Hallecks New English Literature | Page 9

of writing, and transcribed on parchment a small portion of the current songs. The introduction of Christianity ushered in prose translations and a few original compositions, which were taken down on parchment and kept in the monasteries.
The study of Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively recent, for its treasures have not been long accessible. Its most famous poem, Beowulf, was not printed until the dawn of the nineteenth century. In 1822 Dr. Blume, a German professor of law, happened to find in a monastery at Vercelli, Italy, a large volume of Anglo-Saxon manuscript, containing a number of fine poems and twenty-two sermons. This is now known as the Vercelli Book. No one knows how it happened to reach Italy. Another large parchment volume of poems and miscellany was deposited by Bishop Leofric at the cathedral of Exeter in Devonshire, about 1050 A.D. This collection, one of the prized treasures of that cathedral, is now called the Exeter Book.
Many valuable manuscripts were destroyed at the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., between 1535 and 1540. John Bale, a contemporary writer, says that "those who purchased the monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap sellers, and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wonder of foreign nations."
The Anglo-Saxon Scop and Gleeman.--Our earliest poetry was made current and kept fresh in memory by the singers. The kings and nobles often attached to them a scop, or maker of verses. When the warriors, after some victorious battle, were feasting at their long tables, the banquet was not complete without the songs of the scop. While the warriors ate the flesh of boar and deer, and warmed their blood with horns of foaming ale, the scop, standing where the blaze from a pile of logs disclosed to him the grizzly features of the men, sang his most stirring songs, often accompanying them with the music of a rude harp. As the feasters roused his enthusiasm with their applause, he would sometimes indulge in an outburst of eloquent extempore song. Not infrequently the imagination of some king or noble would be fired, and he would sing of his own great deeds.
We read in Beowulf that in Hrothgar's famous hall--
"...e=aer was hearpan sw=eg, swutol sang scopes."
...there was sound of harp Loud the singing of the scop.
In addition to the scop, who was more or less permanently attached to the royal court or hall of a noble, there was a craft of gleemen who roved from hall to hall. In the song of _Widsie_ we catch a glimpse of the life of a gleeman:--
"Sw=a scrieende gesceapum hweorfae gl=eomen gumena geond grunda fela."
Thus roving, with shap��d songs there wander The gleemen of the people through many lands.
The scop was an originator of poetry, the gleeman more often a mere repeater, although this distinction in the use of the terms was not observed in later times.
The Songs of Scop and Gleeman.--The subject matter of these songs was suggested by the most common experiences of the time. These were with war, the sea, and death.
[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by H.A. Bone_.]
The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsie_ or the Far Traveler, has been preserved in the Exeter Book. This song was probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the circumstances under which it was sung, the long hall with its tables of feasting, drinking warriors, the firelight throwing weird shadows among the smoky rafters. The imagination of the warriors would be roused as similar experiences of their own were suggested by these lines in Widsie's song:--
"Ful oft of e=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag giellende g=ar on grome e=eode."
Full oft from that host hissing flew The whistling spear on the fierce folk.
The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:--
"In mortal court his deeds are not unsung, Such as a noble man mill show to men, Till all doth flit away, both life and light."
A greater scop, looking at life through Saxon eyes, sings:--
"We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep."[6]
The scop in the song called _The Wanderer (Exeter Book)_ tells how fleeting are riches, friend, kinsman, maiden,--all the "earth-stead," and he also makes us think of Shakespeare's "insubstantial pageant