Over the years I’ve been involved in translating from the Old English. I’ve translated “Deor” and “Wulf and Eadwacer,” (the latter is available on line at three sites: Perihelion, www.webdelsol.com/Perihelion/wulfpoetry.htm; Other OE Poetry, a website run by a Professor Betcher at the State University of Iowa, (www.public.iastate.edu/~gbetcher/373/OtherOE.htm); and at a Poetry Page at (communication.students.rmit.edu.au/1996/John_Roda/poetry.html) and am now working my way through “The Wanderer” and “The Ruin”. I’ve also done some of Beowulf. I work from the originals with my trusty Old English dictionary by my side. For Beowulf, I use the excellent Penguin O.E. text with copious glosses provided by Michael Alexander. I’ve just finished a funny little charm against Wens, this evening, originally found in Anglo-Saxon poetic Records, vol 6.

A Charm

Wen, Wen, Wenichenchen!
Here neither build nor shall you linger
but you shall go north to the nearest hill
for there, poor wretch, you have a brother.
He shall lay a leaf at your head.
Under a wolf’s foot, under an eagle’s feather,
under an eagle’s claw, be ever-fading.
Fall to ash like a coal on the hearth.
Abrade away like dust on the wall,
and so disappear as water long in bucket.
Become as small as the linseed kernel,
and smaller still than the handworm’s hipbone.
So shrink till shrinking has to nothing shrunk.

Try it when you have a pimple and let me know if it works!