To take up just one point, it's interesting to see 'mihtig ond modrof' (1496) applied to the pillar - North & Bintley seem to translate it as referring to Andrew ("he with one of them / held conference, mighty and brave of heart"). For these words to be referencing the pillar, would they need to take a different form (dative? or accusative, like 'anne', 1495?)? I would love to justify reading the pillar as 'mihtig ond modrof', but my knowledge of the syntax and grammar is shaky.
Yeah, if it is all one continuous sentence then I believe those would have to be in accusative case, but when I read the text they just looked like freestanding interjections that could refer to either Andrew or the statue. And the sense of the passage seemed to demand description of the statue, not Andrew.
Could be me who has got it wrong, since a quick search of Beowulf shows that this sort of formula is not really used in this way. Will take a closer look at the rest of Andreas later.
Great stuff as always!
To take up just one point, it's interesting to see 'mihtig ond modrof' (1496) applied to the pillar - North & Bintley seem to translate it as referring to Andrew ("he with one of them / held conference, mighty and brave of heart"). For these words to be referencing the pillar, would they need to take a different form (dative? or accusative, like 'anne', 1495?)? I would love to justify reading the pillar as 'mihtig ond modrof', but my knowledge of the syntax and grammar is shaky.
Yeah, if it is all one continuous sentence then I believe those would have to be in accusative case, but when I read the text they just looked like freestanding interjections that could refer to either Andrew or the statue. And the sense of the passage seemed to demand description of the statue, not Andrew.
Could be me who has got it wrong, since a quick search of Beowulf shows that this sort of formula is not really used in this way. Will take a closer look at the rest of Andreas later.