ting textbooks makes the volume convenient for
those who wish to use it to supplement these books.

In addition to the poems, four short prose passages referred to by most
historians of the literature have been included so as to add to the
usefulness of the volume.

In the translation of the poems the original meaning and word-order has
been kept as nearly as modern English idiom and the exigencies of the
meter would allow. Nowhere, we believe, has the possibility of an
attractive alliteration caused violence to be done to the sense of the
poem.

The best diction to be used in such a translation is difficult to
determine. The temptation is ever present to use the modern English
descendant of the Anglo-Saxon word, even when it is very archaic in
flavor. This tendency has been resisted, for it was desired to reproduce
the effect of the original; and, though Old English poetry was
conventional, it was probably not archaic: it was not out of date at the
time it was written. Since the diction of these poems was usually very
simple, it has been the policy of the translators to exclude all
sophisticated expressions, and to retain words of Germanic origin or
simple words of Latin derivation that do not suggest subtleties foreign
to the mind of the Old English poet.

The texts used as a standard for translation are indicated in the
introductory notes to the different poems. Whenever a good critical
edition of a poem has been available, it has been followed. Variations
from the readings used in these texts are usually indicated where they
are of any importance. In the punctuation and paragraphing of the poems,
the varying usage of the different editors has been disregarded and a
uniform practice adopted throughout.

Following these principles, the translators have attempted to reproduce
for modern English readers the meaning and movement of the Old English
originals. It is their earnest hope that something of the fine spirit
that breathes through much of this poetry will be found to remain in the
translation.

Cosette Faust.
Stith Thompson.

March, 1918.

I. PAGAN POETRY

1. EPIC OR HEROIC GROUP

WIDSITH

[Critical edition: R. W. Chambers, _Widsith: a Study in Old English
Heroic Legend_. Cambridge, 1912.