manded to make me.

CHAPTER VII

Some of greatest pre-Conquest poetry associated with name of Cynewulf.
Guesses about him. Little known. Probably North-countryman, eighth
century, an educated man. Finding of the Cross. Elene, story of St
Helena's mission. Constantine goes to fight invaders. Vision of the
Cross. Victory. Journey of St Helena, and search for the Cross. The
Finding.

We are going now to consider some of the greatest poetry written before
the Conquest. It associates itself with the name of Cynewulf, a name
with which certain poems are signed in runes. By-and-by we shall hear
something about runes and the old writing; and something also about
where our old treasures of literature, part of our dear Catholic
heritage, are found in their original form.

As I have said, certain poems are signed with Cynewulf's name; and there
are others which are with more or less probability of rightness
attributed to him on grounds of likeness of subject, likeness of style,
similar greatness of treatment.

About Cynewulf himself we know, I may say, nothing except what we
gather from his work. Various guesses have been made, and various
theories formed, identifying him with one or other of the men about whom
we know something; but for the present, at all events, we must be
content to think that he probably lived in the eighth century, and that
he probably was a North-countryman. All his writings have come to us in
the dialect of Wessex, except some parts of a poem known as the "Dream
of the Holy Rood." These are carved on an old cross, which I will speak
of by-and-by, and they are in the Northumbrian dialect; but the
manuscript of the entire poem is in West Saxon.

Scholars are working upon old materials and discoveries are being made
and theories formed which are at variance with what used to be set down
as certainty. The main thing is that we have these poems, and that we
want to know about them and learn to prize them. If we want to know them
thoroughly and prize them as they deserve, we must take the trouble to
learn the language they are written in. But many of us have not time for
this, and so must be content, for the present, at least, with making
their acquaintance through translations.

Perhaps Cynewulf was a poet who lived as one of the household of some
great lord, and wrote more at his ease than if he had been merely an
itinerant singer, a "gleeman," who sang his songs as he went