To whom God giveth a goodly kingdom
To hold as long as he liveth here.
135 Thus wandering widely through the world there go
Minstrels of men through many lands,
Express their needs and speak their thanks.
Ever south and north some one they meet
Skillful in song who scatters gifts,
140 To further his fame before his chieftains,
To do deeds of honor, till all shall depart,
Light and life together: lasting praise he gains,
And has under heaven the highest of honor.

4. _Myrging._ Nothing is known with any degree of certainty about this
tribe. Chambers concludes that they dwelt south of the River Eider,
which is the present boundary between Schleswig and Holstein, and that
they belonged to the Suevic stock of peoples. See vv. 84, 85, below.

5. _Ealhhild._ See notes to vv. 8 and 97, below. Much discussion has
taken place as to who Ealhhild was. Summing up his lengthy discussion,
Chambers says (_Widsith_, p. 28): "For these reasons it seems best to
regard Ealhhild as the murdered wife of Eormanric, the Anglian
equivalent of the Gothic Sunilda and the Northern Swanhild."

7. _Hraeda king._ That is, the Gothic king.

8. _Angles._ One of the Low Germanic tribes that later settled in
Britain, and from whom the name England is derived. Their original
home was in the modern Schleswig-Holstein. _Eormanric._ See v. 88,
below, and _Deor's Lament_, v. 21. He was a king of the Goths. After
his death, about 375 A.D., he came to be known as the typical bad
king, covetous, fierce, and cruel. According to the Scandinavian form
of the story, the king sends his son and a treacherous councillor,
Bikki (the Becca of v. 19) to woo and bring to the court the maiden
Swanhild. Bikki urges the son to woo her for himself and then betrays
him to his father, who has him hanged and causes Swanhild to be
trampled to death by horses. Her brothers revenge her death and wound
the king. At this juncture the Huns attack him, and during the attack
Eormanric dies.

11. The proverb, or "gnomic verse," is very common in Old English poetry.

14. _Hwala_ appears in the West Saxon genealogies as son of Beowi, son of
Sceaf (see _Beowulf_, vv. 4, 18).

15. _Alexander_ [_the Great_]. The writer speaks of many celebrities who
were obviously too early for him to know personally. This passage is