The opening of The Wanderer in Old English
The Wanderer survives in the Exeter Book, a large collection of Old English poetry copied in the later 900s. Its speaker is a warrior who has outlived his lord and his companions, and these first seven lines set out his whole condition: cold water, exile and fate.
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The text and translation
Oft him ānhaga āre ġebīdeð, metudes miltse,
Often the solitary one waits for mercy for himself, the Measurer's favour,
Word by word
- Oft
- often
- him
- for himself
- ānhaga
- the solitary one
- āre
- mercy, grace
- ġebīdeð
- waits for, lives to see
- metudes
- of the Measurer (God)
- miltse
- mercy, favour
þēah þe hē mōdċeariġ ġeond lagulāde longe sceolde hrēran mid hondum hrīmcealde sǣ,
though he, troubled in heart, long had to stir the rime-cold sea with his hands over the waterways,
Word by word
- þēah
- though
- þe
- that
- hē
- he
- mōdċeariġ
- troubled in heart
- ġeond
- throughout, over
- lagulāde
- the water-way
- longe
- long
- sceolde
- had to
- hrēran
- stir
- mid
- with
- hondum
- hands
- hrīmcealde
- rime-cold
- sǣ
- sea
wadan wræclāstas. Wyrd bið ful ārǣd!
and tread the paths of exile. Fate is wholly fixed!
Word by word
- wadan
- tread, travel
- wræclāstas
- paths of exile
- Wyrd
- fate
- bið
- is
- ful
- fully, wholly
- ārǣd
- determined, fixed
Swā cwæð eardstapa, earfeþa ġemyndiġ, wrāþra wælsleahta, winemǣġa hryre:
So said the wanderer, mindful of hardships, of cruel slaughters, of the fall of dear kinsmen:
Word by word
- Swā
- so
- cwæð
- said
- eardstapa
- the wanderer, land-stepper
- earfeþa
- of hardships
- ġemyndiġ
- mindful
- wrāþra
- of cruel
- wælsleahta
- of slaughters
- winemǣġa
- of dear kinsmen
- hryre
- of the fall
What to notice
- Wyrd bið ful ārǣd! Wyrd means fate or what comes to pass, and it is the ancestor of our word weird. The line is one of the most quoted in Old English.
- eardstapa is “earth-stepper”, the word usually translated as “wanderer”.
- hrīmcealde sǣ is “the rime-cold sea”. The poet builds a new word for the cold, as English once did freely.
- The dots on letters such as ġebīdeð are added by modern editors. They show that this g sounds like the y in yes.
Read it yourself
Urling teaches the words in this text first, so that when you reach it you can read it in Old English. It uses short lessons, and nothing has to be memorised from a list.
Learn to read this in Old English
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Sources
The Wanderer, lines 1–7, ed. Bright, An Anglo-Saxon Reader (1917). Public domain.
Text licence: Public domain.
Language pack licence: Texts public domain / CC BY-SA 4.0; annotation CC BY-SA 4.0.
Texts: Caedmon's Hymn, Beowulf lines 1-11, Cnut's proclamation of 1020, The Battle of Maldon lines 312-313, The Wanderer lines 1-7 and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 793 (all public domain); the Lord's Prayer in Early West Saxon as standardised in Wikipedia's 'Old English' article (CC BY-SA 4.0). Wulf and Eadwacer: W. J. Sedgefield, An Anglo-Saxon Verse-Book (1922), pp. 39-40, public domain; transcribed against the printed pages. Tagging and glosses: AI (Claude; Codex for Wulf and Eadwacer), checked against Wiktionary; not yet reviewed by a person. Additional passages carry their own source credits.
The introduction and notes on this page were written by Claude (AI). Word glosses are AI-assisted, and so is the English unless the source above names another translator.