_Passage in Orosius_ (Vol. vii., pp. 399. 536.).--I cannot exactly
subscribe to the three propositions of MR. E. THOMSON, which he deduces
from his observations on "twam tyncenum" in Alfred's _Orosius_. In the
first place, the sentence in which the word _tyncenum_ occurs is perfectly
gratuitous on the part of Alfred, or whoever paraphrased Orosius in
Anglo-Saxon. No such assertion appears in Orosius, so that we have no means
of comparing it with the original.
The occurrence, as recounted by both Orosius and Herodotus, is attributed
to a _horse_ (a sacred horse, Herod.), not to a _horseman_, _knight_, or
_thane_. What is meant by the Anglo-Saxon text is, certainly, anything but
clear, as it stands in Barrington's edition; and he himself confesses this,
and does not admit it into his English translation.
Dr. Bosworth seems to have wisely omitted the word in the second edition of
his dictionary; and Thorpe confesses he can make nothing of it, in his
_Analecta_. We find no such word in Caedmon, Beowulf, or the _Saxon
Chronicle_; and the only reference made by Dr. Bosworth, in his first
edition, is to this very place in Alfred's _Orosius_, in which he seems to
have followed Lye.
May it not have been an error in the earlier transcribers of the MS., and
the real word have been _twentigum_, _i. e._ he ordered his thane to pass
over the river _with twenty men_, since the thane, by himself, could have
been but of little use on the other side the river? However this may be,
the fact is not historical at all, and therefore, as respects history, is
of little consequence.