Notes and Queries, Number 17, February 23, 1850

Оглавление

Various. Notes and Queries, Number 17, February 23, 1850

NOTES

KING ALFRED'S GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE

FOLK LORE

ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. 5

PLAGIARISMS, OR PARALLEL PASSAGES. No. 2

ST. ANTHOLIN'S

QUERIES

COLLEGE SALTING

A FEW DODO QUERIES

ON PASSAGES IN COLERIDGE'S CHRISTADEL AND BYRON'S LARA. TABLET TO NAPOLEON

MINOR QUERIES

REPLIES

ETYMOLOGY OF "ARMAGH."

WILLIAM BASSE AND HIS POEMS

BEAVER HATS—PISAN

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

MISCELLANIES

THE GOLDEN AGE

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES. WANTED TO PURCHASE

Отрывок из книги

The sketch of Europe, which our illustrious Alfred has inserted in his translation of Orosius, is justly considered, both here and on the Continent, as a valuable fragment of antiquity1; and I am sorry that I can commend little more than the pains taken by his translators, the celebrated Daines Barrington and Dr. Ingram, to make it available to ordinary readers. The learned judge had very good intentions, but his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon was not equal to the task. Dr. Ingram professedly applied himself to correct both Alfred's text and Barrington's version, so far as relates to the description of Europe; but in two instances, occurring in one passage, he has adopted the judge's mistake of proper names for common nouns. I do not call attention to the circumstance merely as a literary curiosity, but to preserve the royal geographer from liability to imputations of extraordinary ignorance of his subject, and also to show the accuracy of his delineation of Europe at that interesting epoch, whence the principal states of Europe must date their establishment.

King Alfred, mentioning the seat of the Obotriti, or Obotritæ, as they are sometimes named, a Venedic nation, who, in the 9th century, occupied what is now the duchy of Mecklenburg, calls them Apdrede, and says—"Be nor than him is apdrede, and cast north wylte the man æfeldan hæt."2

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Dr. Marshall seems to have understood the passage. What King Alfred says and means is this:—"On the north are the Apdrede (Obotritæ), and on the north east of them are the Wylte, who are called Hæfeldi."

The anonymous Saxon Poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne, gives the same situation as Alfred to the Wilti:—

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