Abstract
While Old English is horribly rich in the language of terror, it is striking how many of the most common and evocative of those ancient terms for fear have either changed their meaning or become obsolete; and equally obvious are the sometimes sharp divisions in usage between prose and verse. This chapter will explore the language of fear with specific reference to the Old English poem Exodus. It will focus on the various terms for fear in the period, and chart their usage in a range of additional texts and contexts.
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Notes
- 1.
See A Thesaurus of OE (Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 2015), http://oldenglishthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/.
- 2.
I rely on data derived from the Dictionary of OE Web Corpus, compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang (Toronto: Dictionary of OE Project, 2009) and, where relevant, Dictionary of OE: A to G online, ed. Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (Toronto: Dictionary of OE Project, 2007). See too Eric Stanley, “Fear, Chiefly in Old and Middle English,” Poetica 66 (2006): 77–115.
- 3.
The exception in verse is Judgment Day II 172b, which is a close translation from Latin, and rather different in style to most of the poems discussed below.
- 4.
The exception is a gloss, reading facundia woma, gewyrdinesse; given both Latin facundia (‘eloquence’) and OE gewyrdinesse (‘wordiness’), it seems likely that woma substitutes for OE woð (‘noise’, ‘poetry’, ‘eloquence’).
- 5.
Paris Psalter 54:4 2b, 54:5 1a, 15:19 2a, 71:4 2b, 77:53 2a, and 114:1 2b; Judgment Day II 226b; Resignation 88a.
- 6.
For example, the stock phrase egsan geaclod (‘frightened by terror ’) is the only place where the form geaclod, presumably the past participle of an otherwise unattested verb geaclian is found, and occurs only four times in extant OE (pace the Toronto Dictionary of OE, which notes only three), at Elene 57a and 1128a; Juliana 268a; Andreas 805a. Elene and Juliana are among the signed poems of Cynewulf, and it has been argued that the Andreas-poet borrowed much of his phrasing from Beowulf on the one hand and Cynewulf on the other (see note following).
- 7.
See, for example, Andy Orchard, “The Originality of Andreas,” in OE Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk, ed. Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual, and Tom Shippey (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2016), 331–70.
- 8.
For more on these passages, see below.
- 9.
See, for example, Alain Renoir, “Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 63 (1962): 154–67; Alain Renoir, “The Terror of the Dark Waters: A Note on Virgilian and Beowulfian Techniques,” in The Learned and The Lewed Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature, ed. Larry D. Benson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 147–60; and Michael Lapidge, “Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror ,” in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed. H. Damico and J. Leyerle (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993), 373–402.
- 10.
Beowulf 384a, 478a, 483, 591, and 1282b.
- 11.
On this phrase, see further below.
- 12.
See further Andy Orchard, A Critical Companion to ‘Beowulf’ (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007), 193.
- 13.
See further Jun Terasawa, “OE Exodus 118a: The Use of Wolf Imagery,” Notes and Queries 50 (2003): 259–61; J. R. Hall, “Exodus 119a: Ofer Clamme,” English Language Notes 22, no. 3 (1985): 3–6.
- 14.
Some editors suggest hæð-broga, so increasing the language of fear, but see Terasawa in the previous note.
- 15.
See, for example, Alice Jorgensen, “The Trumpet and the Wolf: Noises of Battle in OE Poetry,” Oral Tradition 24 (2009): 319–36, at 324–25.
- 16.
Andreas 1360b and Christ A 389b (both hludan stefne).
- 17.
Frederick M. Biggs, “The End of the Sea: The OE Exodus, lines 466b–7a,” Notes and Queries 32 (1985): 290–91.
- 18.
Other examples would include Exodus 34b–35a (driht-folca mæst; / hord-wearda hryre) and Exodus 511b–512a (bealo-spella mæst, / hord-wearda hryre); Exodus 315 (þæs dægweorces deop lean forgeald) and Exodus 507 (þæs dæg-weorces deop lean gesceod). See further below.
- 19.
There is a less close parallel in Guthlac B 905–906a (þæt þa wroht-smiðas wop ahofun, / hreopun hreðlease), while Andreas 1155–1156a (Þa wæs wop hæfen in wera burgum, / hlud heriges cyrm) seems to be echoing Exodus.
- 20.
Likewise, for example, Exodus 80a (wand ofer wolcnum) is matched in Beowulf 1119a (wand to wolcnum); Exodus 214 (eall seo sib-gedriht somod ætgædere) has a parallel in Beowulf 387 (seon sibbe-gedriht samod ætgædere) and 729 (swefan sibbe-gedriht samod ætgædere); Exodus 420b (Soð is gecyðed) is echoed in Beowulf 700b (Soð is gecyþed), and less closely in Daniel 113b (soð gecyðed); Exodus 557a (burh and beagas) is matched in Beowulf 523a (burh ond beagas); Exodus 580a (Þa wæs eð-fynde) is matched in Beowulf 138a (Þa wæs eað-fynde); less close parallels are found in Andreas 1547a (Ðær wæs yð-fynde) and Genesis A 1993a (Þær wæs eað-fynde). Compare too Exodus 516b (ece rædas) and Beowulf 1760a (ece rædas), while Exodus 515b (Hie wið god wunnon) is matched in Beowulf 113b (þa wið gode wunnon), as well as in Christ C 1526b (þa ær wiþ gode wunnon). See too Exodus 22b (Ða wæs forma sið) and Beowulf 1527b (ða wæs forma sið), 2625b (Þa wæs forma sið), and less closely in Beowulf 716b (ne wæs þæt forma sið) and 1463b (næs þæt forma sið). Exodus 35b (heaf wæs geniwad) has a series of sorry parallels in Beowulf (1303b: cearu wæs geniwod; 1322b: Sorh is geniwod; 2287b: wroht wæs geniwad); other poems use the same formula more positively (Andreas 1010b, Christ B 529b, and Guthlac B 953b: Hyht wæs geniwad). Exodus 475a (nacud nyd-boda) has parallels not only in Beowulf 2273a (nacod nið-draca), but in Genesis A 929a (nacod nied-wædla) and Daniel 632a (nacod nyd-genga). Other parallels between Exodus and Beowulf are discussed below.
- 21.
See, for example, Orchard, A Critical Companion to ‘Beowulf’, 163–66.
- 22.
Compare Exodus 175b (cumbol lixton) and Elene 23b (Garas lixtan).
- 23.
Exodus 107a* (hlud herges cyrm) is matched in Andreas 1156a (hlud heriges cyrm) and Exodus 511 (bodigean æfter burgum) in Andreas 335 (Bodiað æfter burgum); ditto Exodus 65b (werodes bearhtme) in Elene 39b (Werodes breahtme) and Andreas 1271b (weorodes brehtme). Rare or unique parallels of phrasing can be found between Exodus 355a (frod on ferhðe) and Elene 463a (frod on fyrhðe); Exodus 433a (wyrda waldend), Elene 80a (wyrda wealdend), and Andreas 1056a (wyrda waldend); Exodus 548 (weroda wuldor-cyning to widan feore) and Elene 1321 (wuldor-cyninges to widan feore), just as Exodus 129a (fus on forð-weg) is matched in Guthlac B 945a (fus on forð-weg), and while Exodus 262 (mihtig drihten þurh mine hand) is matched precisely by Judith 198 (mihtig dryhten þurh mine hand) and less closely by Beowulf 558 (mihtig mere-deor þurh mine hand), Exodus 533a (wommum awyrged) is matched in Christ C 1561a (wommum awyrged). Other examples of parallel phrasing are: Exodus 474b (ece staðulas) and Christ B 661b (ece staþelas); Exodus 506a (yrre and egesfull) and Christ C 1528a (yrre ond egesful); Exodus 508 (forðam þæs heriges ham eft ne com) and Elene 142b–143 (Lythwon becwom / Huna herges ham eft þanon) and 148 (Gewat þa heriga helm ham eft þanon), though one might also compare Beowulf 2365b–2366 (lyt eft becwom / fram þam hild-frecan hames niosan).
- 24.
See, for example, the editions by Edward B. Irving, Jr., ed., The OE ‘Exodus’ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), together with his “New Notes on the OE Exodus,” Anglia 90 (1972): 289–324; J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. and trans. The OE Exodus: A Text, Translation, and Commentary, ed. J. Turville-Petre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); and Peter J. Lucas, ed., Exodus, rev. ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994), on which I rely principally here.
- 25.
See Roberta Frank, “What Kind of Poetry Is Exodus?” in Germania: Comparative Studies in the Old Germanic Languages and Literatures, ed. Daniel G. Calder and T. Craig Christy (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), 191–205; Michael Lapidge, “Hypallage in the OE Exodus,” Leeds Studies in English 37 (2006): 31–39.
- 26.
C. T. Carr, Nominal Compounds in Germanic (London: Humphrey Milford, 1939), 414. Carr, working with early editions, gives the length of Exodus as 591 lines and considers Christ as a single poem; the differences are immaterial.
- 27.
Nancy Speirs, “The Two Armies of the OE Exodus: twa þusendo, line 184b, and cista, lines 229b and 230a,” Notes and Queries 34 (1987): 145–46.
- 28.
For example, Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., “More Scriptural Echoes in the OE Exodus,” in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation, For John C. McGalliard, ed. Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 291–98.
- 29.
See John F. Vickrey, “Exodus and The Battle in the Sea,” Traditio 28 (1972): 119–40; Enza Serrentino, “Lucano nell’ Exodus antico inglese,” Neophilologus 80 (1996): 617–38, identifies a number of broad parallels in this passage with the martial language in Latin in Lucan’s Bellum civile. See too Karin E. Olsen, “The Dual Function of the Repetitions in Exodus 447–515,” in Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1994), 55–70.
- 30.
Richard M. Trask, “Doomsday Imagery in the OE Exodus,” Neophilologus 57 (1973): 295–97.
- 31.
See further Daniel Anlezark, “Old English Exodus 487 ‘werbeamas’,” Notes and Queries 62 (2015): 497–508.
- 32.
Here and at 495a the Exodus-poet seems to be playing on the twin meanings of wæg as both ‘wave’ and ‘way’.
- 33.
For the translation here, see Richard Marsden, “The Death of the Messenger: The ‘spelboda’ in the OE Exodus,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 77, no. 3 (1995): 141–64.
- 34.
In alphabetical order, to highlight repeated first-elements (and with all forms given in the nominative): æf-last (‘wandering off course’ 474a); bealo-spell (‘baleful news’ 511b); blod-egesa (‘blood-terror ’ 478b); deað-drepe (‘death -blow’ 496a); famig-bosma (‘foamy-bosomed’ 494a); feðe-gast (‘war-striding spirit’ 476a); flod-blac (‘flood-pale’ 498b); flod-egsa (‘flood-terror ’ 447b); flod-weard (‘flood-guardian’ 494b); here-bleað (‘war-timid’ 454a); here-wop (‘army-scream’ 461b); holm-weall (‘sea-wall’ 468b); mere-deað (‘sea-death ’ 465a and 523b); mere-torr (‘sea-tower’ 485a); mod-wæg (‘wild wave’ 500a); nyd-boda (‘messenger of force’ 475a); sin-cald (‘perpetually cold’ 473a); wæl-fæðm (‘deadly embrace’ 481b); wer-beam (‘dam-beam’ 487a); wi-trod (‘army-path’ 492b).
- 35.
Notably in Dream of the Rood 48b, Brussels Cross 2b, Christ C 1085b, although at least one and possibly both of the latter references may contain deliberate echoes of the Dream of the Rood; see further Andy Orchard, “The Dream of the Rood: Cross-References,” in New Readings in the Vercelli Book, ed. Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 225–53.
- 36.
The half-line hatan heolfre is also found in Andreas 1241a* (preceded by the phrase Blod yðum weoll at Andreas 1240b) and 1277a.
- 37.
F. Klaeber, “Concerning the Relations between Exodus and Beowulf,” Modern Language Notes 33 (1918): 218–24.
- 38.
F. Klaeber, “Beowulfiana,” Anglia 50 (1926): 195–244, at 202–3.
- 39.
See further Gernot Wieland, “Manna Mildost: Moses and Beowulf,” Pacific Coast Philology 23 (1988): 86–93; Charles D. Wright, “Moses, Manna Mildost (Exodus, 550a),” Notes and Queries 31 (1984): 440–43.
- 40.
It is, for example, in eddic poetry Atlakviða 5 and 14, as well as in skaldic poetry Egill Skallagrímsson, Lausavísur 9 (always in the formula geiri gjallanda or gjallanda geiri).
- 41.
I am grateful to Kathrin McCann and Clare Orchard for their extremely helpful comments.
Bibliography
Primary
A Thesaurus of OE. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 2015. http://oldenglishthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/.
Dictionary of OE Web Corpus. Compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang. Toronto: Dictionary of OE Project, 2009.
Dictionary of OE: A to G online. Edited by Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. Toronto: Dictionary of OE Project, 2007.
Irving, Edward B., ed. The OE ‘Exodus’. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Lucas, Peter J., ed. Exodus. Rev. ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994.
Tolkien, J. R. R., ed. and trans. The OE Exodus: A Text, Translation, and Commentary. Edited by J. Turville-Petre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Secondary
Anlezark, Daniel. “Old English Exodus 487 ‘werbeamas’.” Notes and Queries 62 (2015): 497–508.
Biggs, Frederick M. “The End of the Sea: The OE Exodus, lines 466b–7a.” Notes and Queries 32 (1985): 290–91.
Carr, C. T. Nominal Compounds in Germanic. London: Humphrey Milford, 1939.
Frank, Roberta. “What Kind of Poetry Is Exodus?” In Germania: Comparative Studies in the Old Germanic Languages and Literatures, edited by Daniel G. Calder and T. Craig Christy, 191–205. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988.
Hall, J. R. “Exodus 119a: Ofer Clamme.” English Language Notes 22, no. 3 (1985): 3–6.
Irving, Edward B. “New Notes on the OE Exodus.” Anglia 90 (1972): 289–324.
Jorgensen, Alice. “The Trumpet and the Wolf: Noises of Battle in OE Poetry.” Oral Tradition 24 (2009): 319–36.
Klaeber, F. “Concerning the Relations between Exodus and Beowulf.” Modern Language Notes 33 (1918): 218–24.
———. “Beowulfiana.” Anglia 50 (1926): 195–244.
Lapidge, Michael. “Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror.” In Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., edited by H. Damico and J. Leyerle, 373–402. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993.
———. “Hypallage in the OE Exodus.” Leeds Studies in English 37 (2006): 31–39.
Marsden, Richard. “The Death of the Messenger: The ‘spelboda’ in the OE Exodus.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 77, no. 3 (1995): 141–64.
Olsen, Karin E. “The Dual Function of the Repetitions in Exodus 447–515.” In Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose, edited by L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald, 55–70. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1994.
Orchard, Andy. A Critical Companion to ‘Beowulf’. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007.
———.“The Dream of the Rood: Cross-References.” In New Readings in the Vercelli Book, edited by Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard, 225–53. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
———.“The Originality of Andreas.” In OE Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk, edited by Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual, and Tom Shippey, 331–70. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2016.
Renoir, Alain. “Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 63 (1962): 154–67.
———. “The Terror of the Dark Waters: A Note on Virgilian and Beowulfian Techniques.” In The Learned and The Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature, edited by Larry D. Benson, 147–60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Serrentino, Enza. “Lucano nell’ Exodus antico inglese.” Neophilologus 80 (1996): 617–38.
Speirs, Nancy. “The Two Armies of the OE Exodus: twa þusendo, line 184b, and cista, lines 229b and 230a.” Notes and Queries 34 (1987): 145–46.
Stanley, Eric. “Fear, Chiefly in Old and Middle English.” Poetica 66 (2006): 77–115.
Terasawa, Jun. “OE Exodus 118a: The Use of Wolf Imagery.” Notes and Queries 50 (2003): 259–61.
Trahern, Joseph B. Jr., “More Scriptural Echoes in the OE Exodus.” In Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation, For John C. McGalliard, edited by Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese, 291–98. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.
Trask, Richard M. “Doomsday Imagery in the OE Exodus.” Neophilologus 57 (1973): 295–97.
Vickrey, John F. “Exodus and the Battle in the Sea.” Traditio 28 (1972): 119–40.
Wieland, Gernot. “Manna Mildost: Moses and Beowulf.” Pacific Coast Philology 23 (1988): 86–93.
Wright, Charles D. “Moses, Manna Mildost (Exodus, 550a).” Notes and Queries 31 (1984): 440–43.
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Orchard, A. (2018). Fresh Terror, New Horror: Fear and the Unfamiliar in the Old English Exodus. In: McCann, D., McKechnie-Mason, C. (eds) Fear in the Medical and Literary Imagination, Medieval to Modern. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55948-7_7
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