their wrong to any wight."[27]

The general absence of cold is here made emphatic by mentioning
special cold things: "snow," "frost," "hail," "hoar frost," "bitter
cold," "winter shower." The absence of heat is emphasized in the same
way.

Saxon contrasted with Celtic Imagery.--A critic rightly says: "The
gay wit of the Celt would pour into the song of a few minutes more
phrases of ornament than are to be found in the whole poem of
_Beowulf_." In three lines of an old Celtic death song, we find three
similes:--

"Black as the raven was his brow;
Sharp as a razor was his spear;
White as lime was his skin."

We look in Anglo-Saxon poetry in vain for a touch like this:--

"Sweetly a bird sang on a pear tree above the head of Gwenn before
they covered him with a turf."[28]

Celtic literature shows more exaggeration, more love of color, and a
deeper appreciation of nature in her gentler aspects. The Celt could
write:--

"More yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her
skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands
and fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray
of the meadow fountain."[29]

King Arthur and his romantic Knights of the Round Table are Celtic
heroes. Possibly the Celtic strain persisting in many of the Scotch
people inspires lines like these in more modern times:--

"The corn-craik was chirming
His sad eerie cry [30]
And the wee stars were dreaming
Their path through the sky."

In order to produce a poet able to write both _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_ and _Hamlet_, the Celtic imagination must blend with the
Anglo-Saxon seriousness. As we shall see, this was accomplished by the
Norman conquest.

ANGLO-SAXON PROSE

When and where written.--We have seen that poetry normally precedes
prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced
before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was
between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes
began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had
destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby,
where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As
the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads
almost completely silenced the singers. What prose there was in the
north was principally in Latin. On the other hand, the Saxon prose was
produced chiefly in the south of