The Gleeman's Song,' like many other Anglo-Saxon poems, has a short preface in verse, which appears to be of almost equal antiquity with the poem.
Then follows a list of celebrated kings, from which the Gleeman selects for special notice Alexandreas, who appears to be Alexander of Macedon, and Wale, who is, no doubt, the Wallin that founded the kingdom of the Visigoths at Toulouse, A.D. 417. With the exception of Alexander, all of them appear to have been the Glecman's contem poraries. After this enumeration ho proceeds " So I fared through many stranger lands, Through the wide earth ; of geed and evil There I tasted; from family parted, From kinsmen far, widely I did my sull Therefore may I sing, and story tell, Relate fore the crowd, in mead-hall, Bow me the high-born with largess blest.
I was with the Huns," &c.
We have then the names of nations and of countries visited by him, which appear to be strung together in the order best suited to the alliteration. There are also certain notices of the great people by whose bounty he had benefited, and the reader will not be surprised at the Gleeman seeing only a liberal patron in the same monarch (Eormanrie) whom the author of the preface denounces as " a wrathful treachour." The whole concludes with a short eulogy on the dignity and privileges of his craft.
The great value of this poem lies chiefly in that string of names, which ,wo have omitted as being so little interesting to the general reader. We do not stop to examine the question, whether any or how tunny of these notices have been interpolated during the five centuries which elapsed between the composition of the poem and the writing of the manuscript. Our knowledge of early Saxon history is so scanty that all such speculations must be hazardous. But we may observe, that the Scriptures had beep translated into a Gothic dialect long before the Glecznan began his wanderings, and wo know from Roman history that during the 4th century nearly one-half of the Gothic tribes were Christians. We need not therefore necessarily feel suspicion, when we read of the Assyrians and the Perainns, the Jews and the Idumteans : they may have been as well known to the Glee man as to the Saxon monk who transcribed the manuscript. The
chief interest however attaches to the mention of the various Gothic, Slavish, and Finnish races. In tracing their history, the ' Clematis Song' is the great link which connects the knowledge gained from Latin sources with the information gleaned from the Middle-Age chronicle. In many instances it furnishes the only means of penetrat ing the mystery which surrounds these races. There are tribes, still to be found between the Wolga and the Vistula, which we can identify with others named by the Gleeman, and thereby prove to have had a political existence fourteen hundred years ago, of whom hardly another trustworthy memorial can be found, till within the last two or three centuries. The helps which it affords us in unravelling the web of Gothic fiction are also most valuable, and tnay, if rightly taken advantage of, save Ian from much of that speculation in which German scholars have indulged so largely.
There are two other poems, which must have been composed before the Engle left the Continent, the " Battle of Fimeburgh," end the ' Tale of Beowulf.' The first of those is a mere fragment, mid appears to have belonged to one of those historical amp which 'I'acitus (` 2) representa as the only literature of the ancient Germans. The other is chiefly taken up with the relation of two of Ileowulf's adventures : the first against a monster called the Grendcl ;' the second against a terrific " worm," or " earthdrako." The poem has come down to 1.18 in a modernised form, and the mixture of Christian and heathen notions is sometimes singularly curious. For the most part, the nature of the subject, and the marked change that takes place in the rhythm, enable us to lay our finger on the very line where the interpolation begins. The following is one of the attempts to reconcile the old superstitions and the new creed :— " The grim stranger was Grendel Mighty pacer of the March ; who held the moors, Fen and fastness—land of the Fifebkin.