So!
It came at last, this codex of codices
word-wondrous and winding, hiding
still self-contained secrets pointing at
enigmatic mores, murder, past
from the distant dark dream-time ...
Today I got my Electronic Beowulf, which really made time stand still. It was the same kind of feeling as when I found that second-hand Klaeber, way back in the eighties.
Nobody had heard of Kiernan in those days, which is really astonishing. What puzzled me though, while still believing in an early date, was the fact that somebody around the year 1000 AD deliberately spent a substantial amount of vellum on this text.
I vaguely remember seeing the MS in the British museum and me reading it aloud.
I remember my teacher of Old-English having a facsimile - a Zupitza reprint I believe - which seemed totally out of reach for me.
That was nearly thirty years ago.
