Widsith

by Kemp Malone (editor)

Genres: Anglo Saxon, Poetry

First published January 1, 1936

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Widsith is a short Old English poem that is contained in the well known Exeter Book compilation. The poem is essentially a long list of heroes and tribes from the Germanic Heroic Age or more commonly known to Historians as the Migration Period. The poem mentions many characters that are well known from later medieval literature such as Ermanaric, Witige and Heime from the Dietrich Epics, the Burgundians and Attila from the Nibelungenlied, alongside Wate and Hagen from the Kudrunlied.

This is the second edition of Widsith to be published by the American scholar Kemp Malone and suffers from his usual highly speculative approach and his attempts to give a correct text by claiming that certain sections are interpolations. Gripes aside, this really is a fun read and many hours can be spent pondering over Malone's ideas.

Malone vastly improves and expands on his edition of Widsith from the Methuen Old English Library edition of 1933. The only part that remains are the chapters on the first, second and third thulas and the glossary, but even these are rewritten and expanded. This edition gives the manuscript text and Malone's amended text of Widsith, with the addition of about ten new chapters not included in the original Methuen edition.

Until someone publishers a more modern edition and study, this remains probably the best edition of Widsith to get.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Old English Widsith is a geographical and ethnic catalogue poem that follows a simple formula of X and Y by first mentioning a character from heroic legend and than locating him within his tribal and geographic group such as "ætla weold Hunum, Eormanric Gotum, Becca Baningum, Burgendum Gifica" and then more syntactically complex narrative passages that allude to events connected with the Scylding dynasty and other characters from Beowulf "Hroþwulf ond Hroðgar heoldon lengest sibbe ætsomne suhtorfædran, siþþan hy forwræcon wicinga cynn ond Ingeldes ord forbigdan, forheowan æt Heorote Heaðobeardna þrym." The whole poem is set in the context of Migration Period Europe and the wonderings of a Scop named Widsith and his travels throughout the heroic world of Germanic poetry. On his travels Widsith encounters characters from the Nibelungenlied, Kudrunlied, Dietrichs Flucht, Rabenschlacht and many more.

Kemp Malone's edition of Widsith is one of those old quirky but loveable attempts at presenting an Old English poem in the way the editor would have the poem speak rather than by what the text actually says. Malone edits the text by presenting a transcript of Widsith from the Exeter Book and then is own edited version of the text. In this edited text Malone decides that all references to Near Eastern and Mediterranean characters are interpolations by a later copier, which a more modern editor would probably describe as an integral part of the text and a blending of Germanic and Christian cultures.

This book really comes into its own in Malone's extensive notes and commentary to the text. The commentary explores the relationship of the characters and ethnic groups mentioned in the Widsithian catalogue and their relationship to history and literature in Icelandic, Old English and Medieval German texts. At times the author can be a little over exuberant and fanciful in his interpretations, but the commentary is nevertheless a complete tour de force of the who's who in world of Germanic legend.

[Sparrow Alden]

Here is a Middle Saxon copy: https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ascp...

And a translation by Dr. Aaron K. Hostetter: https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutge...

[Othy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kemp Malone suffers from one of the largest problems in old scholarship: picking apart a text and, in many cases, "knowing better" than the scribe himself as to what the text "ought" to read. R.W. Chambers does the same in his edition, but not to the extent of Malone. But, still, Malone's work in seeing the organization of the poem is really top notch, and this is quite the classic of Widsith scholarship.

[Heidi]

Anglosaksista nimipudottelua 600-700-luvuilta. Suomenkielisen edition selitysosion fokus finneissä/fenneissä (joista jo muinainen Tacitus sanaili melkein vihonviimeisenä kansana Germaniassaan).