Glǽmscrafu - Crist of Cynewulf (Lines 104 to 108)

ᛠᛚᚪ ᛠᚱᛖᚾᛞᛖᛚ᛫ ᛖᛝᛣᛚᚪ ᛒᛇᚱᚻᛏᚪᛤ᛫	Éalá Éarendel, engla beorhtast,	Hail Éarendel, brightest of angels,
ᚩᚠᛖᚱ ᛗᛁᛞᚪᛝᛣᛠᚱᛞ ᛗᚩᚾᚢᛗ ᛋᛖᚾᛞᛖᛞ᛫	ofer middangeard monnum sended,	above the middle-earth [=the inhabited world of men] sent unto men,
ᚩᚾᛞ ᛋᚩᚦᚠᚫᛤᚪ ᛋᚢᚾᚪᚾ ᛚᛇᛗᚪ᛫	ond sóðfæsta sunnan léoma,	and true radiance of the sun,
ᛏᚩᚱᚻᛏ ᚩᚠᛖᚱ ᛏᚢᛝᛣᛚᚪᛋ᛫ ᚦᚢ ᛏᛁᛞᚪ ᚸᛖᚻᚹᚪᚾᛖ	torht ofer tunglas, þú tída gehwane	bright above the stars – thou of thy very self
ᚩᚠ ᛋᚣᛚᚠᚢᛗ ᚦᛖ ᛋᚣᛗᛚᛖ ᛁᚾᛚᛁᚻᛏᛖᛋ᛬	of sylfum þé symle inlíhtes!	illuminest for ever every season!

Commentary

Cynewulf is the name of an Anglo-Saxon poet of the 8th century. Four narrative poems of Christian inspiration are attributed to him with certainly, for he “signed” them with runes interspersed in the text, that put together form his name. Among these poems, Crist had a special importance for Tolkien since a few of its lines were the starting point of the legend of Eärendil. We reproduce them here with a translation interpolated from glosses of J. R. R. and Christopher Tolkien in Sauron Defeated pp. 236, 285. Concerning the relationship between these verses and the legend of Eärendil, read the letter n° 297 in Humphrey Carpenter’s edition.

The text is transcribed in Anglo-Saxon runes, also called Futhorc, used in England from the 5^th to the 11^th century, and exemplified by J. R. R. Tolkien in the foreword of The Hobbit. We made use of Robert Pfeffer’s typeface Pfeffer Mediæval. Open this mode in Glaemscribe

References

࿔ The Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. 🌍 Internet Sacred Text Archive.

࿔ Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. Sauron Defeated – The End of the Third Age: The History of The Lord of the Rings, part four & The Notion Club Papers & The Drowning of Anadûnê. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 2002. 482 p. (The History of Middle-earth; IX). ISBN 0-261-10305-9.

࿔ Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Selection edited by Humphrey Carpenter with assistance by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 2006. 480 p. ISBN 0-261-10265-6.

The works of John Ronald Reuel and Christopher Tolkien are under the copyright of their authors and/or rights holders, including their publishers and the Tolkien Estate.
Quotations from other authors, editors and translators mentioned in the bibliography are under the copyright of their publishers, except for those whose copyright term has ended.