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² Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, P. S. and Lapidge, M., EETS ss 15 (Oxford, 1995), 12 and 112Google Scholar: ‘the four seasons … spring, summer, harvest and winter’; ‘the four seasons, namely spring, summer, fall and winter’.

³ An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Boswrth, ed. Toller, T. N. (Oxford, 1898), s.v.Google Scholar

⁴ Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. Lindsay, W. M., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), V.xxxv (‘De temporibus’).Google Scholar

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⁶ SirFrazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, abridged ed. (New York, 1951), pp. 367–9Google Scholar; for Scandinavia, see Davidson, H. R. E., Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Syracuse, NY, 1988), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

⁷ Fischer, A., ‘“Sumer is icumen in”: the Seasons of the Year in Middle English and Early Modern English’, Studies in Early Modern English, ed. Kastovsky, D. (Berlin, 1994), pp. 79–95.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor Godden for providing me with a copy of this important article after I had sent an initial draft of the present essay to the editors of ASE.

⁸ Martinet, A., Économie dis changements phonétiques (Bern, 1955), pp. 80–2.Google Scholar

⁹ For thèse concepts, see the papers collected in Travaux linguistiques de Prague, 2: Les problèmes du centre et de la périphérie du système de la langue, ed. Vachek, J. (University, AL, 1966).Google Scholar Particularly useful essays in this volume are Daneš, F., ‘The Relation of Centre and Periphery as a Language Universal’, pp. 9–22Google Scholar, and Vachek, J., ‘On the Integration of the Peripheral Elements into the System of Language’, pp. 23–38.Google Scholar

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¹² Meriti, H. D., ‘Conceivable Clues to Twelve Old English Words’, ASE 1 (1972), 193–205, at 198–9Google Scholar; the word appears as a gloss in a section on the colours of horses in Isidore's Etymologise.

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¹⁶ Krause, W., Handbuch des Gotischen, 3rd ed. (Munich, 1968), p. 161Google Scholar; and fora recent analysis of r-stems, Bammesberger, A., ‘The Weak Forms in the Germanic r-stem Paradigm’, Jnl of Indo-European Stud. 11 (1983), 105–16.Google Scholar

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¹⁹ The Phoenix, ed. Blake, N. F. (Manchester, 1964), lines 152, 162, 363, 420, 428 and 580Google Scholar; Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Klaeber, F., 3rd ed. (Boston, 1950), lines 264a, 1724a, 1927b, 2114a, 2209a, 2428a, 2277a, 2733a, 2278a and 3050aGoogle Scholar; Genesis A, ed. Doane, A. N. (Madison, WI, 1978), p. 407 s.v. winter for line references.Google Scholar

²⁰ See, for example, The Chester Mystery Cycle I, ed. Lumiansky, R. M. and Mills, D., EETS ss 3 (London, 1974), Noah's Ark (line 149)Google Scholar; Moses and the Ten Commandments (234); Nativity (135); and The Purification: Christ and the Doctors (3).

²¹ Genesis B (text from ASPR I); see Whitbread, L., ‘A Medieval English Metaphor’, PQ 17 (1938), 365–70, at 369.Google Scholar

²² Klaeber, F., ‘Zur jüngeren Genesis’, Anglia 49 (1926), 361–75, at 364Google Scholar, and again ‘Concerning Old English winterstund’, PQ 19 (1940), 146–7Google Scholar; Gordon, R. K., Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1926), p. 102.Google Scholar

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²⁵ The Wanderer, ed. Dunning, T. P. and Bliss, A. J. (London, 1969).Google Scholar For winter as symbolic of adversity, see Hanscom, E. D., ‘The Feeling for Nature in Old English Poetry’, JEGP 5 (1903–1905), 439–63, at 446–7Google Scholar; Moorman, F. W., The Interpretation of Nature in English Poetry from Beowulf to Shakespeare (Strassburg, 1905), pp. 29–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pons, E., Le Thème et le sentiment de la nature dans la poésie anglo-saxonne (Strasbourg, 1925), pp. 1–6Google Scholar; Stanley, E. G., ‘Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Penitent's Prayer’ Anglia 73 (1956), 413–66, at 439, repr.Google Scholar in his Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old English Literature (Toronto, 1987), pp. 257–8Google Scholar; Enlcvist, N. E., The Seasons of the Year: Chapters on a Motif from Beowulf to the Shepherd's Calendar (Copenhagen, 1957), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

²⁶ Deor, ed. Malone, K. (Exeter, 1977 (originally published London, 1933))Google Scholar: ‘winter-cold exile’… ‘that passed, so may this’.

²⁷ Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles, ed. Brooks, K. R. (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar

²⁸ The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. Craig, H. (Chicago, 1951), p. 481.Google Scholar

²⁹ ‘Therefore a man may not become wise, until he has a share of winters in the world.’

³⁰ Stamm-Heyne's Ulfilas, ed. Wrede, F. (Paderborn, 1920).Google Scholar

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³² ASPR VI, 28–30Google Scholar; Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples, ed. Dickins, B. (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 12–23 [text and translation]Google Scholar: ‘Summer is a joy to men, when God, the king of heaven, suffers the earth to bring forth bright fruits for rich and poor.’

³³ Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grècque: Histoire des mots, 2 vols. (Paris, 1968–1980), pp. 1303–4Google Scholar, on Greek ὦρος ‘year’,⋯ρα ‘time, season, spring’, Old Slavic jars, jara ‘spring’.

³⁴ Grein, C. W. M., Sprachschatz der angelsächsischen Dichter, ed. Holthausen, F. and Köhler, J. J. (Heidelberg, 1912), p. 250Google Scholar, noted by Dobbie in ASPR VI, 155n.

³⁵ The Old English Rune Poem, ed. Halsall, M. (Toronto, 1981), pp. 88–9 and 124–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Lines 28–30, ed. Dickins, , Runic and Heroic Poems, p. 30Google Scholar: ar ‘is a blessing to men and good summer and abundant crops’; see also The Old English Rune Poem, ed. Halsall, , pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

³⁷ For Celto-Germanic lexical parallels generally, see Lane, G., ‘The Germano-Celtic Vocabulary’, Language 9 (1933), 244–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Dillon, M., ‘Germanic and Celtic’ JEGP 42 (1943), 492–8Google Scholar, and Salmons, J. C., ‘The Extent of Language Contact Change: Germanic and Celtic’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1984), pp. 192–245Google Scholar; for the idea of Sprachbund generally, see Kurath, H., Studies in Area Linguistics (Bloomington, IN, 1972).Google Scholar

³⁸ Guthlac B (quoted from ASPR III), lines 1272b–1278a: ‘flowing with honey in the summer season’; Daniel, in ASPR I.

³⁹ Germania, ch. xxvi, in Tacitus, , Dialogues, Agricola, Germania, ed. Peterson, W. and Hutton, M. (London, 1920), p. 300Google Scholar: ‘For winter, spring and summer they [the Germans] have knowledge and a name; of autumn they are ignorant of both the name and the bounty [of harvest].’

⁴⁰ Walafrid, Strabo, De cultura hortorum II. 25Google Scholar, in MGH, PLAC II, 336Google Scholar, and Carmina Salisburgensia (ibid. p. 644); Poeta, Saxo, in MGH, PLAC IV, 44.Google ScholarTuve, R., Seasons and Months: Studies in a Tradition of Middle English Poetry (Paris, 1933), p. 33Google Scholar, writes about Carolingian and Middle English examples of this theme but is unaware of its significance in Old English literature.

⁴¹ Ælfric, Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) I, 100, lines 2–3Google Scholar; Exameron Anglice, or The Old English Hexameron, ed. Crawford, S. J. (Hamburg, 1921, repr. Darmstadt, 1968), p. 42 (lines 114–15).Google Scholar

⁴² Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Jones, , pp. 190–3Google Scholar; Ælfric, De temporibus, ed. Cockayne, , p. 237Google Scholar, and for vernal equinox as the Hebrew New Year, p. 246 (pp. 16–18 in Henel's edition).Google ScholarThe Old English Martynlogy, ed. Herzfeld, G., EETS os 116 (London, 1900), 38–48Google Scholar, identifies 18–24 March as the seven days of creation. In its surviving form this text makes no mention of lencten; however, a leaf is missing where 18 March would be presented, and it is possible that the prose Martynlogy also associated lencten with creation.

⁴³ Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, , p. 152Google Scholar: ‘the beginning of all the year, by right reckoning, [because] the Almighty God in this month created all creation’.

⁴⁴ Menologium, in ASPR VI, 49–55Google Scholar; in modern English translation: Malone, K., ‘The Old English Calendar Poem’, in Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. Atwood, E. B. and Hill, A. A. (Austin, TX, 1969), pp. 193–9.Google ScholarLencten as a religious period is discussed by Tupper, F. J., ‘Anglo-Saxon Dæg-Mæl’, PMLA 10 (1895), 111–241, at 218–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ ‘beautified the regions of earth with branches and leaves’. Klaeber, F., ‘Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf’, Anglia 35 (1912), 111–36Google Scholar, includes the creation song among the Christian elements but does not explore this liturgical detail; so also Moorman, , Interpretation of Nature, p. 12Google Scholar, Whitelock, D., The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951), pp. 76–8Google Scholar, Enkvist, , Seasons of the Year, pp. 9–10Google Scholar, and others who have written about the creation song.

⁴⁶ Catholicum Anglicum, ed. Herrtage, S. J. H. (London, 1882)Google Scholar; the OED first cites Palsgrave's, JohnL'Eclaircissement de la langue française [1530], ed. Génin, F. (Paris, 1852)Google Scholar; see Enkvist, , Seasons of the Year, pp. 198–209.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Citations are provided by Enkvist, , Seasons of the Year, pp. 198–210.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Blount, T., Glossographia (London, 1656) [unpaginated], s.v. Lent.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Johnson, S., Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (London, 1755), s.v. lent.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius' De consolaiione Philosophiae, ed. Fox, S. (London, 1864), p. 74.Google Scholar

⁵¹ The Old English Hexateuch, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS os 160 (London, 1921; repr. 1969)Google Scholar, and Exameron Anglice, ed. Crawford, , p. 50, line 226.Google Scholar

⁵² In Leechdoms, ed. Cockayne, , p. 162Google Scholar: ‘If the mass day of midwinter fall on a Sunday, then there shall be a good winter, and a windy spring, and a dry summer, and good vineyards; and sheep shall thrive, and honey shall be sufficient’; ‘If midwinter mass day fall on a Monday, then shall be a varied winter, and a good spring, and a windy summer and gusty, and there shall be good vineyards, and much sustenance for men.’

⁵³ University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary collection, Additional 27944.

⁵⁴ Boece I, metrum 5, in The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Robinson, F. N., 2nd ed. (Boston, 1957), p. 326Google Scholar; see also I, m. 6 (p. 328). Chaucer uses the word four times without glossing it.

⁵⁵ Pickering, J., A Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases Which Have Been Supposed To Be Peculiar to the United States of America (Boston, 1816), p. 91Google Scholar; Bartlett, J. R., The Dictionary of Americanisms (New York, 1849), p. 132.Google Scholar Pickering's information came from Dr J. E. Smith [President of the Linnzan Society] in an article on ‘Deciduous Leaves’ in Rees's Cyclopædia.

⁵⁶ Standard Dictionary of the English Language, ed. Funk, I. K. (New York, 1895), s.v.fallGoogle Scholar

⁵⁷ H. W. and Fowler, F. G., The King's English (London, 1906)Google Scholar, quoted and discussed by Mencken, H. L., The American Language, one-volume abridged edition ed. McDavid, R. I. Jr, (New York, 1980), pp. 41–2.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Strutynski, U., ‘Germanic Diviniries in Weekday Names’, Jnl of Indo-European Stud. 3 (1974), 363–84Google Scholar; cf. Buck's discussion of weekdays, in A Dictionary of Selected Indo-European Synonyms, pp. 1006–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ælfric, Vita s. Martini episcopi, in Ælfnc's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W., EETS os 76, 82, 94 and 114 (London, 1881–1900) II, 264 (lines 714–16)Google Scholar: ‘sometimes in the likeness of Jove, who is called Thor; sometimes in Mercury's, who men call Odin; sometimes in Venus's, the foul goddess, whom men call Fricg’.

⁶⁰ Homilies of Ælfric, A Supplementary Collection, ed. Pope, J. C., 2 vols., EETS os 259–60 (Oxford, 1965) II, 681 (lines 99–178).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Wulfstan, De falsis deis, in The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, D. (Oxford, 1957), p. 223 (sermo xii, lines 65–80).Google Scholar

⁶² De temporibus anni, ed. Henel, , pp. 72 and 74–6Google Scholar; ed. Cockayne, , pp. 272, 274 and 276Google Scholar; ‘zephyr in the Greek language, and in Latin books Favonius [is the wind that blows] from the west … boreas … which drives away [the cold that the] southern wind, auster [brings]’; Maclean, G., ‘Ælfric's Version of Alcuin's Interrogationes Sigeuulfi in Genesin’, Anglia 7 (1884), 1–59, at 12.Google Scholar

⁶³ Ælfric, De temporibus anni, ed. Henel, , pp. 24–8.Google Scholar The signs of the zodiac are given using interpretado romana in the calendar of MS CCCC 422, ptd Wormald, F., English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, HBS 72 (London, 1934), 184–94.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ ‘The Uncarpentered World of Old English Poetry’, ASE 20 (1991), 65–80.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Kitson, P., ‘Lapidary Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: Part I, the Background; the Old English Lapidary’, ASE 7 (1978), 9–60, at 26–8.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Buck, , Dictionary of Selected Synonyms, pp. 1050–9Google Scholar, unfortunately does not appreciate the underlying character of IE versus modern colour distinctions, regarding the former as ‘primitive’ in the sense of lacking in abstraction and therefore maintaining a ‘motion of color … closely bound up with that of a specific object’ (p. 1053).

⁶⁷ Lehmann, R. P. M., ‘Color Usage in Irish’, Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. Atwood, and Hill, , pp. 73–9.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ ‘Old English Colour Classification: Where do Matters Stand?’, ASE 3 (1974), 15–28Google Scholar; earlier: Mead, W., ‘Color in Old English Poetry’, PMLA 14 (1899), 169–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lerner, L., ‘Colour Words in Anglo-Saxon’, MLR 46 (1951), 246–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar To these we now add Biggam, C. P., ‘Sociolinguistic Aspects of Old English Colour Lexemes’, ASE 24 (1995), 51–65Google Scholar, which represents a considerable advance in the application to Old English vocabulary of techniques borrowed from anthropological linguistics.

⁶⁹ Dal, I., ‘Gmc. brûn als Epitheton von Waffen’, Norsk Tidskrift for Sprogvidenskap 9 (1938), 219–30Google Scholar, argues that two separate words, one for hue and one for brightness, coalesce in brun, and Tremarne, H. P., ‘Beowulf's “Ecg Brun” and other Rusty Relics’, PQ 68 (1969), 145–50Google Scholar, argues that Anglo-Saxon weapons were treated chemically to give them a ‘brown’ appearance.

⁷⁰ Secreta semtorum: Nine English Versions 1, ed. Manzalaoui, M. A. (Oxford, 1977), 152–5 (IV, xi–xv)Google Scholar; for discussion, see Tuve, , Seasons and Months, pp. 46–70Google Scholar, and Enkvist, , Seasons of the Year, pp. 41–5.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Catholic Homilies, ed. Thorpe, I, 98–100Google Scholar: ‘the Hebrew people at vernal equinox, the Greek at summer solstice, and the Egyptian people begin the reckoning of the year in autumn’. Ælfric's source is Bede, De temporum rations, ch. vi (ed. Jones, , Bedae Opera de Temporibus, p. 192).Google Scholar Yet another candidate for New Year's Day was 25 December, Christmas, said to mark the beginning of the year in the Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, , p. 2.Google Scholar

⁷² ASPR VI, 98–104Google Scholar; ‘the first week of lent, in the month that is called March throughout the realm of the Romans’.

⁷³ OE De temporibus, ed. Henel, , p. 26Google Scholar; ed. and trans. Cockayne, , p. 244Google Scholar: ‘Weeks and months are known to men according to their understanding, and though we should write them according to the sense of books, it will seem to unlearned men too deep and unusual.’

⁷⁴ De consolatione Philosaphiae, ed. Fox, , p. 74 (ch. xxi)Google Scholar: ‘So has not Almighty God very wisely and very fitly appointed change to all his creatures. Thus spring and harvest. In spring it groweth, and in harvest it ripens. And again summer and winter. In summer it is warm, and in winter cold.’

⁷⁵ Maxims II, 5b–9 (cited from ASPR VI, 55–7)Google Scholar: ‘Winter is coldest, spring frostiest (it is cold for the longest time), summer brightest with the sun (sun is hottest), autumn most glorious, brings to men the year's fruits, which God sends to them.’ For discussion, see Greenfield, S. B. and Evert, R., ‘Maxims II: Gnome and Poem’, in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation, ed. Nicholson, L. E. and Frese, D. W. (Notre Dame, IN, 1975), pp. 337–54, at 341–2.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ De temporibus anni, ed. Henel, , p. 38Google Scholar; ed. and trans. Cockayne, III, 252Google Scholar: ‘The lengthening day is cold, since the earth is pervaded by the wintry cold, and it is long before it is warmed again.’

⁷⁷ Cynewulf's Elene, cited from ASPR II; a version of the Latin Vita Quiriaci appears in Elene, an Old English Poem, ed. Kent, C. W. (Boston, 1891)Google Scholar: ‘the fifth day before the nones of May [May 3]’. For the convergence of seasons, months and feast days, see Howe, N., The Old English Catalogue Poems (Copenhagen, 1985), pp. 76 and 81–2.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Æljric's Homilies, ed. Thorpe, I, 100Google Scholar: ‘March, which you call Hlyda.’

⁷⁹ Bede, De temporum rations, ch. xv, ed. Jones, , Bedae Opera de Temporibus, pp. 211–13.Google Scholar See also Harrison, K., ‘The Primitive Anglo-Saxon Calendar’, Antiquity 47 (1973), 284–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who notes that the Anglo-Saxon year was complex, being based upon twelve lunar months (including the two double-months), but in certain years has thirteen lunar months depending upon the requirements of a given solar year.

⁸⁰ Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, , pp. 216, 12, 88 and 110, respectively.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Dobbie, , in ASPR VI, lxvGoogle Scholar; Hennig, J., ‘The Irish Counterparts of the Anglo-Saxon Menologium’, MS 14 (1952), 98–106.Google Scholar

⁸² These are described by Fowler, J., ‘On Mediaeval Representations of the Months and Seasons’, Archæologia 44 (1873), 136–40Google Scholar, and again by Webster, J. C., The Labors of the Month in Antique and Mediaeval Art (Evanston, IL, 1938), pp. 53–6Google Scholar with illustrations, pls. xvii–xx. Cotton Julius A. vi was mentioned by Turner, S. in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, 2 vols. (London, 1828) II, 546Google Scholar, and both calendar series are mentioned in Backhouse, J., Turner, D. H. and Webster, L., The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966–1066 (London, 1984), pp. 75–6, 158 and 162.Google Scholar The Cotton Tiberius B. v illustration for October is reproduced as fig. 2 in Oggins, R. S., ‘Falconry in Anglo-Saxon England’, Mediaevalia 7 (1981), 173–208, at 176.Google Scholar

⁸³ MGH, PLAC I, 604–16, and II, 578–9Google Scholar with ‘labours of the month’ illustrations in the tenth-century Vatican codex Reg. 438; Ydioma minsium, in Carmina Salisburgensia (PLAC II, 644–5)Google Scholar; the illustrated manuscript from Munich is Staatsbibl. Clm. 210. For discussion of Wandalbert's De mensium, see Tuve, , Seasons and Months, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar For discussions of the Salzburg illustrations, see Riegl, A., ‘Die mittelalterliche Kalendarillustration’, Mittheilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 10 (1889), 37–40Google Scholar; Sénécal, J. le, ‘Les occupations des mois dans l'iconographie du moyen âge’, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 35 (1924), 35–57Google Scholar; Webster, , Labors of the Months in Antique and Mediaeval Art, pp. 37–53.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Tuve, , Seasons and Months, p. 90Google Scholar; see also pp. 11–70. Willard, J. F., ‘Occupations of die Months in Mediaeval Calendars’, Bodleian Quarterly Record 7 (1932), 33–9Google Scholar omits the Anglo-Saxon examples.

⁸⁵ ‘As ancient men reckoned it of old, ripe in wisdom.’

⁸⁶ ‘A man old in winters must determine the holy days [Easter and Ascension] through knowledge of the cycle [or the zodiac].’

⁸⁷ Ælfric's Homilies, ed. Thorpe, I, 99Google Scholar; for discussion, see Harrison, K., ‘The Beginning of the Year in England, c. 500–900’, ASE 2 (1973), 51–70.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ ‘As was heard throughout the middle earth; that glorious event was made known to the folk.’

⁸⁹ The Phoenix, ed. Blake, N. E. (Manchester, 1964)Google Scholar includes an edition of the Carmen de avephoenice as Appendix I (pp. 88–92)Google Scholar; ‘Moreover, neither summer nor winter approaches this source, / rather the sun pours the day from a spring sky.’

⁹⁰ ‘The woods are equally hung with fruits [during] winter and summer.’

⁹¹ ‘Similarly, one brings home earth's fruits for sustenance, delightful food in the harvest, before the coming of winter, lest the rain shower destroy them under the clouds. There they [mankind] find support, sustenance and happiness when frost and snow with great force cover the earth with winter garments. From those fruits must once again be brought forth the prosperity of men through the natural properties of the corn; as soon as the pure seed is sown the sun's beam, life's token, awakens the world-treasures in the spring, so that the crops are afterwards brought forth, the fruit on earth. Just so the bird comes old after years, then young again, clothed with flesh.’

⁹² Seasons of the Year, p. 11.Google Scholar

⁹³ Müllenhoff, K., ‘Der Mythus von Beowulf’, ZDA 7 (1849), 419–41Google Scholar, and again in Beowulf: Untersuchungen über das angelsächsische Epos und die älteste Geschichte der germanischen Seevölker (Berlin, 1889), pp. 1–109Google Scholar; Sarrazin, G., Beowulf-Studien: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte altgermanischer Sage und Dichtung (Berlin, 1888)Google Scholar, and his review of Müllenhoff's, Beowulf: Untersuchungen in Englische Studien 16 (1892), 71–85.Google Scholar Again, Moorman, , Interpretation of Nature, pp. 5–6 and 97Google Scholar, alludes to nature-myths and personification of seasons. The approach to Beowulf zs an allegory of the seasons was laid to rest by Lawrence, W. W. in Beowulf and Epic Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1928), pp. 144–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹⁴ Seasons and Months, p. 91.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ ‘Until another summer came in the yards, as it still does, as the season continually turns, gloriously bright weather. The winter was banished, the bosom of earth [became] fair.’

⁹⁶ Njáls saga, ed. Jónsson, F. (Halle, 1908), chs. 2 and 6Google Scholar; Ayres, H. M., ‘The Tragedy of Mengest in Beowulf’, JEGP 6 (1917), 282–95, at 291.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ For this, see Malone, K., ‘The Finn Episode in Beowulf’ JEGP 25 (1926), 157–72, at 166–7Google Scholar; Brodeur, A. G., ‘Design and Motive in the Finn Episode’, Univ. of California Pubi, in Eng. 14 (1943), 2–9 [in disagreement with Malone about Hengest's emotional state]Google Scholar; Irving, E. B., A Reading of Beowulf (New Haven, CT, 1968), p. 172Google Scholar; Shippey, T. A., Old English Verse (London, 1972), p. 24Google Scholar; Burlin, R. B., ‘Inner Weather and Interlace: A Note on the Semantic Value of Structure in Beowulf’, Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Burlin, R. B. and Irving, E. B. Jr (Toronto, 1974), pp. 81–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moore, B., ‘The Relevance of the Finnsburh Episode’, JEGP 75 (1976), 317–29, at 321.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Vickrey, J. F., ‘The Narrative Structure of Hengest's Revenge in Beowulf’, ASE 6 (1977), 91–103, at 96–8.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Klaeber, , p. 175, note to lines 1134–1136a.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ ‘Inner Weather and Interlace’, p. 83.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Puhvel, M., ‘The Melting of the Giant-Wrought Sword in Beowulf’, ELN 7 (1969), 81–4, notes Celtic parallels.Google Scholar

¹⁰² The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, R., EETS os 58,63 and 73 (London, 1874–1880), pp. 208–11.Google ScholarMalone, K., in ‘Grendel's Abode’, Studia Philologies et letteraria in honorem L. Spitzer (Bern, 1958), pp. 297–308Google Scholar, proposes a literal identity of Grendel's mere with hell; Goldsmith, M. E., The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf (London, 1970), pp. 115–17Google Scholar, proposes instead a symbolic association.

¹⁰³ Sedgefield, W. J., ‘The Scenery in Beowulf’ JEGP 35 (1936), 161–9, at 162Google Scholar; this solution is not a possibility, since bearwas means ‘woods’, not ‘trees’.

¹⁰⁴ Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburh, ed. Klaeber, , p. 183, note to line 1363.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Robertson, D. W. Jr, ‘The Doctrine of Charity in Mediaeval Literary Gardens: A Topical Approach through Symbolism and Allegory’, Speculum 26 (1951), 24–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, repr. in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, ed. Nicholson, L. E. (Notte Dame, IN, 1963).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Butts, R., ‘The Analogical Mere: Landscape and Terror in Beowulf’, ES 68 (1987), 115–21, at 115Google Scholar; contrast Sedgefield, ‘The Scenery’, and Lawrence, W. W., ‘The Haunted Mere in Beowulf’, PMLA 27 (1912), 208–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰⁷ The Seafarer, ed. Gordon, I. L. (London, 1960)Google Scholar: ‘spent the winter in the paths of exile’.

¹⁰⁸ ‘Icelandic Runic Poem’, stanza 7, in Runic and Heroic Poems, ed. Dickins, , p. 30.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Lines 48–55a: ‘Woods take to blossoms, villages grow fair, fields beautify, the world hastens on; all these admonish the mind eager to go, the heart eager for the journey, for him who intends thus on the flood-paths to depart. So also the cuckoo admonishes with sad voice, the guardian of sumer sings, announces sorrow bitter in the breast.’

¹¹⁰ Early English Lyrics, ed. Chambers, E. K. and Sidgwick, F. (London, 1907), p. 8Google Scholar; for the variant, p. 329, and Varnhagen, H., ‘Zu mittelenglischen Gedichten’, Anglia 4 (1871), 207.Google ScholarAgain, The Harley Lyrics, ed. Brook, G. L. (Manchester, 1956)Google Scholar, no. 11, ‘Spring’, pp. 43–4.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ These are the translations respectively of The Exeter Book II, ed. Mackie, W. K. (London, 1934), p. 5Google Scholar; Gordon, , Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 77Google Scholar; Kennedy, C. W., The Earliest English Poetry (New York, 1943), p. 106Google Scholar; Whitelock, D., ‘The Interpretation of The Seafarer’, The Early Cultures of North-WestEurope (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), ed. Sir Fox, C. and Dickins, B. (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 259–72, at 263–4, repr.Google Scholar in Old English Literature: Twenty-Two Analytical Essays, ed. Stevens, M. and Mandel, J. (Lincoln, NE, 1968), pp. 198–211, at 203Google Scholar; and Campbell, A. P., ‘The Seafarer: Wanderlust and our Heavenly Home’, Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa 43 (1973), 235–47, at 243.Google Scholar

¹¹² Smithers, G. V., ‘The Meaning of The Seafarer and The Wanderer’, MÆ 28 (1959), 1–22 and 99–104, at 7Google Scholar, and Cross, J., ‘On the Allegory of The Seafarer-Illustrative Notes’, MÆ 28 (1959), 104–6, at 104–5Google Scholar, citing Gregory's homily as published in PL 76, cols. 1077–81; Leslie, R. F., ‘The Meaning and Structure of The Seafarer’, The Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research, ed. Green, M. (Madison, NJ, 1983), pp. 96–122, at 106Google Scholar; Blake, N. F., ‘The Seafarer, Lines 48–9’, N & Q 207 (1962), 163–6.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Greenfield, S. B., ‘Sylf, Seasons, Structure and Genre in The Seafarer’, ASE 9 (1981), 199–211, at 208, n. 38.Google Scholar This essay is repr. in his Hero and Exile: The Art of Old English Poetry, ed. Brown, G. H. (London, 1989), pp. 171–83.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ ‘The shadow-walker came hastening in the dark night.’

¹¹⁵ Cited from Sir Gavain and the Green Knight, ed. SirGollancz, I., EETS os 210 (Oxford, 1940)Google Scholar: ‘a year passes very quickly’; ‘then autumn hastens, and quickly becomes severe’ [or, alternatively, ‘urges him (summer) on’].

¹¹⁶ ‘ages and withers’.

¹¹⁷ ‘Sylf, Seasons, Structure and Genre in The Seafarer’, p. 208.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Bately, J., ‘Time and the Passing of Time in “The Wanderer” and Related OE Texts’, Essays and Studies n.s. 37 (1984), 1–15, at 5–6.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ The Husband's Message, lines 22–3, in Three Old English Elegies, ed. Leslie, R. F. (Manchester, 1961), p. 49Google Scholar; Alcuin's Conflictos veris et hiemis, in MGH, PLAC I, 270–1Google Scholar, trans. Alfred, W., ‘Dedicatory Poem: A Translation of Alcuin's “Debate of Spring with Winter”’, Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr, ed. Bessinger, J. B. Jr, and Creed, R. (New York, 1965), pp. 17–18Google Scholar; for the cuckoo as harbinger of spring, see Jackson, K., Early Celtic Nature Poetry (Cambridge, 1935), p. 23Google Scholar; for its role as symbolic of sorrow, sickness or death, see Sieper, E., Die altenglische Elegie (Strassburg, 1915), pp. 70–7Google Scholar; Wardale, E. E., Chapters on Old English Literature (London, 1935), p. 101Google Scholar; Anderson, O. S., ‘The Seafarer’, an InterpretationGoogle Scholar, Humanistika, K. Vetenskapssamfundets i Lund 1 (Lund, 1937–1938), 22–6Google Scholar; Henry, P. L., The Early English and Celtic Lyric (London, 1966), pp. 67 and 74Google Scholar; Pheifer, J. D., ‘The Seafarer, Lines 53–55’, RES n.s. 16 (1965), 282–4.Google Scholar In medieval Welsh poetry, the cuckoo is symbolic of hiraeth ‘longing’ and especially separation from loved ones: see Williams, I., Lectures in Early Welsh Poetry (Dublin, 1944), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Early English Lyrics, ed. Chambers, and Sidgwick, , p. 4.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Wülker, R. P., Altenglisches Lesebuch, 2 vols. (Halle, 1874–1880) I, 44.Google Scholar

¹²² Early English Lyrics, ed. Chambers, and Sidgwick, , p. 3.Google Scholar

¹²³ Harley Lyrics, ed. Brook, , no. 17 (p. 53).Google Scholar

¹²⁴ Parliament of Fouls, lines 680–2, repeated as lines 685–6 and 690–2. Boece I, metrum 5, in The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Robinson, .Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Medieval English Lyrics: A Critical Anthology, ed. Davies, R. T. (Chicago, 1964), p. 132n.Google Scholar; for the earlier lyrics, see pp. 50–1.

¹²⁶ Chaucer, , Boece I, metrum 5, 23–6.Google Scholar