Widsith Totally Explained

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Widsith is an Old English poem of 144 lines that appears to date from the 9th century, drawing on earlier oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon tale singing. The only text of the fragment is copied in the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late 10th century. The poem is for the most part a survey of the peoples, kings, and heroes of Europe in the Heroic Age of Northern Europe: see Tribes of Widsith. Excluding the introduction of the scop Widsith, the closing, and brief interpolated comments, the poem is divided into three 'catalogues', called in Old English þulas (Old Norse þula, see for example Rígþula). The first þula runs through a list of the various kings of renown, both contemporary and ancient ("Caesar ruled the Greeks"), the model being '(name of a king) ruled (name of a tribe)'. The second þula contains the names of the peoples the narrator visited, the model being 'With the (name of a tribe) I was, and with the (name of another tribe).' In the third and final þula, the narrator lists the heroes of myth and legend that he's visited, with the model '(Hero's name) I sought and (hero's name) and (hero's name).' The poem contains the first mention of the Vikings by name (lines 47, 59, 80). It closes with a brief comment on the importance and fame offered by poets like Widsith, with many pointed reminders of the munificent generosity offered to tale-singers by patrons "discerning of songs."

lines 45–59:
Hroþwulf ond Hroðgar heoldon lengest	Hroðulf and Hroðgar held the longest
sibbe ætsomne suhtorfædran,	peace together, uncle and nephew,
siþþan hy forwræcon wicinga cynn	since they repulsed the Viking-kin
ond Ingeldes ord forbigdan,	and Ingeld to the spear-point made bow,
forheowan aet Heorote Heaðobeardna þrym.	hewn at Heorot Heaðobard's army.

The widely-travelled poet Widsith (his name simply means "far journey") claims himself to be of the house of the Myrgings, who had first set out in the retinue of "Ealhild, the beloved weaver of peace, from the east out of Angeln to the home of the king of the glorious Goths, Eormanric, the cruel troth-breaker." The Ostrogoth Eormanric was defeated by the Huns in the 5th century. It is moot whether Widsith literally intends himself, or poetically means his lineage, either as a Myrging or as a poet, as when "the fictive speaker Deor uses the rhetoric of first-person address to insert himself into the same legendary world that he evokes in the earlier parts of the poem through his allusions to Weland the smith, Theodoric the Goth, Eormanric the Goth, and other legendary figures of the Germanic past" (Niles 2003, p 10). In a similar vein, "I was with the Lidwicingas, the Leonas and the Langobards," Widsith boasts, ť :"with the Haethenas and the Haelethas and with the Hundingas.

:I was with the Israelites and with the Assyrians, ť :with the Hebrews and the Indians and with the Egyptians..."

The poem that's now similarly titled Deor, also from the Exeter Book, draws on similar material.

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