Interpretations and Emendations of Some Passages in Havelok

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1. In quotations I follow the edition of G.V. Smithers: Havelok (Oxford, 1987).

2. W.W. Skeat (ed.), The Lay of Havelok the Dane, 2nd edn by K. Sisam (Oxford, 1956 [new impression, with corrections]). Sisam rewrote the Introduction, supplied explanatory Notes and revised the Glossarial Index. Skeat's text and footnotes were left practically untouched.

3. Stephen H.A. Shepherd (ed.), Middle English Romances (New York and London, 1995). Havelok occupies pp. 3–74. The Editor glosses troublesome words and paraphrases knotty passages on the page.

4. T.F. Mustanoja, A Middle English Syntax (Helsinki, 1960), 191.

5. Ib., 315 n.

6. By E.H. Sturtevant. See his An Introduction to Linguistic Science (New Haven, 1947), 87–8.

7. J.A.W. Bennett and G.V. Smithers (eds), Early Middle English Verse and Prose (Oxford, 1966), 84.

8. See lines 172, 241, 845, 1790, and 2587.

9. Quoted from Bosworth‐Toller, Supplement, s.v. ge‐lang I. See also MED, s.v. long adj. (2).

10. See MED, s.v. ofturnen.

11. ‘In general, a false rime in Havelok indicates corruption’ (Sisam, Introduction, xxviii). Possibly fri at 1073, rhyming with hey, should be *frey (OE gefrge gefrēge) ‘celebrated’.

12. Notes and Queries, ccl (2005), 295–6.

13. See MED, s.v. wernen v. (1), 3. (a).

14. See E.G. Stanley, ‘Old English ær Conjunction: “rather than”’, Notes and Queries, ccxxxvii (1992), 11–13.

15. For this ‘broken order’, see H. Sweet, A New English Grammar, logical and historical (Oxford, 1892–8), §§ 1860–2, and B. Mitchell, Old English Syntax (Oxford, 1985), §§ 1575–7.

16. The adjective hwat ‘swift’ has been turned into a noun. The prepositional phrase on hwat is equivalent to the adverb hwatlice ‘swiftly’. Cf. OE on gylp/gylplice ‘proudly’, on lust/lustlice ‘gladly’, on sped/gespediglice ‘successfully’, etc. See Klaeber's Beowulf edition: Glossary, s.v. on prep.

17. For examples of welden ‘to overcome, suppress’, see MED s.v., 3. (b). Lines 1932–3 are briefly discussed in Notes and Queries, ccxxxix (1994), 13.

18. H. Sweet (ed.), King Alfred's West‐Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, EETS 45 (London, 1871), 164.

19. See N. Davies et al., A Chaucer Glossary (Oxford, 1979), s.v. sette(n; MED, s.v. setten v. 2a. (i).

20. G.P. Krapp (ed.), The Junius MS (London and New York, 1931), 12. – K. Malone, English Studies, xxviii (1947), 42ff., suggests that gar ‘storm’ derives from the same root as ON geisa ‘to rage’.

21. Elaine M. Treharne (ed.), The Old English Life of St Giles, Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series 15 (1997), 93.

22. For the definition, see Sturtevant, op. cit., 9–12.

23. See Davies, op. cit., s.v. wrat(t)h(e; MED s.v. wrathe n. 1. (a).

24. C. Horstmann (ed.), Altenglische Legenden (Paderborn, 1875), 115.

25. Notes and Queries, ccxl (1995), 22.