songs, and that he was ever ready to entertain his audience with things new
or old. Thus, he mentioned Hrothgar as one whom he had visited; and if a
hearer called for a tale at this point, the scop would recite that part of
_Beowulf_ which tells of the monster Grendel. Again, he named Sigard
the Volsung (the Siegfrid of the _Niebelungenlied_ and of Wagner's
opera), and this would recall the slaying of the dragon Fafnir, or some
other story of the old Norse saga. So every name or place which Widsith
mentioned was an invitation. When he came to a hall and "unlocked his
word-hoard," he offered his hearers a variety of poems and legends from
which they made their own selection. Looked at in this way, the old poem
becomes an epitome of Anglo-Saxon literature.

[Sidenote: TYPES OF SAXON POETRY]

Other fragments of the period are valuable as indicating that the
Anglo-Saxons were familiar with various types of poetry. "Deor's Lament,"
describing the sorrows of a scop who had lost his place beside his chief,
is a true lyric; that is, a poem which reflects the author's feeling rather
than the deed of another man. In his grief the scop comforts himself by
recalling the afflictions of various heroes, and he ends each stanza with
the refrain:

That sorrow he endured; this also may I.

Among the best of the early poems are: "The Ruined City," reflecting the
feeling of one who looks on crumbling walls that were once the abode of
human ambition; "The Seafarer," a chantey of the deep, which ends with an
allegory comparing life to a sea voyage; "The Wanderer," which is the
plaint of one who has lost home, patron, ambition, and as the easiest way
out of his difficulty turns _eardstappa_, an "earth-hitter" or tramp;