters, and take muchinspiration from the mythological poemsof the Poetic Edda, including the accountof Odin’s self-sacrifice to gain knowledgeof runes. However, the evidence of the in-scriptions suggests that such associationshad little impact on the everyday use of thescript.SEE ALSO: Franks Casket; Rune Poem;Ruthwell CrossREFERENCESBarnes, Michael P. 2012. Runes: A Handbook.Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Barnes,M.P., andR.I. Page. 2006.TheScandinavianRunic Inscriptions of Britain. Uppsala: Institutio-nen för nordiska språk.Derolez, R. 1983. “Epigraphical versus ManuscriptEnglish Runes: One or TwoWorlds?”AcademiaeAnalecta 45: 69–93.Moltke, Erik. 1985. Runes and Their Origin: Den-mark and Elsewhere. Translated by P. Foote.Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark.Page, R.I. 1999. An Introduction to English Runes,2nd ed. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Parsons, David N. 1994. “Anglo-Saxon Runesin Continental Manuscripts.” In RunischeSchriftkultur in Kontinental skandinavischer undangelsächsischer Wechselbeziehung, edited byKlaus Düwel, 195–220. Berlin: De Gruyter.Parsons, David N. 1999. Recasting the Runes: TheReform of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. Uppsala: In-stitutionen för nordiska språk.RUNES 3FURTHER READINGDerolez, R. 1954. Runica Manuscripta: The EnglishTradition. Bruges: De Tempel.Elliott, Ralph W.V. 1989. Runes: An Introduc-tion, 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester Univer-sity Press.Looijenga, Tineke. 2003. Texts and Contexts of theOldest Runic Inscriptions. Leiden: Brill.

'Runes' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature

Cynewulf, in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature (3000 word entry

Title 'Cynewulf' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval LiteratureAuthor(s) Birkett, ThomasEditor(s) Echard, SiânRouse, RobertPublication date 2017-08Original citation Birkett, T. (2017) 'Cynewulf', in Echard, S. and Rouse, R. (eds.) TheEncyclopedia of British Medieval Literature, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.isbn: 978-1-118-39698-8Type of publication Book chapterLink to publisher'sversionhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781118396957Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.Item downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/5090Downloaded on 2018-08-23T18:56:12ZCynewulfTOM BIRKETTUniversity College Cork, IrelandUnlike other named poets of vernacularverse such as the Venerable Bede, we knowabout Cynewulf only through the internalevidence of the four Old English poems thatbear his name. Two of these – Christ II (TheAscension) and Juliana – are preserved inthe Exeter Book miscellany, whilst The Fatesof the Apostles and Elene are found amongstthe devotional poems and prose homilies ofthe Vercelli Book. Each of these four poemsincludes a colophon in which the poet drawsout the spiritual message of the precedingtext and embeds the name Cyn(e)wulf in thepoetic line using Anglo-Saxon runes. In twoof the colophons the name is spelled as Cyn-wulf (without medial -e-), though there is noreason to believe that these common spellingvariants point to different poet-personas.Establishing the date and provenanceof the poems has been a preoccupation ofCynewulf scholarship since the discovery ofthe signatures. The writing of the Vercelliand Exeter Books provides a secure terminusante quem in the late tenth century. Unsur-prisingly, the poems are all copied in thedominant late West Saxon dialect, but thereare several features indicative of Anglianorigins, including several half rhymes thatare resolved into full rhymes when the typicalAnglian smoothing of vowels is applied. Thiswould suggest that the poems were originallycomposed in Mercia or Northumbria, thebalance of dialect evidence seeming to favora Mercian provenance (Fulk 1996). Sisam(1953) suggests that the form of the namemay itself provide some clarity on dating:The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse.© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.DOI: 10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb372evidence from genealogies and coin legendsindicates that the name would have been rep-resented as Cyniwulf before the mid-eighthcentury inMercia. In twomore recent surveysof the evidence, Fulk (1996) confirms mostof Sisam’s observations (though proposing asomewhat later terminus post quem), whilstConner (1996) suggests a date even closer tothe tenth-century copying of themanuscripts,based in part on the identification of a sourcefor Fates. Much ink has been spilled trying tolink the individual behind the runic signatureconceit with one or other historical figure,though biographical studies are now increas-ingly rare. Although the intimate appeal thatis made to the poet’s own penitential statein several of the colophons is striking, it isalso a conventional pious trope, telling usnothing concrete about the persona behindthe common name Cynewulf.All four signature conceits make use of therunic script, and exploit the fact that runeshad both a phonetic value (as ordinary alpha-betic characters) and also a conventionalproper name. By transposing the individualletters of the name C-y-n-e-w-u-l-f into runiclogograms that stood for these conventionalnames, the Cynewulf poet was able to weavethe name into the verse, whilst ensuring thatthe sequence stood out on the manuscriptpage. To a certain extent, the conventionalnames directed the content of the colophons.For example, the final letter in the name isfeoh, meaning “wealth,” and thus the poetwas obliged to incorporate this word into atleast three of the four colophons. The chal-lenge of including the u-rune (named ur, or“aurochs,” in the Rune Poem) appears to havebeen too much of an ask even for this inven-tive poet, and it is generally accepted that thepersonal pronoun ure is intended instead in2 CYNEWULFthree of the four colophons. Working withinthese restrictions, the poet created a uniqueriddle on each occasion, linked by a focus onJudgment Day, but also responding artfully tothe themes of the preceding poems (WarwickFrese 1975). Whilst the signature passagesthemselves are inventive in their conceit ofusing runes to embed a personal name withinOld English verse, the ideas and motifs con-tained in these colophons are “quite familiarfrom other Old English poems” (Shippey1972, 157).The embedded runic conceit has beenremarkably effective in transmitting thename along with the poems, and maintainingthe order of the signature passage. However,it has been suggested that the Cynewulf poetwas not motivated by modern conceptions ofauthorial copyright, but rather by a desire tobe accounted for his works of devotion and toinspire the same spiritual revelation in others,an appeal for the reader’s prayers that Sisamreminds us is conventional in Latin letters(1953). It is also worth remembering that themessage of the colophons – essentially thatall earthly presence is ephemeral – standsin direct contrast to the idea of proprieto-rial authorship (Stodnick 1997). Indeed, thecolophons may deliberately serve to lead thereader away from surface display and towardengaged contemplation (Birkett 2014). In thisunderstanding of the poems, the concept of a“signature” is something of a misnomer – itis a device intended to inculcate revelationrather than to elevate the author. As Calderpoints out, our lack of knowledge aboutthe personality of this poet “facilitates crit-ical examination of the poems he wrote”(1981, 17).THE POEMSRather than dealing with the Old Testa-ment themes represented in the poemsof the Junius manuscript (the so-called“Cædmonian” group), the Cynewulf poettakes as his subject matter a range of popularextra-biblical homiletic and hagiographicalnarratives linked to the church calendar(Sisam 1953), dealing with the Ascension ofChrist, the Martyrdom of the Apostles, thePassion of St. Juliana, and the inventio crucislegend. With the exception of Christ II, allthe poems are martyrological in character:dealing with sanctified individuals engagedin the Christian mission and contendingwith pagan antagonists. It is noteworthythat two of the four works deal with femaleprotagonists – St. Juliana in the typical virginmartyr pose, protecting her purity in the faceof outlandishly violent coercion, and Eleneas a powerful leader of men and the agent ofthe discovery of the true cross. The range ofsubjects chosen is perhaps indicative of theCynewulf poet’s concern for eschatologicalinclusivity, with each of the colophons mak-ing a universal appeal to all humankind toearnestly contemplate the end of days.Christ II is the second of the three sequen-tial Christ poems copied in the Exeter Book,and though there are merits in reading thepoems as a triptych, the second poem isdistinct in aspects of its style, and is theonly one now attributed to Cynewulf (seeFulk 1996). It is also notably different insubject matter to the three other signedpoems, taking as its primary source Gre-gory the Great’s twenty-ninth homily on theGospels. The Cynewulf poet’s rendition ofthe Ascension narrative is influenced by thenarrative structure of the source, and alsoby Gregory’s discursive exegetical technique,in which diverse events from sacred historyare connected at an allegorical level (Shippey1972). The first half of the poem follows itssource in interweaving allusions to scripturalhistory and apocrypha in its description ofthe Ascension, whilst the latter half is ded-icated to a meditation on the eschatologicalCYNEWULF 3significance of this pivotal event, the role ofthe church in continuing Christ’s ministryand the model that Christ’s “leaps” providefor the individual seeking salvation. Thepoet is skillful in adapting his style to thenarrative and homiletic sections of the poem(Calder 1981); however, the colophon is theCynewulf poet’s most significant addition tohis source, serving as an autobiographicalspace in which the poet’s persona is used toengage directly with the reader. We are toldhow Cynewulf anguishes over his formertransgressions – though with no insight intowhat these might be – and that he expectsa harsh judgment: demonstrating, in otherwords, the proper penitential attitude (Rice1977). The act of solving the runic riddlemodels the call at the opening of the poem“to seek for spiritual mysteries with theskill of the mind” (ll. 440–41), whilst alsoteaching us to read away from the physicalmanifestation of the runic name and towardthe spiritual message the runes reveal: soon“the [joy] of earth’s riches will be gone.” (ll.804–5). In short, the Cynewulf poet balancesan emotional evangelism with a carefullyfashioned rhetoric designed to implicate hisvernacular audience in their own journey ofsalvation.Juliana has often been derided as an unin-spired verse rendition of an uninspiring Latinsaint’s life. The poet certainly doesn’t enter-tain spiritual mysteries in the same way as inChrist II and Elene, preferring the straightfor-ward polemic of martyrdom and its heavenlyreward. The poet is not recalcitrant aboutadapting the source to serve the polemic,however, and the “distilled version of epicstyle” chosen for this poem (Calder 1981,155) may well be apposite for the straight-forward hagiographical narrative. If seenas rather heavy-handed by many moderncommentators, the poem achieves what itsets out to do: demonstrating how a rewardis appointed to each person “bi gewyrhtum”(according to [their] deeds) (l. 728) and howthe martyr can both inspire and directlyintercede for the individual. The colophonputs this model of saintly intercession intopractice, addressing the audience in the firstperson with an appeal to pray for Cynewulf’ssoul, apparently imperiled by the evil deedsof the author. However, the fact that theauthor projects himself to address the readerfrom beyond the grave makes it clear thatthis is a rhetorical construction. It is gen-erally accepted that the grouped runes cynand ewu here stand for the collective nounscyn (race [of men]) and ewu (ewes/sheep?),whilst the final lf perhaps represents leof(beloved) with medial vowels added (Birkett2014). Sisam offers the alternative suggestionthat each group may stand for the full name“Cynewulf” (1953). In fact, in true riddlicstyle, these clusters may stand for both theindividual and the collective in a sophisti-cated play on the message of a universal fateto which monna gehwam (each individual) isbound, or represent visually the anxiety of thepoet at the soul’s impending dislocation fromthe body (Bjork 2013).The fact that the runeswork in a different way to the other signatureriddles has led some critics to suggest that itmay represent the first of the Cynewulf poems(see Elliott 1953), and others the product ofthe poet’s declining years (see Woolf 1955).The last poem to be identified withCynewulf was The Fates of the Apostles,which follows Andreas in the Vercelli Book.Attempts have been made to determine therelationship between Andreas and Fates,including the idea that Cynewulf deliberatelyco-opted a poem already in existence byattaching his shorter composition (see Puskar2011). Fates constitutes a catalogue of the 12apostles with a brief description of the per-secution and death of each, and there is stillsome debate about the exact source used: itmay be based on a full account of the apostles(Cross 1979), possibly Usuard’s recension4 CYNEWULFof the martyrology (Conner 1996), or havebeen pieced together by the author. Often dis-missed as a simple verse list, in recent decadesthe poem has found greater favor with critics,who have pointed out the widespread pop-ularity of the catalogue and shone light onthe poet’s rhetorical virtuosity (see Calder1981; Anderson 1983). As with Juliana, theCynewulf poet is co-opting a conventionalpoetic model and technique of exposition toreach the same salutary conclusion: just asthe apostles distained “idele æht-welan” (idlewealth, l. 84), so the colophon calls on us torecognize the transitory nature of the world.In this colophon the poet explicitly framesthe riddle, telling the reader that the wise-onemight discover “hwa tas fitte fegde” (whocomposed this song, l. 98) and ending the pas-sagewith a recapitulation and a call to pray forhis soul. Wemay be dealing here with the firstof the colophons, and a poet not entirely con-fident that his conceit would be understood.However, the message of distain for worldlyornamentation encoded by the runic riddlesuggests that the poet is playfully undermin-ing his own signature conceit. The breakingup of the name mirrors an earthly disloca-tion; feoh (or wealth) stands at the end (bothfiguratively, and as the last letter of the name);and the reader is encouraged to recognize thatmemorializing verse (whether of apostle orpoet) has its primary value in its applicationto the individual’s spiritual condition.Elene is often regarded as the Cynewulfpoet’s most accomplishedwork, both in termsof its intellectual ambition, and its success inadapting the narrative using the conventionsof Old English poetry. The poet’s sourceclosely resembles the Latin Acta Cyriaci, andthe narrative concerns St. Helena’s journey toJerusalem to discover the true cross. Helena,the mother of Emperor Constantine, is recastin the poem as a martial queen, and the poetmerges an imperial setting with such typicalOld English tropes as seafaring imagery andthe beasts of battle motif, to create a dis-tinctly Anglo-Saxon rendition of the Inventiocrucis narrative. It has been noted that thepoem is structured around “multiple reve-lations” (Campbell 1972): of the cross andnails through the agency of Elene and JudasCyriacus, but also of spiritual truths, personalrevelation in contemplation of the true cross,and intellectual enlightenment, including thesolving of runic riddle. The poet displays hisvirtuosity in an autobiographical sequence inwhich he describes the revelation providedto him through poetic craft – doing so usingan elaborate series of rhyming half-lines. Theinformation that he labored in his art duringthe confines of night, and that he is writing inold age was pounced upon by early critics, butit has been noted that the old age persona isa conventional conceit (see Woolf 1955), andalso that the colophon echoes the languageused to describe the conversion of Constan-tine and Judas earlier in the poem (WarwickFrese 1975). As well as acting as the culmi-nation of the Cynewulf poet’s evangelizingmessage, the colophon is deeply integratedinto the series of disclosures made through-out the poem, using the signature as a modelfor meditative reading. Earthly presence is aconfine which only spiritual understandingcan unlock, and whilst the Cynewulf poetguides the reader through a succession ofphysical and spiritual paradigms for rev-elation, it is the individual’s responsibilityto contemplate the cross and uncover theanagogical meaning of the inventio narrative.STYLE AND LEGACYThe question of Cynewulf’s unique style hasoften been considered hand in hand with anattempt to define (and expand) the canonof Cynewulfian poetry. Much in the poet’sstyle is typical to most surviving Old Englishpoetry, though there are some features thatCYNEWULF 5have been singled out as more or less distinc-tive. These range from the formal, such asa tendency toward complex sentences withmultiple subordinate clauses (see Shippey1972), to the influence of Latin models onlexis, syntax, and aesthetics (Sisam 1953) andhis skill in interpreting the intellectual virtuesof these sources within the expressive con-ventions of Old English verse. In terms of thethematic unity of the four poems, Andersonrecognizes “penitentialism, sapientialism,and compunction” as guiding preoccupa-tions, along with a sustained interest in the“continuing apostolic mission” (1983, 179),whilst Calder draws attention to the poet’sstylistic self-consciousness and “devotionto the perfecting of the surface” (Calder1981, 166). Few unsigned poems are nowattributed to Cynewulf, though Guthlac Bis sometimes included in the canon due tostylistic similarities (see Bjork 2013), a casemade stronger by the fact that the ending(and a potential colophon) is missing fromthis poem.If there is little that can (or should) be saidabout the individual who appended the nameCynewulf to these four poems, it is clear thatthe poet was extremely well versed in theliterary cultures of his day, both Latin andvernacular, and that he was earnest in hisevangelizing ministry, attempting to movethe reader toward engaged contemplationof Christian themes through exacting atten-tion to the construction of his verse. Themost ingenious features of the four poemsare the riddlic colophons that encode thename Cynewulf – and they have ensureda continued interest in this modest canonof an otherwise unknown individual. Thisis perhaps itself a measure of the successof a poet whose aim was not so much tobe remembered for his artistic genius, as toensure each reader paused to contemplatea message of salvation that he believed wasapplicable “æghwam … under lyfte” (toevery person under the sky).SEE ALSO: Anglo-Saxon Riddles; Christ I, II,& III; Elene; Exeter Book; Runes; Vercelli BookREFERENCESAnderson, Earl R. 1983. Cynewulf: Structure, Styleand Theme in His Poetry. London: AssociatedUniversity Presses.Birkett, Tom. 2014. “Runes and Revelatio:Cynewulf’s Signatures Reconsidered.” Review ofEnglish Studies 65 (272): 771–89.Bjork, Robert E., ed. 2013.TheOld English Poems ofCynewulf . Cambridge, MA: Dumbarton Oaks.Calder, Daniel G. 1981. Cynewulf . Boston:Twayne.Campbell, Jackson J. 1972. “Cynewulf’s Multi-ple Revelations.” Medievalia et humanistica 3:257–77.Conner, Patrick W. 1996. “On Dating Cynewulf.”In Cynewulf: Basic Readings, edited by Robert E.Bjork, 23–56. New York: Garland.Cross, J.E. 1979. “Cynewulf’s Traditions aboutthe Apostles in The Fates of the Apostles.”Anglo-Saxon England 8: 163–75.Elliott, Ralph W.V. 1953. “Cynewulf’s Runes inJuliana and The Fates of the Apostles.” EnglishStudies 34: 193–205.Fulk, R.D. 1996. “Cynewulf: Canon, Dialect andDate.” In Cynewulf: Basic Readings, edited byRobert E. Bjork, 3–22. New York: Garland.Puskar, Jason R. 2011. “‘Hwa Þas Fitte Fegde?’Questioning Cynewulf’s Claim of Authorship.”English Studies 92: 1–19.Rice, Robert C. 1977. “The Penitential Motif inCynewulf’s Fates of the Apostles and in His Epi-logues.” Anglo-Saxon England 6: 105–20.Shippey, T.A. 1972. Old English Verse. London:Hutchinson University Library.Sisam, Kenneth. 1953. Studies in the History of OldEnglish Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Stodnick, Jacqueline A. 1997. “Cynewulf asAuthor: Medieval Reality or Modern Myth?”Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library ofManchester 79: 25–39.Warwick Frese, Dolores. 1975. “The Art ofCynewulf’s Runic Signatures.” In Anglo-SaxonPoetry: Essays in Appreciation, edited by Dolores6 CYNEWULFWarwick Frese and Lewis E. Nicholson, 312–34.London: University of Notre Dame Press.Woolf, Rosemary, ed. 1955. Juliana. London:Methuen.FURTHER READINGPage, R.I. 1999. An Introduction to English Runes,2nd ed. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.

'Cynewulf' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature

Rune Poem, in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature (1000 word entry

Irish Universities

\u27Rune Poem\u27 in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature

Title 'Rune Poem' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval LiteratureAuthor(s) Birkett, ThomasEditor(s) Echard, SiânRouse, RobertPublication date 2017-08Original citation Birkett, T. (2017) 'Rune Poem', in Echard, S. and Rouse, R. (eds.) TheEncyclopedia of British Medieval Literature, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.isbn: 978-1-118-39698-8Type of publication Book chapterLink to publisher'sversionhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781118396957Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.Item downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/5089Downloaded on 2018-08-23T18:56:08ZRune PoemTOM BIRKETTUniversity College Cork, IrelandA rune poem is a verse exposition of the com-mon names given to the individual charactersof the runic alphabet, and examples of vary-ing complexity survive from Anglo-SaxonEngland, thirteenth-century Norway, and latemedieval Iceland.The original tenth-century witness to theOld English Rune Poem was destroyed in thefire at the Cotton Library in 1731. We knowthat the poem was originally recorded on asingle leaf (fols. 165a–b) in London, BritishLibrary, MS Cotton Otho B X, a manuscriptdescribed as “A Saxon book of divers saintslives and the Alphabett of the Old Danishletter” in the Cotton Catalogue of 1621. It islikely that the Elizabethan antiquarian JohnJoscelyn, also mentioned in the catalogueentry, was responsible for attaching the RunePoem to this collection. Fortunately, the poemhad already been copied by Humphrey Wan-ley before it was lost, and published in GeorgeHickes’s Thesaurus of 1705. The extent towhich these early editors altered the layoutand content of the poem has been a sourceof some debate, but it is likely that the runenames themselves were added as an aid tothe reader sometime after the copying of thepoem (Van Kirk Dobbie 1942; Halsall 1981).As the most recent editor concludes, there islittle linguistic or stylistic evidence to supporta date of composition much before the latterhalf of the tenth century (Halsall 1981).The OE Rune Poem consists of 29 stanzasof between two and five lines, which describein more or less enigmatic fashion the conven-tional names of the Anglo-Saxon runes. TheThe Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse.© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.DOI: 10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb371poet deviates from the typical order of thefuthorc in several places, including placingthe rune ear (“earth” or “grave”) at the endof the sequence, seemingly to conclude thepoem on ameditative note.Whilst it has beensuggested that the rune poem tradition as awhole developed “as an elementary guide tothe futhorc, presumably designed to help thememory” (Page 1999, 63), in the case of theOld English poem the individual stanzas arefar too developed to serve a purely mnemonicfunction (Shippey 1976).Whilst some stanzasare primarily descriptive – the rune namede¯oh (yew) “is a tree rough on the outside” (st.13) – others introduce a didactic element, orlike stanza 9, play on the transformation ofthe object:[Hægl] byþ hwı¯tust corna; hwyrft hit of heo-fones lyfte,wealcaþ hit windes scu¯ra; weorþeþ hit to¯wætere syððan.[Hail] is the whitest of grains; it whirls fromheaven’s heights, flurries of wind blow it around;afterwards it turns to water.The runic alphabet may well have providedthe poet with a convenient list of propernouns around which to compose a series ofpoetic excursions, bringing to bear receivedknowledge from a variety of sources ofAnglo-Saxon learning. However, the RunePoem has also been seen to encode a specif-ically Germanic set of values. Proponentsof this view suggest that the Old Englishand Scandinavian poems all derive from acommon Germanic ancestor – a so-calledur-poem – which encoded a system of beliefas well as a list of names. In fact, the earliestwitness to the tradition of versification is theninth-century Abecedarium Nordmannicum,a piece of mnemonic doggerel that tells us2 RUNE POEMnothing about the characterization of therune names (Derolez 1954).It is true, however, that the OE Rune Poemshares certain features with its later Scandi-navian counterparts not accounted for simplyby the similar names ofmany of the runes. Forexample, hail is also described as “the coldestof grains” in the Norwegian and Icelandictraditions, whilst “riding” is conceived of interms of the contrasting experience of thehorse and rider in all three versions. However,it is unclear whether these connections arethe result of the three traditions deriving froma common archetype, or whether they resultfrom a common stock of gnomic wisdom (seeClunies Ross 1990). What is apparent fromcomparison with the Scandinavian traditionsis that certain Anglo-Saxon rune names havebeen more fully aligned with a Christianworldview. For example, the third rune isnamed as þurs (ogre) in the Scandinaviantradition, whilst in the OE Rune Poem it isnamed as þorn (thorn): an object that retainsthe violent associations of what was probablythe original referent, whilst divesting it ofpre-Christian connotations.There are several additional runes in theAnglo-Saxon futhorc not present in the16 rune younger futh rk, and there is stillsome uncertainty surrounding their suppliednames. The rune named peorð is described asa game, but the exact referent of this hapax isunclear. Debate continues as to the referentof the rune named ior – as a river-creaturewhich takes its food on land, it may refer to anamphibian. Even when the rune name is notdisputed, wordplay and shifting perspectiveare key features of the treatment of the runes(Hall 1977) and the most accomplished of thestanzas echo the Exeter Book riddles in theirenigmatic play: the a¯c (or oak) feeds pigs(through its acorns) before traveling on theocean (as a boat). This is a poet who managesto realign the multiple subjects of the runicalphabet with a Christian sense of the worldin which all life points to the Creator, andwhich leads us from a celebration of wealthand aristocratic pursuits to the inevitability ofthe grave in which “blooms fade, joys depart,men fail.”SEE ALSO: Anglo-Saxon Riddles; Runes;Wisdom LiteratureREFERENCESClunies Ross, Margaret. 1990. “The Anglo-Saxonand Norse Rune Poems: A Comparative Study.”Anglo-Saxon England 19: 23–39.Derolez, R. 1954. Runica Manuscripta: The EnglishTradition. Bruges: De Tempel.Hall, J.R. 1977. “Perspective and Wordplay in theOld English Rune Poem.” Neophilologus 61 (3):453–60.Halsall, Maureen, ed. 1981. The Old English RunePoem: A Critical Edition. Toronto: University ofToronto Press.Page, R.I. 1999. An Introduction to English Runes,2nd ed. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Shippey, T.A., ed. 1976. Poems of Wisdom andLearning in Old English. Cambridge: D.S.Brewer.Van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott, ed. 1942. TheAnglo-SaxonMinor Poems. NewYork: ColumbiaUniversity Press.

'Rune Poem' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature

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'Runes' in The Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature

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