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>> the pronunciation >> of the third word in the poem -- Gar-Dena or Yar-Dena? > > Hoots mon, the alliteration tells you that: > > hwaet, we gar-dena in geardagum > > Still stumped? Okay, ask yourself this: is "geardagum" more likely to be the > origin of "days of yore" or "days of gore"? Um ... I think I'm about to dig myself even more deeply into this, but ... The alliteration has to be on "gar" and "gear", as "dena" shouldn't alliterate with "dagum", since the fourth lift doesn't alliterate in classical OE metre. [Was that the trick question?]. But as both (presumably) originally begin with a yog character, that doesn't carry us all that far. Your "days of yore" would give a soft rather than a hard yog, and so +ought+ to be transliterated "yeardagum". Which looks revolting, admittedly, but then they shouldn't have removed the yog in the first place. The same logic would apply if "gear" <=> year rather than yore. Soft yog in either case. (I can't seem to access a diplomatic text of _Beowulf_, either on my shelves or on the net, to check if it +is+ a yog in the original.) So it's the yar Danes in the year/yore days. [The OED gives close but independent etymological origins for "year" and "yore", both beginning [originally] with a yog.] Which is how I'd want to read it. But Wrenn (and Klaeber?) give us "g". Bleh. > Trick question! (Go ask Shameless Seamus, why dontcha?) See above. I refuse to reopen Heaney's translation without greater provocation. > Oh, and next time you resort to the CONCISE Scots Dictionary, remember the > price we would have paid tonight without Supplemental Dillon to set us > right-- Well, if I +could+ afford the DOST or the SND (and had the shelf-space) I would. And I'm still trying to work out whether Richard's "Mat Snell" is deliberately intended as a follow-up to his "Big Time Shot" poem. It certainly read that way to me. Robin