Note 1 — POETRY. INTRODUCTORY.

This does not, of course, include the few short poems in the Chronicle, or that portion of Genesis (Genesis B) supposed to have been put directly into West Saxon from an Old Saxon original. There still remain in Northumbrian the version of Cædmon’s Hymn, fragments of the Ruthwell Cross, Bede’s Death-Song, and the Leiden Riddle.

2. The word bēowulf, says Grimm, meant originally bee-wolf, or bee-enemy, one of the names of the woodpecker. Sweet thinks the bear was meant. But the word is almost certainly a compound of Bēow (cf. O.E. bēow = grain), a Danish demigod, and wulf used as a mere suffix.