Versions
The work exists in three versions: a prose version in Cotton Vitellius A.xv, and two versions in alliterative verse, one (in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 422) being interspersed with prose.
One of the poetic versions uses the runic alphabet as a sort of riddling shorthand in which runic characters stand for the words in Old English that name them. From this, we know some of the names for the extended set of runes used to write Old English. The prose version has as one of its riddles: "Who invented letters? Mercurius the giant", who is Woden (known in Old Norse as Óðinnr, and as Odin). The Anglo-Saxons routinely identified Mercury with Woden; both rule Wednesday (which takes its name from Woden in English).
The poetic version has been cited as an example of orientalism with the suggestion that it screens anxieties about the cultural identity of the English people. Kathryn Powell claims that at the time it was preserved in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge England was beset by anxieties about the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, the stability of the kingdom and the efficacy of religious faith. She argues that by displacing ignorance, political instability and lack of faith onto the Eastern and pagan Chaldean people as represented by Saturn, English people were encouraged to identify with ideals and behaviours of the Christianised figure of Solomon. This is cited as an example of bolstering English Christian culture through degrading the east.
Read more about this topic: Solomon And Saturn
Famous quotes containing the word versions:
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)