This passage comes from the Old English poem The Whale (lines 1-31a). You can access the full Old English text here. The Whale is one of three poems in the Exeter Book that are derived from the Physiologus, the first bestiary (originally composed in Greek, later translated into Latin). The Exeter Book is a codex (book) of Old English poetry. It is dated palaeographically (based on the style of handwriting or script) dated to the second half of the tenth century.
Translation and glossing by Hana Videen. Hover over words to see how they’re pronounced. More about this project here.
Nu with wordum, through thought and woðcræfte, I will tell a tale about fisca cynn, the miclan hwale.
Seafarers oft meet him by accident—he’s called Fastitocalon— frecne and ferðgrim, he who floats on fyrnstreama. His look is like hreofum stane, the greatest sea-bank crumbling near the water’s edge, clothed in sondbeorgum so that seafarers think they are looking at sum ealond.
Men moor their heahstefn scipu with oncyrrapum to the unlonde, the Un-land, settling their sæmearas at the water’s ende and going boldly upon þæt eglond. Biwunden by the streame, the ships remain fæste near the shore.
The werigferðe seafarers, expecting no danger, make camp on þam ealonde, lighting a flame and kindling a heahfyr. Tired but happy, they are ready for ræste.
When the deceit-cræftig one senses the travellers are fæste upon him, keeping camp, wishing for fair weather, down he plunges—all at once—on the sealtne wæg. The ocean’s gæst goes to grund with his plunder, delivering scipu with their drence to the deaðsele.
This was fantastic! I enjoyed noticing how many common words from OE still are used today. And there are some that I wish still were.
Thanks! I definitely wish we still had “ferðgrim” and “woðcræfte” in our daily speech.
This site is so fun! I’ll be teaching an early English literature survey this fall semester — I’ll definitely recommend my students visit this site.
Thank you so much for the joy of this website – your illuminating comments and James Merry’s irrepressible illustrations! You have taken me back to Mr. Marsh, English A-Level, Paradise Lost, Book 1. If I may quote rather a large chunck below… Many thanks, from Norroway o’er the Foam!
Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate
With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes
That sparkling blaz’d, his other Parts besides
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr’d on Jove,
Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ Ocean stream:
Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam
The Pilot of some small night-founder’d Skiff,
Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell,
With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind
Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night
Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes:
So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay
Chain’d on the burning Lake, nor ever thence
Had ris’n or heav’d his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation…
So glad to hear you are enjoying the website! May you continue to dream of monstrous sea-beasts…