first printed as prose by Thwaites at
the close of his "Heptateuch, Book of Job, and Gospel of Nicodemus"
(1698), and has been often reprinted, its shortness and excellence
making it a popular piece for inclusion in Anglo-Saxon Readers. A most
complete edition has been recently (1888) issued by Professor Albert S.
Cook, with an excellent introduction, a translation, and a glossary. A
Bibliography is given by Professor Cook (pp. 71-73), and by Wuelker
(_Grundriss_, p. 140 ff.). To the translations therein enumerated may be
added the one in Morley's "English Writers" (II. 180 ff.). Professor
Cook has also given (pp. lxix-lxxii) the testimonies of scholars to the
worth of this poem. To these the attention of the reader is especially
called. The JUDITH has been treated by both ten Brink and Wuelker as
belonging to the Caedmon circle, but the former well says (p. 47): "This
fragment produces an impression more like that of the national epos than
is the case with any other religious poetry of that epoch;" and Sweet
(Reader, p. 157) regards it as belonging "to the culminating point of
the Old Northumbrian literature, combining as it does the highest
dramatic and constructive power with the utmost brilliance of language
and metre."

III. The ATHELSTAN, or Fight at Brunanburh, is found in four manuscripts
of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and in Wheloc's edition (1643), printed
from a MS. that was burnt in the unfortunate fire among the Cottonian
manuscripts (1731). It is entered under the year 937 in all but one MS.,
where it occurs under 938. The poem gives a brief, but graphic,
description of the fight between King Athelstan and his brother Edmund
on the one side, and Constantine and his Scots aided by Anlaf and his
Danes, or Northmen, on the other, in which fight the Saxons were
completely victorious. The poem will be found in all editions of the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" from Wheloc to Earle (1865), and has been
repeatedly reprinted, its brevity causing it to be often included as a
specimen of Old English, but it is omitted in Sweet's Reader. A
Bibliography will be found in Wuelker's _Grundriss_ (p. 339 ff.). To the
English translations there mentioned,--which include a poetical one by
Lord Tennyson, after a prose translation by his son in the Contemporary
Review for November, 1876,--may be added the prose translation by
Kennedy in ten Brink (p. 91) and the rhythmical one by Professor Morley
in his "English Writers" (II. 316-17