OLD ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY: WULF AND EADWACER

Love poetry isn't a modern thing at all and nor are the plots! Let's go back in time to the beginnings of Old English Literature, to the Exeter Book, written during the period between the 8th and the 10th century, let's read and listen in Old English to  this poem, a woman's song, she is lamenting being apart from her lover Wulf, possibly by the doings of her husband Eadwacer. Click here to read the text and translation of this  Old English love triangle!

“Leodum is minum 

 swylce him mon lac gife;       

It is to my people as if someone gave them a gift.

willað hy hine aþecgan, 

 gif he on þreat cymeð. 

They want to kill him, if he comes with a troop.

Ungelic is us.                                                             

It is different for us.

Wulf is on iege,  ic on oþerre.”                          

Wulf is on one island I on another.