Wonder-Smiths and Others: smið Compounds in Old English Poetry—With an Excursus on hleahtor

Abstract

The Anglo-Saxons of course knew that a smith is a metalworker, any kind of metal, and in the recorded literature often a goldsmith. In verse especially, smið is often the second element of compounds, and the first element is quite frequently an abstract, gryn-, hleahtor-, lar-, teon-, wig-, wroht-, wundor- . The sense of such compounds is often subtle and disputed. This study has some new senses for these compounds, and others are traditional among scholars of Old English. I favour these: grynsmið ‘complotter of -grief and harm’; -larsmið ‘scholar of (holy) doctrine’, but also ‘hatcher of plots’; teonsmið ‘plotter of mischief’; wigsmið ‘war-maker’, but wih- means ‘idol’, therefore also ‘idol-maker’; wrohtsmið ‘artificer of crime, harm-contriver‘; wundorsmið perhaps ‘smith of wonderland’ rather than ‘wonderful craftsman’. The compound hleahtorsmið literally ‘laughter-maker‘, but laughter is often gloomy rather than joyous, and hleahtor and compounds, as well as the verb hliehhan, are discussed in an Excursus. We may learn from the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, much of it moral and religious, that it is a wicked world, where even laughter sounds hollow.

Introduction

It is obvious to readers of Old English prose and verse, that the Anglo-Saxons used smið (smiþ) in compounds to designate metal workers. In Ælfric Bata’s gloss to Ælfric’s Colloquy several kinds of ‘smith’ are named (Garmonsway 1939, 38 lines 205–207):¹

Ic hæbbe	smiþas,	isene smiþas,	goldsmiþ,	seoloforsmiþ,	arsmiþ,	treowwyrhtan,	&
Habeo	fabros,	ferrarios,	aurificem,	argentarium,	ærarium,	lignarium,	et

manegra	oþre	mistlicra	cræfta	biggenceras.
multos	alios	uariarum	artium	operatores.

[I have smiths, iron-smiths, a goldsmith, a silversmith, a worker in brass, bronze, or copper,² a woodworker, and other practitioners of many various skills.]

‘Goldsmith’ is fairly common, prose 13 times and twice in verse; irensmið refers to Tubalcain, who according to the Old English rendering of Genesis 4:22 worked in gold and iron.³ Wærferth refers to Stephen in his translation of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (Hecht 1900, 1907, I, 318): Stephanus se irensmið (3 times, in different cases). In a glossary group of metalworkers Ærarius is glossed mæstlincsmiþ, of which the first element is usually translated as ‘brass’ (cf. German Messing), but the Old English word could be ‘brass, bronze, or copper’ (Wülcker 1884, I, col. 164 glosses 24–26; Porter 2011, 103 glosses 2071–2073). All these are metal workers. Other compounds and derivatives (literal and not considered in this paper) are mynetsmiððe ‘mint, literally mint-smithy’, smiþbelg ‘smith’s bellows’ and smiþtang ‘blacksmith’s tongs’, smiðcræft ‘the craft of a smith’; the adverb smiðlice fabrile ‘skilfully (in a workmanlike way)’, and the place-name Smiþtun, that is Smeaton (Yorkshire).⁴ It is likely that ambiht-smið in the Laws of Æthelberht is to be understood literally too, but the meaning is not clear (and it is not even certain if it is a compound, and not two words).⁵

These literal uses of ‘smith’ seem to indicate a narrow sense, ‘an artificer in metal’. The word smið was often used to render Latin faber with a wider meaning. Thus Jesus, Joseph’s son at Matthew 13:55, is smiðes sunu (variously spelt), rendering fabri filius in all versions of the Old English Gospel, though in the Lindisfarne Gospels the translation is the double gloss smiðes ł wyrihta ‘of the smith or of the artificer’, and at Mark 6:3 similarly of Jesus himself, se smið in the West-Saxon Gospels, and in Lindisfarne smið ł wyrihte (Skeat 1887, 118–119; and Skeat 1871, 42–43). The traditional English rendering ‘carpenter’s son’ and ‘carpenter’ goes back to at least the Wycliffite renderings of the Bible (cf. Bagster 1841, sigs k1^vo–2^ro; z4^vo–1A^ro).

To understand the metaphorical uses of ‘smith’ in compounds it is essential to recognize that the Old English word is literally a metal-worker, not in general terms an artificer. In verse goldsmið is literal at Fortunes of Men 73 (ASPR III, 156), and Metres of Boethius X, 34 of Weland, the smith of Germanic mythology (Godden and Irvine 2009, I, 427). Smið has a wider meaning when attached to the following first elements to form metaphors in verse: gryn-, Andreas 917 (ASPR II, 28; Brooks 1961, 30); hleahtor-, Exodus 43 (ASPR I, 92; Lucas 1977, 80); lar-, Elene 203 (ASPR II, 71; Gradon 1958, 35); teon-, Guthlac A 205 (ASPR III, 55; Roberts 1979, 89); wig-, Genesis A 2704 (ASPR I, 80; Stévanovitch 1992, I, 424–425 ‘ceux qui forgent la guerre’); Vainglory 14 (ASPR III, 147), Battle of Brunanburh 72 (ASPR VI, 20), but Psalm 113:12 [cf. 134:15] is of workmen literally (ASPR V, 98); wroht-, Andreas 86 (ASPR II, 5; Brooks 1961, 3), Guthlac B 905 (ASPR III, 75; Roberts 1979, 110); wundor- (Fulk et al. 2008, 57). The last of these, wundorsmiþa geweorc (Beowulf 1681a), has been understood literally by the editors: ‘piece of workmanship of wonderfully skilful smiths’.⁶ It refers to the gylden hilt ‘golden hilt’ (1677a) of the sword, on its scennum ‘sword-guards’ a runic inscription (1694–1696a); its blade had melted in the waters. A less prosaic interpretation is possible, and will be preferred below, at Excursus, b. Joyous laughter.

grynsmiðas at Andreas 917

The word grynsmiðas at Andreas 917 characterizes, in God’s speech, the enemies soon to face Andreas 915b–917 (ASPR II, 28; Brooks 1961, 30, Commentary 93):

	Ic þe friðe healde
þæt þe ne moton	mangeniðlan,
grame grynsmiðas,	gaste gesceððan.

[I shall watch over your safety that the evil adversaries, hostile complotters of grief and harm, do not impair your vital force.]

DOE, s.v. gyrn-smið, gives the meaning as ‘producer of grief, creator of misfortune’, and then goes to say that the word ‘has alternatively been taken as a form of *gnyrn-smiþ “worker of calamity, evil-doer”’; ‘alternatively’ expresses the acceptance of one meaning and excludes the acceptance of the other. I listed the following relevant cluster of forms (Stanley 1952–1953, 111–113): gnorn n. and adj., gnorne adv., gnornian v., gnyrne n. dat sg., gnyrna n. gen. pl.; grorn n. and adj., grorne adv., grornian v.; grynna n. gen. pl.; gyrn n., gyrne dat. sg., gyrna gen. pl.; and the following compounds and derivatives: gnorncearig, gnornhof, gnornscendende, gnornsorg, gnornword, begnornian, gnyrnwracu, grornhof, grorntorn,⁷ begrornian, grynsmið (the word under discussion here), gyrnstæf, gyrnwracu. I gave a very sketchy account of the meanings: ‘The meaning of the substantives is “grief,” of the adjectives “sorrowful,” of the adverbs “sorrowfully,” and of the verbs “to lament.”’ DOE presented alternatives for grynsmið; its first element might have been gnyrn, and that would not have altered the sense. What the smiðas of Andreas 917 have hammered out is gryn and gnyrn: ‘grief, tribulation, persecution and evil’ (ASPR II, 28; Brooks 1961, 30).

There is a more important consideration when establishing the meaning of poetic compounds. Often the first element is colouring the whole, but not shaping its central significance. In Beowulf (1590a) heorosweng heardne (acc. sg.) means ‘hard sword-stroke’, and both elements are to be understood literally (see Fulk et al. 2008, 54). In The Fortunes of Men 86b (ASPR III, 156) heoroswealwe the elements are ‘sword’ and ‘swallow’, and neither element is to be understood literally, swealwe is no swallow but refers to the wild bird, heafoc (86a) ‘hawk’, tamed and trained to sit on the hawker’s hand, and no heoro- ‘sword’ is involved. The first element lends warlike ferocity to the bird; ‘sword-swallow’ is to be understood as poetic Old English for ‘fierce hawk’, and perhaps further, like a sword in the swordsman’s skilful hand, powerful on the hawker’s hand.

The poetic compound grynsmiðas (Andreas 917) signifies how these evil men engage in persecution and so cause grief. In his note on grynsmið in the first edition of the poem Jacob Grimm considered as also passend (‘suitable’) the further semantic possibility, that gryn means ‘snare’, but he set it aside:⁸

917. grynsmið, a synonym of mangeniðla [Andreas 916, ‘evil adversaries’] (insidiator ‘ambusher’), about the same as might also be expressed by bealosmið ⁹ or by wrohtsmið ¹⁰ A[ndreas] 86 [‘evildoer’]. I consider gryn, gen. grynne (cf. syn [‘sin’], synne; cf. gen. pl. grynna B[eowulf] 930) to be close to OHG grun, grunni, which means malum [‘evil’], calamitas [‘calamity’]… I look away from OE gryn, better grin (laqueus [‘snare’]), pl. grinu, although its meaning, ‘snare, insidiae’, would be suitable too.

Kemble (1844), 53 [his (half-)line 1833], did not ignore ‘snare’ in his edition of Andreas. He praises (p. vi) ‘Grimm’s edition… executed with all the skill and care that might have been anticipated from the eminent qualifications of its amiable editor’. Kemble translates the half-line grame grynsmiðas as ‘the fierce snare-makers’. The rendering ‘snare-makers’ is as suitable as those now usually preferred (Brooks 1961, 146 Glossary s.v. ‘evildoer’; DOE, s.vv. gyrn, gyrn-smiþ, ‘producer of grief, creator of misfortune’, with the possible further rendering ‘worker of calamity, evil-doer’, but no mention of ‘snare’, DOE’s grin, giren, geren). Etymologists have not found a likely etymology for either gryn ‘grief, persecution’ or gryn ‘snare’ (though some Germanic cognates have been adduced). The poet of Andreas, like his first readers, need not have kept these two words apart: for grynsmiðas both ‘persecution, grief’ and gryn ‘snare, insidiae’ may well have been in their minds: grynsmiðas is a rich compound that means all of this, no part of its complex sense is to be set aside; both branches, ‘snare’ and ‘grief’, fit the context. To a lexicographer these are two nouns, in their distinct spellings gnorn ‘sorrow, affliction’ and grin ‘snare’. To an Anglo-Saxon they may well have appeared to be the same word, in various spellings, among them gnorn, gnyrn, gryre, grin, gryn, giren, geren, sometimes abstract, at other times concrete in sense.

hleahtorsmið

This compound hleahtorsmið occurs in the description, Exodus 42–43 (ASPR I, 92; Lucas 1977, 80), of the joyless Egyptians after the Tenth Plague, the death of the firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 11:5–6, 12:29–31). Tolkien (Turville-Petre 1981, 38 note on line 41) argues for short sentences at this point of the narrative: ‘Editors are too shy of breaking up OE verse into short sharp sentences. We are here being given a rapid survey of the events that led up to the Israelite departure.’ The editors of the poem have not so much been shy of ‘short sharp sentences’, as that they have not agreed on where to begin or end the short sentences.¹¹ I print these lines here with modern punctuation and capitalization (37–45a):¹²

Hæfde mansceaðan	æt middere niht
frecne gefylled,	frumbearna fela,
abrocene burhweardas.	Bana wide scrað,
lað leodhata.	Land dryrmyde	40
deadra hræwum.	Dugoð forðgewat.
Wop wæs wide,	worulddreama lyt!
Wæron hleahtorsmiðum	handa belocene.
Alyfed laðsið	leode gretan,
folc ferende.		45

The following is an attempt to explain as well as to provide a free translation (in relatively short sentences):

He (God) had at midnight severely laid low the (Egyptian) evil ravagers, many of (their) firstborn (pl.), (idols acting as) city guardians shattered. The (divine) Slayer ranged far and wide, the (divine) Enemy of that people (and) hated (by them). The land (of Egypt) experienced ruination with the corpses of the slain. The host (of the Israelites) went forth. Lamentation was all around, nothing much of the merriment of the world! The hands of the (Egyptian scornful) laughter-makers were restrained (from plaudits). Undertaking the journey hateful (to the Egyptians) was permitted to the (Israelite) people, a nation on their way out!

The notes in Lucas (1977) explain several dark points in these lines, first (p. 79 note on line 37), that God is the subject of Hæfde (37a), because mānsceaðan (acc. pl.) is (by patristic etymology) the name, Egyptians.¹³ In the translation I therefore write ‘the (Egyptian) evil ravagers’. The burhweardas (39a) are well explained by Vickrey (1973), 44, as the idols, ‘all the gods of Egypt’ destroyed by God (Exodus 12:12), and that resulted in my ‘(idols acting as) city guardians’. Lucas (1977), 80 note on 39b–40, explains lað leodhata (40a) as God, the bana, hated by the Egyptians, and that resulted in my ‘The (divine) Slayer…, the (divine) Enemy of that people (and) hated (by them).’ I do not believe that Dugoð forðgewat (41b) is a euphemism for the death of the Egyptians, but think that like folc ferende (45a), it refers to the Exodus of the Israelites, a laðsið (44), ‘the journey hateful (to the Egyptians)’. The emendation of MS dryrmyde (40b) to drysmyde seems unwarranted. The ending -yde would be more normal as -ode; the stem of the verb, in land dryrmyde ‘the land (of Egypt) experienced ruination’, is close to that of Beowulf (1375b) lyft drysmaþ ‘the air grew dark’.¹⁴ The operation of Verner’s Law and the effect of r-metathesis, which the language underwent at various times in the various dialects, has resulted in dreorig ‘sorrowful, miserable’ and dreosan ‘to perish’ as well as to dryrmian ‘to suffer ruination’ and drysmian ‘?to suffer darkness’.¹⁵A central problem is the meaning of line 43, Wæron hleahtorsmiðum handa belocene. The meaning of laughter in Old English has to be understood to understand hleahtorsmið. See the excursus on hleahtor, below, for an attempt to understand laughter in Old English.

Evil larsmeoðas (nom. pl.) at Andreas 1220; wholesome larsmiðas (acc. pl.), at Elene 203

It is probably coincidental that each of the two long poems in the Vercelli Book employs the compound larsmið, which is recorded nowhere else in Old English. At Andreas (1220), in the preceding speech (1208–1218) God (weoroda Dryhten, ‘the Lord of Hosts’, 1206b) refers to those who will inflict murderous tortures on the saint. They are the immense crowd about to torture him. The poet qualified the compound larsmeoðas by lyswe (nom. pl. of lysu) ‘false, wicked’ (close in sense and etymology to leas ‘false’) and they are bolgenmode, men whose spirit is enraged.¹⁶ The compound larsmeoðas seems inappropriate: no lar-, ‘teaching or learning’, is involved.¹⁷

At Elene (203) the compound makes good sense; larsmiðas refers to those scholars of (holy) doctrine, on Godes bocum, who gave a brief account of the crucifixion, and so led St Helena, Constantine’s mother, to find the Cross, Elene 202b-210a (ASPR II, 71; Gradon 1958, 35):

	Þa se æðeling fand,
leodgebyrga,	þurh larsmiðas,
guðheard, garþrist,	on Godes bocum
hwær ahangen wæs	heriges beorhtme	205
on rode treo	rodora Waldend
æfstum þurh inwit,	swa se ealda feond
forlærde ligesearwum,	leode fortyhte
Iudea cyn,	þæt hie God sylfne
ahengon herga fruman.		210

[Then the prince, the lord protector (Constantine), bold in battle, valiant spearman, found in Holy Scripture, through scholars of doctrine, (205) where the Lord of Heaven had been hanged on the Cross-Tree to the army’s rowdy merriment,¹⁸ maliciously through guile, as the Arch-Fiend seduced people and led astray by the race of the Jews by lying wiles, so that they (210) hanged the Lord God, the Lord of Hosts.]

This is not the first mention of the Cross in Elene; sigores tacen (85a) ‘symbol of glory and victory’¹⁹ and mid þys beacne (92b) ‘with this symbol’ are poetic locutions for the Cross, the sentence of lines 99–104 identifies the symbol, beacen and tacen, as Cristes rod (103b), and in the battle against Huns and Goths þæt halige treo (107b) ‘the holy beam’ is raised as the symbol of victory. Lines 202b–210a give details of the Crucifixion; the larsmiðas (203b) explain it in sacred doctrine.²⁰

Guthlac A 205, teonsmiðas; teona is always of ‘mischief’

The compound teonsmiðas (nom. pl.) occurs only at Guthlac A 205 (ASPR III, 55; Roberts 1979, 89), and it is clearly of men intending evil, as the line unambiguously shows: wæron teonsmiðas tornes fulle ‘the plotters of mischief were full of anger’. In the long sentence in which this line comes (taking semicolons to be strong commas rather than weak full stops) in Roberts’s edition running from line 200 to line 214, these men are portrayed as wholly evil (Guthlac A 200-14):

Swa him yrsade,	se or ealle spræc	200
feonda mengu,	no þy forhtra wæs
Guðlaces gæst	ac him God sealde
ellen wiþ þam egsan,	þæt þæs ealdfeondes
scyldigra scolu	scome þrowedon,
wæron teonsmiðas	tornes fulle,	205
cwædon þæt him Guðlac	eac Gode sylfum
earfeþa mæst	ana gefremede,
siþþan he for wlence	on westenne
beorgas bræce,	þær hy 21 bidinge
earme & sacan	æror mostun 22	210
æfter tintergum	tidum brucan
ðonne hy of waþum	werge cwoman
restan ryneþragum,	rowe gefegon,
wæs him seo gelyfed	þurh lytel fæc.

[(200) In this way he, who spoke for all the host of foes, enraged him (Guthlac), Guthlac’s soul was none the more afraid, but then God had given him courage against that terror, so that the Arch-Fiend’s guilt-laden swarm suffered humiliation, (205) the plotters of mischief were full of anger, they said that Guthlac alone, as well as God himself, had caused them the greatest suffering from the time that, for his pride, he had broken into the mound in the wilderness, where (210) formerly they, wretched adversaries, had been able to enjoy a resting-place for a time after (their) torments, when weary and accursed²³ they came from their wanderings to rest for a short period of time.]

The sense of teona is not in any doubt, ‘malice and injury’ combined, and that combination constitutes ‘mischief’. It occurs frequently as a simplex, and also in the following poetic compounds: hygeteona ‘malicious harm’, laðgeteona ‘hateful injurer’, teoncwide ‘malicious (?blasphemous) speech’, teonhete ‘malicious hate’, teonleg ‘destructive fire’; teonword ‘injurious word’; niðgeteon ‘hostile attack’; teonful(l ‘malicious’, teonlice ‘hurtfully’. The idiom tray and teen or teen and tray, frequent in Middle English, occurs once in Old English, Genesis A 2274–2276a, in the speech of Hagar, who is being mistreated by Sarah (ASPR I, 68; Doane 2013, 243; Stévanovitch 1992, I, 396–397):

Ic fleah wean, wana	wilna gehwilces,
hlæfdiges hete,	hean of wicum,
tregan & teonan.

[I fled from woe, deprived of everything I might wish for, (I had) the hatred of the mistress, ill-will and affliction, despised (I fled) from (my) dwelling place.]

In their poetry the Anglo-Saxons were good at expressing misery in rich variation. The biblical source, a facie Sarai dominae meae ego fugio,²⁴ may be thought sufficiently woeful to introduce Hagar’s sad story. The poet of Genesis A invests Hagar with feelings of ‘teen and tray’ analysed in some detail, as he exploits this rich vocabulary of hardship. The meaning of teonsmið, the expressive compound at Guthlac A 205, is someone skilful in inflicting harm, a craftsman in the skill of mischief.

Two homonyms wigsmið, very different in sense and origin

One of the two homonyms occurs in the Paris Psalter Ps. 113:12 (ASPR V, 98):

Þa wæron deofulgild	deorce hæþenra
golde & seolfre,	þa her geara menn
worhtan wigsmiðas	wræste mid folmum.

[Then there were faithless devilish idols of the heathen, gold and silver, which here long ago people, idol-makers, made long-lasting with (their) hands.]

This versified rendering is of course based on the Latin psalm, simulacra gentium argentum et aurum; rendered in the Doway version: ‘The idols of the gentiles are siluer, and gold, the workes of mens handes.’²⁵

This is a very negative poetic use of ‘smiths’: though these are workers in silver and gold, usually a good form of artisanship, they are in breach of the first two of the Ten Commandments. The compound deofulgild, at the beginning of this verse, names a Satanic form of idolatry, and the compound condemns the activity of the wigsmiðas versified in the Paris Psalter. The poetry of the Paris Psalter is not much praised for its art, but here perhaps the versifier knew what he was doing when he turned wig-smið ‘war-maker’ into *wih-smið ‘idol-maker’, and his poetic art deserves more praise than it has received.²⁶

The homonym wigsmið ‘war-maker’ occurs three times in Old English verse. Abraham calls the warriors of Gerar so at Genesis A 2704, in the long section, lines 2621–2752 (rendering Genesis ch. 20), about Abraham calling Sarah his sister, not his wife. He explains to Abimelech, king of Philistine Gerar, why he has done so. I do not understand the logic of Abraham’s ruse in denying the matrimonial relationship, but it is clear how, after Abimelech had a dream, Sarah is restored.²⁷ It is also clear that wigsmið is no admiring term for the Philistines. Abraham, a friendless foreigner in Gerar, was afraid that one of these angry warriors would kill him. It seems that wigsmiðum (dat. pl.) means no more than hostile warriors. They are subservient to Abimelech, so that the compound cannot here mean ‘originators of hostility’; Abimelech’s soldiery cannot originate anything, they are not of sufficient status to start warfare, but they are of a sort that uses warfare to rape women in their power.

In the poem called Vainglory by Krapp and Dobbie, wlonce wigsmiþas (14a) is a term of dispraise. These men in drunken company are quarrelsome rather than warlike, and perhaps ‘proud war-makers’ is not very suitable for them.²⁸ Lines 9–21a form a single sentence paragraph:

Þæt mæg æghwylc mon	eaþe geþencan,
se þe hine læteð	on þas lænan tid	10
amyrran his gemyndum	modes gælsan
& on his dægrime	druncen to rice,
þonne monige beoð	mæþelhergendra,
wlonce wigsmiþas	winburgum in,
sittaþ æt symble,	soðgied wrecað,	15
wordum wrixlað,	witan fundiaþ
hwylc æscstede	inne in ræcede
mid werum wunige,	þonne win hweteð
beornes breostsefan,	breahtem stigeð
cirm on corþre,	cwide scralletaþ	20
missenlice.

[Everyone can readily consider that, (10) (everyone) who allows his thoughts in this transient time, and in his allotted time too violently drunk, to hinder in his mind the wantonness of (his) spirit, when there are many people extolling discourse, proud warmongers in vinous habitations (15) sitting at the feast (and) uttering poetic formulizations of truth, use verbal variation, try to find a place where there might exist with the men within the building a space suitable for spear-throwing, when wine incites the thought of a man’s heart, din arises, (20) shouting in that pack of people loudly resounds in various ways.]

These lines are difficult, especially in sentence structure, and my translation involves finding words for difficult Old English words and constructions. Thus ‘wantonness of spirit’ is insecure for modes gælsan (11b); monige mæþelhergendra (13) ‘many people extolling discourse’ may mean ‘esteeming conversation highly’, and that reading is better than to emend to an equally obscure mæþelhegendra (gen. pl.) redeführende (‘those conducting conversation’).²⁹ ‘Proud warmongers’ may be too specific for wlonce wigsmiþas (14a); ‘proud warriors’ is too unspecific,³⁰ since smiþ means ‘initiator’ when used figuratively. Rüden (1978), 161–162, has a good note on this occurrence; he recognizes that the poet is condemning ‘einen beginnenden Wortstreit beim Gelage’ (‘a battle of words just starting at the orgy’), and he analyses the condemnatory words in lines 13–21a. Perhaps the most difficult half-line is soðgied wrecað (15b); gied is often ‘song, poem’. In Beowulf 867b–874a related wording occurs in the presentation of an ideal poet and an ideal of poetry: gidda gemyndig ‘filled with the memory of songs’, soðe gebunden ‘bound in truth’; similar wording occurs later in the poem in another passage idealizing poet and poetry (2105–2114): gidd & gleo ‘song and music’, gyd awræc | soð & sarlic ‘set forth a song true and sad’.³¹ These idealizations may incline one to think soðgied wrecað must mean ‘they set forth truthful poetry’. In the Exeter Book poem, however, the context is negative, about a battle of words at an orgy. It may mean that these drunks, wlonce wigsmiþas, here ‘proud word-battle smiths’, are hurling truthful insults at each other, for insults hurt most when they are soðe gebunden ‘bound in truth’. This wisdom is well formulated in post-medieval romance by old, blind Alice’s outburst in rebuttal of an imputation of ‘offensive and unfounded suspicions’; Alice is a truth-speaker in The Bride of Lammermoor:³² ‘“Offensive?” said Alice—“Ay, truth is ever offensive—but, surely, not unfounded.”’

At the end of The Battle of Brunanburh (73) the same locution, wlance wigsmiþas, is used in the patriotic glorifying of the Adventus Saxonum, and especially the victory over the British, Wealas.³³ More than a thousand years after the triumph of Brunanburh in ad 937 the word triumphalism entered the English lexicon. As far as our record of Old English allows us to speculate about such matters, the Anglo-Saxons did not entertain notions of triumphalism as they celebrated in verse how the West Saxons and Mercians under Æthelstan defeated the combined Vikings, Scots, and Welsh (Wealas), at Brunanburh (wherever that may have been). The poem has been much translated into Modern English and vigorously praised.³⁴

The locution wlance wigsmiþas occurs twice, with very different meanings. In The Battle of Brunanburh it is used in glorious commemoration of the Anglo-Saxon triumph over Celts. In Vainglory the wlonce wigsmiþas are drunk and their warfare is a manifestation of drunkenness, being quarrelsome, probably hurling insults, perhaps with abusive singing, if their soðgied means that they reveal ‘truth’ by insulting song (cf. punk rock in which, however, truth is not a requirement). At Genesis A 2704 most editors and glossators think wigsmið means little more than ‘warrior’; and the wigsmiðas of Paris Psalter Ps. 113:12 are ‘idol-makers’, with wig not ‘war’ but wih ‘idol’.

Cannibals in Andreas, Devils in Guthlac B: wrohtsmiðas

The first element of the compound wrohtsmið is polysemic, or rather interpreters of wroht in translations, glossaries, and dictionaries have many modern words to render it, and because they have so many to choose from, those dealing with an occurrence in a text find it difficult to choose how best to translate it. Some of the senses, in Clark Hall (1984) s.v. wroht, sound legal: ‘accusation, slander, crime, injury’. Liebermann (1898–1916), 250, however, does not include the word in his vol. II, Wörterbuch, and it appears not to be a technical legal term. Wulfstan uses wroht only once, according to the DOE Corpus online. Wulfstan’s love of law is not in doubt, but he got the word from Ælfric.³⁵ Ælfric uses wroht also elsewhere.³⁶ His use in ‘De Falsis Diis’ is about Mars: His sunu hatte Mars, se macede æfre saca, | and wrohte and wawan he wolde æfre styrian ‘His (Jove’s) son was called Mars, who at all times brought about conflict, and he ever wished to stir up contention (or blame [but not accusation]) and woe’. John Pope, who had a very sensitive grasp of the semantics of Old English, in his glossary entry wrōht gives ‘blame, accusation, contention’ for the sense of the word in this homily. It is certainly ‘accusation’ in Pope (1967, 1968), II, 506, Homily XIII, line 207—of those who sought to accuse Jesus, because of his failure to respond to the Mosaic Law, John 8:6, when dealing with the woman taken in adultery.

Ælfric is an exact user of words, but prose lexis is not the same as verse lexis. The simplex wroht occurs often in verse, and, if the translators, glossators, and lexicographers are to be believed in the variety of their renderings, this noun is very various in sense, or perhaps scholars are very insecure in their understanding (see Grein, 1912–1914, 829 s.v.). There is less scope for variety of sense or interpretation in the two uses of wrohtsmið in Old English verse. Those so designated are decidedly not the friends of whoever in the poem is the pitiable one with whom the reader is to empathize.

The compound wrohtsmiðum (dat. pl.) occurs at Andreas 86 (ASPR II, 5; Brooks 1961, 3), near the end of St Matthew’s prayer (lines 63–87), that God will not allow him to be killed by the werigum wrohtsmiðum. These are the anthropophagi, the Marmedonian man-eaters, among which Matthew finds himself. Brooks’s note says rightly that, despite its spelling, the adjective is not werig ‘weary’, but *werge (not recorded in nom. sg.) ‘accursed’, and Brooks is copiously supported by the information supplied (without reference to Andreas), in the recent edition of Beowulf, (note on wergan gastes ‘of the accursed spirit’, 133a).³⁷

For wrohtsmið Brooks, in his glossary (p. 173) has the senses ‘contriver of an accusation; malicious foe’. For -smið ‘contriver’ may be all right, but are we really to believe that the man-eaters of Marmedonia had the intellectual capacity to contrive an accusation, wroht? And where in the compound does the sense ‘foe’ appear? Brooks might have done better to combine what he has in his glossary entry to give ‘contriver of malice’, unless ‘contriver’ implies a higher level of excogitation than might be expected of these cannibals. Better still, he might have found that Kemble’s edition (1844, 6 his line 171) had provided the best translation of the half-line, ‘these base artificers of crime’.

The deofla deaðmægen are the ‘deadly force of devils’ of Guthlac B 895a, when they attack the saint; and he, elnes anhydig ‘resolute of courage’ (897a), wiðstod stronglice ‘resisted strongly’ (903a), with the result that the assailants were defeated (ASPR III, 75; Roberts 1979, 110), lines 903b–906:

	Næs seo stund latu
earmra gæsta,	ne þæt onbid long
þæt þa wrohtsmiðas	wop ahofun,
hreopun hreðlease,	hleoþrum brugdon.

[There was no slow delay with the wretched visitant spirits, nor (was) the wait long before the contrivers of evil lamented loudly, the inglorious ones howled, they had changed their tune.]

The form gæst can be either ‘visitant’ with short vowel, or gǣst ‘spirit’ with long vowel; ‘visitant spirits’ is to allow both senses. Roberts, p. 163, has a note on hleoþrum brugdon (906b), from which it emerges that the sense is probably ‘changed in (their) sounds’, conceivably a metaphor taken from music, applied in mockery to the devils changing their tune.³⁸ The context of wrohtsmiðas in Guthlac B may be seen as mocking the discomfited devils, but it is not necessary that the compound is used mockingly or even ironically. They who entered the fray as ‘artificers of evil’ have become, using Gollancz’s rendering (1895, 159), inglorious ‘harm-contrivers’, and have been taught to change their tune.

Beowulf 1681a wundorsmiþa geweorc, ‘a manifestation of workers of miracles’ or ‘of mystic-smiths’, or ‘the wonderful work of excellent weapon-smiths’

Kemble was early in translating Beowulf, and for line 1681a (his line 3360) he chose ‘the work of wondrous smiths’.³⁹ Schaldemose gives mythical reality to what is ‘wondrous’ about these smiths, by translating the line, ‘det Arbeid af Dværge’ (‘the work of dwarfs’).⁴⁰ A few half-lines earlier the product of these smiths, the hilt of the sword, is described as enta ærgeweorc (1679a), translated by Kemble (p. 68) as ‘primæval work of giants’; but Schaldemose (1847), 78 (his line 3353) renders the half-line as ‘et Værk af Trolde’ (‘work of trolls’). A troll in Danish is not a giant necessarily; ‘dwarf, imp’ appears to be what the word also means. Schaldemose is not necessarily inconsistent: he could not have known what size of mythical being an ent was.

Klaeber’s glossary, from his first edition of Beowulf (1922) onwards, always included, s.v. wundor-smiþ, the reference ‘Cf. Earle’s note’.⁴¹ I had not looked at Earle’s note until I was working on this paper on -smið compounds. Earle’s introduction to his Deeds of Beowulf is often interesting, especially about Beowulf scholarship in the nineteenth century, and I had written about that.⁴² I had ignored Earle’s notes on the poem; they should not have been ignored, for they show good sense, often reasoned independence from what by the end of the nineteenth century had become received scholarly wisdoms.⁴³

Earle deals with enta and rejects ‘of dwarfs or elves’, asserting ‘of giants’, because ‘the sword to which this hilt [1676] belonged is described above in 1562 as giants’ work, giganta geweorc.’ Then, ‘1681 a. a work of mystic smiths: wundor smiða geweorc.’: ‘I do not understand the poet to mean a work of smiths of extraordinary cunning, who produce wonderful masterpieces of art (as Heyne [Earle quotes the glossary entry]); but rather as smiths of wonderland, of Fairyland; mythical, heroical, romantic smiths.’ Earle goes on to justify his use of ‘mystic’ for wundor, by alluding to Tennyson’s ‘mystic, wonderful’.⁴⁴ In 1892 Earle could have expected that his literate readers would have known the lines Tennyson had published fifty years earlier (1842, II, 5), in Morte d’Arthur (later The Passing of Arthur) about another mythical sword, Excalibur. Arthur is addressing Sir Bedivere:

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,

Clothed in white samite, mystic,45 wonderful,

Holding the sword—and how I row’d across

And took it, and have worn it like a king.

It is relevant in detail, a sword, a lake, a wondrous handing-over of the sword. Tennyson and Earle use the word mystic to mean: awe-inspiring and symbolic ‘those old days’, rather than mystical, as a technical religious term. Earle did not use mythic(al, for that adjective suggests unreality. He says, ‘in the translation we must not admit any expression which suggests that the story is not true’.

We may go further than that; the study of Old English as an academic subject has brought with it an irreparable loss. As we academics try to understand Beowulf, the greatest literary product in Old English—‘literary product’ insufferable term—we have lost the wonder of it. Like the hilt which it is about, the poem is the work of a wundorsmiþ: the Beowulf poet is greater than, in Heyne’s terms (1863, 281), a ‘Schmid, der wunderbare Arbeit fertigt’.

Tolkien (1936, 277–278 = 35–36 of separate) wrote of his sense of wonder in his reading of Beowulf: ‘its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote.’ Earle experienced both Beowulf and Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur like that, and thought the poetic quality, which brought about that experience, was mystic. In Beowulf the sense of wonder is heightened by a treble distance in time. The first, from the time when the enta ærgeweorc ‘ancient work of giants’ (1679a) was fashioned to the world of Beowulf the Geat fighting Grendel and his mother in Denmark, and back in Geatland, where after fiftig wintra of gracious rule (2733), he died in his fight with the dragon. The second distance, to the age of the poet and his ‘original audience’ (a creation of Beowulf scholarship). And the third distance, more than a thousand years later, to our own limited world of ‘Old English Language and Literature’. That remoteness makes wundorsmiða geweorc as impalpable as the inscription on the hilt: it is an object beyond the grasp of littérateurs and linguists, not to mention archaeologists. We now read all Old English hindered rather than helped by ponderous annotations, each note in commentaries a monument of information retrieval, and a tombstone to the immediacy of the poem. It is different with the note on line 1681a by ‘old John Earle’, as Tolkien (1936, 249 = 7 of separate) calls him. Earle’s note brought life to the poem, partly because he understood metaphor, and partly because he was not silent when he dismissed the unimaginative interpretation of wundorsmiþ by Heyne, who was a great philologist but appears to have been deaf to ‘mystic’ metaphor.

My interest in ‘smith’ compounds in Old English verse began with dissatisfaction with the editorial understanding of wundorsmiþa geweorc at Beowulf 1681a, only two lines after enta ærgeweorc, only about eight lines before the mysterious runic inscription on the scennum (dat. pl., 1694, some kind of sword-guard?) of the wondrous hilt, revealing the mysterious beginning of ‘ancient strife’, fyrngewinnes (1689a), when the Flood destroyed monsters, giants, but the hilt they had fashioned remained for us Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Saxonists, post-diluvians all, to see in our mind’s eye.

The theological mystery of lines 1677–1698a is great; æfter deofla hryre ‘after the fall of devils’ (1680a) begins it. In verse we get several times æfter lices hryre ‘after the death of the body’.⁴⁶ Beowulf alone has ‘after the fall of devils’, and (twice) æfter hæleþa hryre ‘after the fall of warriors, heroes, men’.⁴⁷ ‘The fall of devils’ is close to uses by Ælfric, two of them about the Fall of the angels.⁴⁸ The subject of this passage is grand enough to constitute wundorsmiþa geweorc, not work of artisans making luxury goods, but like the work of the poet of Beowulf himself, a ‘wonder-smith’ able to put theological ideas into poetic language.

Conclusion

As often when lexis is pursued through the DOE Corpus certainty of interpretation is not achieved (for verse Grein’s Sprachschatz, now more than 150 years old, is frequently all that is needed),⁴⁹ though it is to be hoped that one has a better understanding at the end of the process than one had at the beginning. Old English poets are not so cut off from real life that they avoided writing of the work of goldsmiths; two of them, of different dialect and date, have mentioned goldsmiths in what we have, at Fortunes of Men 73, at Metres of Boethius X, 34 of Weland, the smith of Germanic mythology; and at Paris Psalter Ps. 113:12 artisans are creating idolatrous statuary.⁵⁰

Anglo-Saxon writers have used the craft of smiths metaphorically. In the verse that has come down to us that metaphorical use is more common than poetic literalness. It is likely therefore, that when the poet of Beowulf writes of wundorsmiþa geweorc the half-line is more about wundor and less about smiþ than how literalists might wish to interpret it. It is unexpected that in verse ‘smith’ compounds are so often used in negative contexts. That is probably because so much of the extant Old English verse is moral, usually religious: it is a wicked world, where even laughter sounds hollow.

Excursus

What do hleahtor and hleahtorsmið (Exodus 43) mean in Old English?

Cheerless laughter, common in Old English verse

On the whole, laughter was not happily perceived in Old English verse or prose. It occurs often in negative contexts, and less often as joyous laughter experienced positively. In Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica the man from Incuneningum describes hell, from where he had come back, and reported the horrible laughter he had heard:⁵¹ ic ðone wop þara manna & þone hleahtor þara diofla sweotolice geheran ne meahte ‘I could not clearly hear apart the lamentation of humans and the laughter of the devils’. Of course, hell is not the same as this world; even so, a man of this world hearing the sounds of hell is reporting his experiences on coming back. These contrasting aspects have been discussed before.⁵² By surveying laughter in Old English I hope to demonstrate that the compound hleahtorsmið was not constructed in innocent naïveté. Those who, like me, attempt to pursue the analysis of wit and laughter are always in danger of appearing, like Sulpiz in his pursuit, as portrayed by Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736–1809), in an aphorism (Pfeffel 1810, IV, 170):

Der Witzling.

Wie ein Rennthier53 läuft Sulpiz

Hinterm Witze her;

Aber immer läuft der Witz

Schneller noch als er.

[The Witling: Like a fast-running animal, Sulpice runs after wit; however, wit always runs still faster than he.]

Wahrig’s study of laughter in medieval England is the most comprehensive, and once the theoretical beginning (1955, 275–278) has been left behind, with its name-dropping (e.g., Hegel, Darwin, Freud, who have said nothing about Old and Middle English laughter), there is some interesting discussion of laughter in texts.

Some idioms involving laughter occur several times. With the modal auxiliary þurfan laughter is often found in the negative: ‘to have no need, no occasion for laughter’. At Genesis A 72b–73a, the angels had no occasion to laugh at their Fall, siðe ne þorfton | hlude hlihhan ‘they had no need to laugh aloud at that journey’.⁵⁴ At Elene 918b–919a, the devil speaks, ic þa rode ne þearf | hleahtre herigean ‘I have no occasion to praise the Cross with laughter’ (ASPR II, 91). The idiom is used, at Guthlac B 1356b–1357a, to begin the lament, Huru ic swiðe ne þearf | hinsið behlehhan ‘Indeed I have no occasion at all to laugh at (Guthlac’s) death’ (ASPR III, 87). At Juliana 526b–528a, the devil, at the end of his long speech, regrets not to be able to deride the Fall, Ic bihlyhhan ne þearf | æfter sarwræce siðfæt þisne | magum in gemonge ‘I have no occasion to laugh about this expedition among my comrades’ (ASPR III, 128). At Brunanburh 47–48, the defeated army had no occasion to laugh, mid heora herelafum hlehhan ne þorftun | þæt heo beaduweorca beteran wurdun ‘they had no occasion to laugh with the remnants of their army that they were to be better in deeds of battle’ (ASPR VI, 19).

To laugh and play often go together, sometimes with merriment or game, hliehhan, plega(n and gamen. At Genesis B 724b–725a, Satan’s messenger triumphs over Adam and Eve, Hloh þa & plegode | boda bitre gehugod ‘Then the messenger, with bitter mind, laughed and exulted’.⁵⁵ In view of the context, this is a negative use, though not syntactically negative. The phrase hleahtor alecgan (also at Guthlac A 229) is used (combined with gamen ‘play’) at the death of Beowulf, nu se herewisa hleahtor alegde, | gamen & gleodream ‘now the warlike leader has given up laughter, play and revelous joy’, Beowulf 3020–3021a.⁵⁶

Judgement Day II (234–235) depicts the eternally damned when worldly pleasures and laughter will cease, Þonne druncennes gedwineð mid wistum, | & hleahter & plega hleapað ætsomne ‘Then drunkenness will vanish (together) with feastings, and laughter and play will leap (away) together’.⁵⁷

At Judith line 23, drunken laughter, but no mention of ‘play’, characterizes Holofernes in a line perhaps expressing noise—probably onomatopoetically—by rhyme and alliteration, hloh & hlydde, hlynede & dynede ‘laughed and clamoured, roared and made a great din’.⁵⁸

The phrase (used metaphorically at Beowulf 3020) is used literally of the tempters assailing Guthlac, who gave up laughter when unsuccessful, hleahtor alegdon | sorge seofedon ‘they gave up laughter, sighed in disappointment’, Guthlac A 229b–230a.⁵⁹

Laughter is several times combined with negative abstracts, scorn, jeering, terror. Sarah’s foolish laughter is condemned by the poet at Genesis 2382–2385a:⁶⁰

Þa þæt wif ahloh	wereda Drihtnes,
nalles glædlice,	ac heo gearum frod
þone hleoðorcwyde	husce belegde
on sefan swiðe.

[Then the woman laughed at the Lord of Hosts, not at all radiantly, but she, old in years, greatly enveloped with scorn in her mind (her) wordy utterance.]

At Juliana 189, Juliana’s brutal husband combines laughing at her with jeering, Ahlog þa se hererinc hospwordum spræc ‘Then that army-man laughed out, spoke in jeering words’ (ASPR III, 118).

At Riddle 33, 3b-4a, the noise of the iceberg (the subject of the Riddle) is anthropomorphized: hlinsade hlude: hleahtor wæs gryrelic | egesful on earde ‘clamoured loudly: (its) laugh was horrible, frightful in (its) home’.⁶¹ This is wordplay, leahtor ‘vice’, but to alliterate better hleahtor ‘laughter’, perhaps designed to mislead a would-be solver near the beginning of the riddle. This riddle, like all the Exeter Book Riddles, may well have been intended for a monastic readership to enjoy and solve: a cleric might have expected anything written for him to be about vice rather than about laughter, but if skilled in verse such a reader would have enjoyed the concealment, that alliteration requires hleahtor for the manuscript reading leahtor.

Several times in Old English verse laughter is to be regarded as reprehensible, though not always explicitly condemned. At Genesis A 1582a–1584a, the Drunkenness of Noah begins with Ham laughing as he told his brothers where Noah was resting, ac he hlihende | broðrum sægde hu se beorn hine | reste on recede ‘but he, laughing, said to his brothers how the man was resting in the house’.⁶² At Genesis 2389 Sarah’s laugh is condemned as hihtleas ‘faithless’ (or perhaps ‘joyless’), a word that occurs only here.⁶³ At Andreas 1702b–1703a, the slaying of the saint is no laughing matter, Þæt þam banan ne wearð | hleahtre behworfen ‘That was not treated as a laughing matter for the slayer’.⁶⁴ At The Seafarer 20–21, the Seafarer tells of the sounds he hears at sea: whereas those on dry land are accustomed to the sound of happy laughter, dyde ic me to gomene ganetes hleoþor | & huilpan sweg fore hleahtor wera ‘I took as my entertainment the gannet’s song and the ?curlew’s melody instead of the laughter of men’.⁶⁵ At Beowulf 730a, Grendel’s ‘mind laughed out’ in anticipation of achieving slaughter, Þa his mod ahlog.⁶⁶

As we have seen, lamentation, wop, is a reality in Exodus 42–45a, where laughter-smiths are ineffectual.⁶⁷ At Solomon and Saturn 348–350a (=II 170–172a), the contrasts wop & hleahtor are companions in Saturn’s gloomy view:⁶⁸

Ac forhwan beoð ða gesiðas	somod ætgædre,
wop & hleahtor?	Full oft hie weorðgeornra
sælða toslitað.

[Why then are those companions inseparably together, lamentation and laughter? They very often slit asunder the happiness of the well-intentioned.]

My translation of weorðgeorn as ‘well-intentioned’ is questionable. Alfred uses the adjective of Cato; in the recent edition that is rendered ‘ambitious’, and in the glossary ‘eager for honour’.⁶⁹ For Cato each editor or glossator of Alfred’s verse invests the adjective with a sense appropriate for Cato, and that varies from reader to reader. My translation aims at a Saturnine message, the destruction of happiness. Saturn is no Cato, of whom Ben Jonson wrote (1616, 708, Catiline III.1):

Chor[us]. The voice of Cato is the voice of Rome.

Cato. The voice of Rome is the consent of heaven!

Joyous laughter

There are uses of happy laughter in Old English verse. At Christ II 738b-743, the angelic laughter when Christ enters heaven is wholly and seriously positive and in response to God’s plega ‘joyful exploit’:⁷⁰

	Þa wæs engla þreat
on þa halgan tid	hleahtre bliþe
wynnum geworden,	gesawan wuldres Þrym,	740
æþelinga Ord,	eþles neosan
beorhtra bolda,	þa wearð burgwarum
eadgum ece gefea	Æþelinges plega.

The sentence structure of these lines is difficult, the punctuation varies in the editions, and I agree with Das that Þa at 738b and þa at 742b are probably correlative, and that these lines together give the essential character to hleahtre bliþe, which is joyous laughter (unlike the sense of hleahtor in hleahtorsmiðum). The following free translation attempts to explain these lines, Christ II 738b–743:

Then the host of angels came to be happy with laughter at that holy time, with joys, seeing the glorious Lord, the Chief of princes, enter his home, the radiant dwellings, when for the happy inhabitants of that (heavenly) city there was eternal bliss, the (heavenly) Prince’s joyful exploit.

At Genesis A 2066–2067a, the victors laugh:⁷¹ Þær hlihende huðe feredon | secgas & gesiððas ‘There those laughing, men low and high, carried off booty’.⁷²

At Andreas 454b–457, the seafarers laughed out when the Lord calmed the waters:⁷³

	Ða ure mod ahlog,
syððan we gesegon	under swegles gang
windas & wægas	& wæterbrogan
forhte gewordne	for Frean egesan.

[Then our spirit laughed out, once we saw under the course of the sun, that winds and waves and terrifying waters had become afraid in fear of the Lord.]

Resignation B (70–72a) opens with hwæþre ic me ealles þæs ellen wylle | habban & hlyhhan & me hyhtan to,| frætwian mec on ferðweg ‘however I will have courage in all this and laugh and look forward with hope, to array myself for the soul’s journey’.⁷⁴

At The Descent into Hell 21a, 24–25, dwellers in hell rejoicing at the Resurrection, hlogan helwaran (‘the dwellers in hell laughed’), and John the Baptist announces Christ’s Descent to those in hell, hæleð helwarum hlyhhende spræc | modig to þære mengo ymb his mæges [sið] ‘the spirited man laughingly spoke to the dwellers in hell, to that multitude, about his kinsman’s [journey]’ (ASPR III, 219 text, 356-7 notes).

At Beowulf 611-612b, laughter is joyous in Heorot when Beowulf’s words had been heard, Ɖær wæs hæleþa hleahtor, hlyn swynsode, | word wæron wynsume ‘There was laughter of men (in the hall), cheerful noise was heard, (Beowulf’s) words were gladly received’.⁷⁵

At Paris Psalter 85:11, 1–2a, the Psalmist’s spirit laughs out in (sacred) fear of the Lord’s name, Heorte min ahlyhheð þonne ic ðinne halgan naman | forhtige me on ferhðe ‘My heart laughs out whenever I fear in spirit thy holy name’.⁷⁶

In The Battle of Maldon 146b–147a (ASPR VI, 11; Scragg 1991, 24-5), Byrhtnoth laughs as in the course of the battle he gives thanks to the Lord for a good day’s work, Se eorl wæs þe bliþra, hloh þa modi man ‘The earl was the happier, the brave man then laughed’.

At Solomon and Saturn 178b, David, after defeating the Chaldeans, laughs out: næfre ær his ferhð ahlog ‘never had his spirit laughed out before’.⁷⁷

The laughter in the Rune Poem (38–40) looks joyous, if only we knew what the rune name means:⁷⁸

?peorð byþ symble	plega and hlehter
wlancum * * *	ðar wigan sittaþ
on beorsele	bliþe ætsomne.

[Peorð is always play and laughter for the great… where warriors sit happily together in the beer-hall.]

As translated here, this does not sound like the Heroic Age as bodied forth by Anglo-Saxonists, but the context is difficult: the wording is incomplete, wlancum (dat.) refers to the great or proud unidentified, and the rune name is wholly obscure.

Conclusion of the excursus

Where nothing is known theories of pagan origins soon intrude—but should not prevail. Wahrig writes on ‘the pagan-Germanic conception’ of laughter, die heidnisch-germanische Auffassung:⁷⁹

In this conception laughter is just an expression of unrestrained joy and joie de vivre. That finds expression in laughing together at a banquet: in such manifestations laughter is the corporeal response to the very joy of being together after danger overcome or at a meeting of friends and acquaintances… The laughter of the Anglo-Saxons was not yet differentiated, that is, was not yet motivated specifically, but was for the most part the immediate outburst of feelings. The intellect is little involved.

Wahrig was perhaps never at a student get-together, or he would have experienced unmotivated laughter, perhaps after an examination overcome, or simply as an outburst of feelings without any intellectual involvement. One would hesitate to think it symptomatic of a return to paganism or of a resurgence of paganism.

This long survey of laughing and laughter in Old English verse demonstrates that, much as in modern life and literature, laughter can be happy. In negative contexts laughter may be mentioned only as a reminder that there is nothing to laugh about: that there is no cause for laughter refines the experience of adversity. The compound hleahtorsmiðum (dat. pl.) is used of the Egyptians at Exodus 43a.⁸⁰ There is nothing in the biblical account about the Egyptian ‘laughter-smiths’ laughing maliciously at the misfortune of others; but at the slaying of their first-born (Exodus 11:6), they are reduced to lamenting, wop, and (again not in the Bible) their hands are belocene, ‘locked’, that is presumably, not engaged in plaudits or some other hand gesture of joy.

That so much of the surviving Old English verse is religious has probably led to the high degree of negativity in laughter. Cynewulf is almost on his own when he has the angels hleahtre bliþe ‘happy with laughter’ at the Ascension, a joyful exploit described as plega ‘play’ at Christ II.⁸¹ In coenobitic thinking, hleahtor and leahtor, ‘laughter’ and ‘vice’, may have been distinguished by little more than the confounded articulation of the initial consonants. Old English verse is serious: the poets are rarely overheard at play, though we can sometimes catch them at wordplay.