^{page 213 note 1} Anglo-Saxon Magic, ed. Gotfried, Storms (The Hague, 1948), pp. 172–87Google Scholar. All my quotations of the charm are from this edition. For anothet somewhat more conservative edition, see The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Dobbie, E. V. K., Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (New York, 1942), 116–18Google Scholar. Dobbie provides a useful bibliography on pp. cxxviii–clxxx. For the date of the script, see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 172.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 2} The translation quoted by Storms (p. 183) is from Stopford Brooke, A., The History of Early English Literature (New York, 1892), pp. 157–8.Google Scholar

^{page 214 note 1} The tacit assumption of much of the scholarship concerned with early Germanic religion is that the various myths and related texts are incoherent as we have them and hence cannot be interpreted. Anthropologists, however, have been quite successful in discerning the patterns and concerns underlying essentially similar contemporary ethnographic material. The best known scholar in this area is, of course, Claude Levi-Strauss, but for work similar in orientation, although proceeding from somewhat different theoretical assumptions, see Douglas, Mary on the significance of Old Testament and contemporary Hindu prohibitions (Purity and Danger (London, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and Turner, Victor on Ndembu myth and ritual (The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca, 1967)).Google Scholar For a very interesting, and in my judgement, successful attempt to apply this approach to Germanic religion, see Einar, Haugen, ‘The Mythical Structure of the Ancient Scandinavians: Some Thoughts on Reading Dumézil’, To Honor Roman Jacobson: Essays on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (The Hague and Paris, 1967) 11, 855–68.Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 1} This theme is also attested in pagan Scandinavian texts. Cf. Snorri, Sturluson, ‘Gylfaginning’ 4–9, Edda Snorra Sturlussonar, ed. Jonsson, F. (Copenhagen, 1931), pp. 5–26.Google Scholar Snorri cites the Eddie texts on which his account is based. In Old Norse-Icelandic myth the gods are less powerful than Jahweh, as he is depicted in Genesis, and more emphasis seems to fall on the conception of the created world as an enclosure, a garð, protected against the hostility of the forces of chaos (represented in Old Norse-Icelandic myth by the giants). But even so the gods are concerned with the fertility of miðgarð.

^{page 215 note 2} ‘Hi sunt quattuor Evangelistae, quos per Ezechielem Spiritus sanctus significavit in quattuor animalibus. Propterea autem quattuor animalia, quia per quattuor mundi partes fides Christianae religionis eorum praedicatione disseminata est’ (Etymologies, ed. Lindsay, W. M. (Oxford, 1911), vi.ii.40).Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 3} For an important discussion of this symbolic pattern, see McNally, Robert. E., ‘The Evangelists in the Hiberno-Latin Tradition’, Festschrift Bernard Biscboff zu seinem 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von Freunden Kollegen and Scbülern, ed. Johanne, Autenrieth and Franz, Brunhölzl (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 111–22.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 1} Migne, Patrologia Latina 30, cols. 531–4. For the date see McNally, R. E., The Bible in the Early Middle Ages (Westminster, Maryland, 1959), p. 106.Google Scholar ‘Why are there not twelve gospels received but four: because all the world is of four elements, that is, heaven [for air?], earth fire, water. By heaven John is manifested; because like heaven he surpasses all, so also John, who said: In the beginning was the word. By Matthew earth: who said: The book of the begetting of Jesus Christ. By Luke fire, who said: For was not our heart burning within us? By Mark water: who said: A voice crying out in the desert. That is, four rivers from one source signifies the four evangelists, [the one source] is Christ. Fison, blowing into, signifies John; Geon, velocity, signifies Matthew; Tigris, felicity, signifies Mark; Eufrates, fertility, signifies Luke. They irrigate the world, that is, the church, and signify four virtues, that is, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice: and as four rivers irrigate paradise, so also do these four virtues irrigate our heart. And man consists of four elements: from air, fire, and water, and earth. From air, breath: fire, blood: water, flame[?], earth, body. By the head heaven, where there are two lights: the breast, air: the belly, water: the feet, earth. Again, Adam took his name from four stars, which is artis, dosis, anatholis, mesimbrio, or these signify the four evangelists … The four evangelists signify, Matthew the face of a man: Luke of a calf: Mark of a lion: John of an eagle: the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all, the man by being born, the calf by being sacrificed, the lion by rising, the eagle by ascending … Matthew honey: Mark milk: Luke oil: John wine.’

^{page 216 note 2} The full meaning of the vegetation symbolism in the charm escapes me. To ensure renewed growth one moistens the base of the ‘tyrf’ with holy water dripped through a bunch of shavings ‘ælcre namcuðre wyrte dæl’, excepting only ‘glappan’, whatever it may be, and ‘heardan beaman’ (6–10). On the problem of ‘heardan beaman’, see Magoun, F. P., ‘Old English Charm A13: Būtan heardan bēaman’, MLN 58 (1943), 33–4Google Scholar, where it is argued that the ‘essential characteristic of soft-wood trees is that they are conifers and mostly evergreen’. Hence the use of soft wood and exclusion of hard wood exploits the association of evergreenness and fertility.

^{page 217 note 1} See, e.g., the ‘Ordo ad eclesiam dedicandum’, in the ‘Gregorian’ Liber sacrammtorum, PL 78, col. 156.

^{page 217 note 2} The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, containing the Sermorns Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Benjamin, Thorpe, (London, 1844–1846) 11, 254–6.Google Scholar This homily, ‘Dominica palmarum: de passio Domini’ is apparently dependent on the Collectiones in epistolas et evangelia of Smaragdus. For the source of this passage, which happens to be lines 188–95 from the fifth book of Sedulius's Paschale carmen quoted by Smaragdus, see PL 102, col. 188 (for Smaragdus) or Corpus Scriptorum Ecdesiasticorum Latinorum 10, 128 (for an authoritative text of the poem).

^{page 217 note 3} See II Enoch xxx.8, trans. Charles, R. H., Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1913) 11, 448–9.Google Scholar

^{page 217 note 4} Max, Förster, ‘Das älteste mittellateinische Gesprächbüchlein’, Romanische Forschungen 27 (1910), 343–4.Google Scholar I quote from the more accessible PL Supplementum 4, cols. 937–8. It seems hardly possible to offer a translation of such corrupt Latin. The gist of it, however, is that Bethlehem, where Adam was created and Christ was born, is at the centre of the world; Adam was made from four clods of earth which the four angels, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, brought to God from the four quarters of the world and which were sprinkled with water from the four rivers of paradise; likewise, at God's command, Adam's spirit was sent into him from four winds; Adam's name was formed out of those of four stars.

^{page 218 note 1} On Adam and man as microcosms in the context of Old English poetry, see Cross, J. E., ‘Aspects of Microcosm and Macrocosm in Old English Literature’, Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Greenfield, Stanley. B. (Eugene, Oregon, 1963), pp. 1–22.Google Scholar

^{page 218 note 2} Thus: ‘Occupatio magna creata est, omnibus hominibus et iugum grave super filios Adam, a die exitus de ventre matris eorum, usque in diem sepulturæ in matrem omnium’ (Ecdesiasticus XL.I). Gregory picks up the phrase in Moralia in Job 11.xvii.30 (PL 75, col. 570).

^{page 218 note 3} Collectaneum Bedae, PL 94, col. 551. In this connection see Paris, BN lat. 11561, 132V: ‘Matheus hiemi inicia ac pampinos coalanti comparatur. Unde omnes etiam dicitur arare. Marcus veri post hieme in floris et gemmas erumpenti. Unde post Matheus dicitur seminare. Lucas aestati post vernem tempus crescentis terra germina pluvialibus aquis inriganti ac solis claritate coruscanti, eo quod ipse ut Matheus praeceptis habundat divinis et divinitatem virtutibus plurimis contestatur. Unde etiam Marcus [Lucas ?] seminantem dicitur inrigare. Iohannis autumno post aestates [aestatis?] calorem et inrigationem cuncta ad perfectionis maturitatem provehenti cui enarranti de Christi divinitate et consumenti canonis perfectio data est a Domino. Unde et post tres priores evangelistas incrementum dicitur dare.’ (‘Matthew is compared to winter cherishing the beginnings and the shoots. Hence he is said to plough all men. Mark [is compared] to spring bursting forth in flowers and buds after the winter. Hence he is said to sow after Matthew. Luke [is compared] to summer after the springtime, watering the shoots of the growing earth with rain waters and sparkling with the brightness of the sun, because he himself, like Matthew, abounds in divine precepts and bears witness to divinity with very many virtues. Hence also Luke is said to water the sower. John [is compared] to the autumn after the heat and irrigation of summer, advancing all things to the maturity of perfection, to whom, narrating and finishing concerning the divinity of Christ, the perfection of the cannon was given by the Lord. Hence he is said to give the increase after the three prior evangelists.’) The text, an Irish commentary (c. 800) on the gospels, is quoted by McNally, ‘The Evangelists’, p. 120. For yet another instance of the association of the evangelists with the four directions etc. see the ‘In evangelia excerpta’, paras 15–20, ed. McNally, R. E., Scriptores Hiberniae Minores, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 108B, 216–18.Google Scholar

^{page 219 note 1} On the biblical and liturgical elements in the charm, see Shook, L. K., ‘Notes on the Old English Charms’, MLN 55 (1940), 139–40.Google Scholar

^{page 219 note 2} The farmer is supposed to give the beggars double the seed he takes from them, and so in the course of their wandering they might accumulate a good deal of seed.

^{page 220 note 1} I am indebted to my colleague, Professor Peter van Soeust of the Cornell College of Agriculture, for discussing with me the practical consequences of the use of uncup sæd.

^{page 220 note 2} It is, of course, true that Anglo-Saxon culture did not produce any very significant new scientific or technical innovation, but we should not forget that the Anglo-Saxons had inherited and preserved a great deal.

^{page 220 note 3} The lines ‘þæt se hæfde are on eorþrice, / se þe ælmyssan dælde domlice drihtnes þances’ (41–2) suggest that this rationale may have occurred to the redactor of the charm. If Old English paganism was at all similar to Old Norse-Icelandic religion, this theme is probably not archaic since compassion towards the weak (and indeed divinely sanctioned moral standards) seem conspicuously absent from Scandinavian paganism.

^{page 220 note 4} For an alternative explanation, see Grimm, J., Deutsche Mythologie, ed. Meyer, E. H., 4th ed. (Berlin, 1875) 11, 1033–5.Google Scholar

^{page 221 note 1} Hislorica ecclesiastica gentis Anghrum, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford 1896) 1.30, This letter has been cited in this context by Storms in his edition (p. 179).Google Scholar

^{page 221 note 2} I am indebted to Professor Joseph C. Harris of Stanford University for reading this paper and for making several helpful suggestions.