55. #cnihtene# &c.: a recurring phrase, as 98/89, 102/152; ‘cnihten alre
hendest,’ 104/195.
57. #mode#, feeling: comp. ‘on his heorte he hauede grome[;] on his mode
muchele sco{m}e,’ L 4847, and with O, ‘þe leof hire weis on mode,’ L
4489. See KH 281 note.
58. #hope to#: see 178/89 note. #heoreð . . . mid mihte#, strenuously
exalt; from #herian#, to glorify: it might be from #hīeran#, to obey,
but the former meaning is more suitable here; comp. 102/139.
59-68. There is little doubt that Layamon found this strange jumble of
the gods of the Romans, Teutons, and French Romance in his original, but
appollin and teruagant are missing in the printed Wace. Identification
of the Roman gods with those of the Teutons and Celts proceeded rapidly
among the barbarians from the first century onward, so that the Spanish
bishop, Martin of Bracara, denouncing in the sixth century the pagan
practices of his flock, uses the Roman names of the gods (De Correctione
Rusticorum, ed. Caspari, pp. xci, 7-11), in which he is followed by
Ælfric in the homily De Diis Falsis (Kemble, Solomon and Saturn, 120;
Wulfstan, ed. Napier, 104). L appears not to have known that under this
system Mercurius is Woden; Jupiter, Thunor; Mars, Tiw; Venus, Frea; and
Phoebus, perhaps the Sun, yet Wace says ‘Mercurion | Qui en nostre
langage a non | Woden.’ In L 16790-4, there is a similar list of the
Saxon gods with addition of Dido{n} and Mamilon.