The street was stone-variegated, the path guided
(The) men together; the war-mailcoat shone,
Hard hand-locked. Ring-iron sheer (bright ring-mail)
Sang in (their) cunning-trappings, as they to hall forth
In their horror-accoutrements going came.
The Old English was a homogeneous language, having very few foreign
elements in it, and forming its compounds and derivatives entirely from
its own resources. A few Latin appellatives learned from the Romans in
the German wars had been adopted into the common West Germanic tongue,
and are found in English as in the allied dialects. Such were _straete_
(street, _via strata_), _camp_ (battle), _casere_ (Caesar), _mil_ (mile),
_pin_ (punishment), _mynet_ (money), _pund_ (pound), _win_ (wine);
probably also _cyrice_ (church), _biscop_ (bishop), _laeden_ (Latin
language), _cese_ (cheese), _butor_ (butter), _pipor_ (pepper), _olfend_
(camel, elephantus), _ynce_ (inch, uncia), and a few others. The
relations of the first invaders to the Britons were to a great extent
those of destroyers; and with the exception of the proper names of
places and prominent natural features, which as is usual were retained
by the new population, few British words found their way into the Old
English. Among these are named _broc_ (a badger), _brec_ (breeches),
_clut_ (clout), _pul_ (pool), and a few words relating to the employment
of field or household menials. Still fewer words seem to have been
adopted from the provincial Latin, almost the only certain ones being
castra, applied to the Roman towns, which appeared in English as
_caestre_, _ceaster_, now found in composition as -_caster_, -_chester_,
-_cester_, and _culina_ (kitchen), which gave _cylen_ (kiln). The
introduction and gradual adoption of Christianity, brought a new series
of Latin words connected with the offices of the church, the
accompaniments of higher civilization, the foreign productions either
actually made known, or mentioned in the Scriptures and devotional
books. Such were _mynster_ (monasterium), _munuc_ (monk), _nunne_ (nun),
_maesse_ (mass), _schol_ (school), _oelmesse_ (eleemosyna), _candel_
(candela), _turtle_ (turtur), _fic_ (ficus), _cedar_ (cedrus). These
words, whose number increased from the 7th to the 10th century, are
commonly called _Latin of the second period_, the Latin of the first
period including the Latin words brought by the English from the
continent, as well as those picked up in Britain either from the Roman
provincials or the Welsh. The Danish invasions of the 8th and 10th
centuries resulted in the establishment of extensive Danish and
Norwegian populations, about the basin of the Humber and its
tributaries, and above Morecambe Bay. Although these Scandinavian
settlers must have greatly affected the language of their own
localities, but few traces of their influence are to be found in the
literature of the Old English period. As with the greater part of the
words adopted from the Celtic, it was not until after the dominion of
the Norman had overlaid all preceding conquests, and the new English
began to emerge from the ruins of the old, that Danish words in any
number made their appearance in books, as equally "native" with the
Anglo-Saxon.
The earliest specimens we have of English date to the end of the 7th
century, and belong to the Anglian dialect, and particularly to
Northumbrian, which, under the political eminence of the early
Northumbrian kings from Edwin to Ecgfridh, aided perhaps by the learning
of the scholars of Ireland and Iona, first attained to literary
distinction. Of this literature in its original form mere fragments
exist, one of the most interesting of which consists of the verses
uttered by Bede on his deathbed, and preserved in a nearly contemporary
MS.:--
Fore there neid faerae . naenig uuiurthit
thonc snotturra . than him tharf sie,
to ymb-hycggannae . aer his hin-iongae,
huaet his gastae . godaes aeththa yflaes,
aefter deoth-daege . doemid uueorthae.