The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien
lifted up his voice and chanted aloud, but as one speaking to himself alone:
Monað modes lust mid mereflode
forð to feran, þæt ic feor heonan
ofer hean holmas, ofer hwæles eðel
elþeodigra eard gesece.
Nis me to hearpan hyge ne to hringþege
ne to wife wyn ne to worulde hyht
ne ymb owiht elles nefne ymb yða gewealc.
‘The desire of my spirit urges me to journey forth over the flowing sea, that far hence across the hills of water and the whale’s country I may seek the land of strangers. No mind have I for harp, nor gift of ring, nor delight in women, nor joy in the world, nor concern with aught else save the rolling of the waves.’
Then he stopped suddenly. There was some laughter, and a few jeers, though many were silent, as if feeling that the words were not spoken to their ears – old and familiar as they were, words of the old poets whom most men had heard often. ‘If he has no mind to the harp he need expect no [?wages],’ said one. ‘Is there a mortal here who has a mind?’ ‘We have had enough of the sea,’ said another. ‘A spell of Dane-hunting would cure most men’s love of it.’ ‘Let him go rolling on the waves,’ said another. ‘It is no great sail to the … Welsh country, where folk are strange enough – and the Danes to talk to as well.’
‘Peace!’ said an old man sitting near the threshold. ‘Ælfwine has sailed more seas than you have heard of; and the Welsh tongue is not strange to him His wife was of Cornwall. He has been to Ireland and the North, and some say far to the west of all living lands. Let him say what his mood bids.’ There was a short silence.
The text ends here. The historical situation is slightly filled out, with mention of the Viking jarls and their defeat at Irchenfield (Archenfield), on which see p. 80. Ælfwine ‘was born in the year the Danes wintered in Sheppey’ (the isle of Sheppey off the north coast of Kent). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records under the year 855: Her hæþne men ærest on Sceapige ofer winter sætun (In this year heathen men for the first time stayed in Sheppey [‘Sheep-isle’] over the winter); but an earlier wintering on Thanet is recorded under 851. These winterings by Vikings were ominous of what was to come, a sign of the transition from isolated raids followed by a quick departure to the great invasions in the time of Æthelred and Alfred. – Ælfwine was therefore approaching sixty at this time.
The verses that Ælfwine chanted are derived from the Old English poem known as The Seafarer, with the omission of five lines from the original after line 4, and some alterations of wording. The third line is an addition (and is enclosed, both in the Old English and in the translation, in square brackets in the manuscript).
With the reference to Ælfwine’s wife who came from Cornwall cf. the old tale of Ælfwine of England, where his mother came ‘from the West, from Lionesse’ (II. 313).
It seems to me certain that what was to follow immediately on the end of this brief narrative was the legend of King Sheave, which in one of the three texts is put into Ælfwine’s mouth (and which follows here in The Notion Club Papers, though it is not there given to Ælfwine). There is both a prose and a verse form of King Sheave; and it may well be that the prose version, which I give first, belongs very closely with the Ælfwine narrative; there is no actual link between them, but the two manuscripts are very similar.
To the shore the ship came and strode upon the sand, grinding upon the broken shingle. In the twilight as the sun sank men came down to it, and looked within. A boy lay there, asleep. He was fair of face and limb, dark-haired, white-skinned, but clad in gold. The inner parts of the boat were gold-adorned, a vessel of gold filled with clear water was at his side, [added: at his right was a harp,] beneath his head was a sheaf of corn, the stalks and ears of which gleamed like gold in the dusk. Men knew not what it was. In wonder they drew the boat high upon the beach, and lifted the boy and bore him up, and laid him sleeping in a wooden house in their burh. They set guards about the door.
In the morning the chamber was empty. But upon a high rock men saw the boy standing. The sheaf was in his arms. As the risen sun shone down, he began to sing in a strange tongue, and they were filled with awe. For they had not yet heard singing, nor seen such beauty. And they had no king among them, for their kings had perished, and they were lordless and unguided. Therefore they took the boy to be king, and they called him Sheaf; and so is his name remembered in song. For his true name was hidden and is forgotten. Yet he taught men many new words, and their speech was enriched. Song and verse-craft he taught them, and rune-craft, and tillage and husbandry, and the making of many things; and in his time the dark forests receded and there was plenty, and corn grew in the land; and the carven houses of men were filled with gold and storied webs. The glory of King Sheaf sprang far and wide in the isles of the North. His children were many and fair, and it is sung that of them are come the kings of men of the North Danes and the West Danes, the South Angles and the East Gothfolk. And in the time of the Sheaf-lords there was peace in the isles, and ships went unarmed from land to land bearing treasure and rich merchandise. And a man might cast a golden ring upon the highway and it would remain until he took it up again.
Those days songs have called the golden years, while the great mill of Sheaf was guarded still in the island sanctuary of the North; and from the mill came golden grain, and there was no want in all the realms.
But it came to pass after long years that Sheaf summoned his friends and counsellors, and he told them that he would depart. For the shadow of old age was fallen upon him (out of the East) and he would return whence he came. Then there was great mourning. But Sheaf laid him upon his golden bed, and became as one in deep slumber; and his lords obeying his commands while he yet ruled and had command of speech set him in a ship. He lay beside the mast, which was tall, and the sails were golden. Treasures of gold and of gems and fine raiment and costly stuffs were laid beside him. His golden banner flew above his head. In this manner he was arrayed more richly than when he came among them; and they thrust him forth to sea, and the sea took him, and the ship bore him unsteered far away into the uttermost West out of the sight or thought of men. Nor do any know who received him in what haven at the end of his journey. Some have said that that ship found the Straight Road. But none of the children of Sheaf went that way, and many in the beginning lived to a great age, but coming under the shadow of the East they were laid in great tombs of stone or in mounds like green hills; and most of these were by the western sea, high and broad upon the shoulders of the land, whence men can descry them that steer their ships amid the shadows of the sea.
This is a first draft, written at speed and very roughly; but the form in alliterative verse is very finished, so far as it goes (it does not extend to the departure of Sheaf, or Sheave, and was not added to for its inclusion in The Notion Club Papers). There are two texts of the verse form: (i) a clear manuscript in which the poem is written out as prose, and (ii) a more hasty text in which it is written out in verse-lines. It is hard to decide which of the two came first, but the poem is in any case almost identical in the two versions, which were obviously closely contemporary. I print it here in lines, with breaks introduced from the paragraphs of the ‘prose’ form. Version (i) has a formal title, King Sheave; (ii) has a short narrative opening, which could very well follow the words ‘There was a short silence’ on p. 84.
Suddenly Ælfwine struck a note on his harp. ‘Lo!’ he cried, loud and clear, and men stiffened to attention. ‘Lo!’ he cried, and began to chant an ancient tale, yet he was half aware that he was telling it afresh, adding and altering words, not so much by improvisation as after long pondering hidden from himself, catching at the shreds of dreams and visions.
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In days of yore |