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PREFACE. v
till the Deluge. His head was then swept to Jerusalem, and remained
in the gateway till Christ's cross was planted therein (2229-2240).
Enos, Noah, and other patriarchs are then mentioned (2241-2292).
The numbers of years from Adam to the Deluge, from the Deluge to
Abraham, from Adam to the birth of Christ (2293-2336), the number of
years to the murrain, the names of some of the leading princes reigning
about that time in Ireland and in Scotland, those of Eadgar on one side
of the English Channel and Hlothair on the other, an allusion to the
ravages caused by the Danes from Denmark (2337-2380) : the rest till
the day of doom nobody could declare except the high King of the sun,
whose life never ends (2381-2388).
The tradition mentioned in lines 7529, 7530, that Christ was born
from the crown of the Virgin's head, is worth noting 1
; and the description
of some of the signs at the Crucifixion (7761-7772) may be quoted
as a specimen of the style of the poem (I omit two chevilles), and as
illustrating Sophus Bugge's theories about the Baldr-saga :
Darkness sprang over every plain :
Earth's dead arose :
Dear God's elements were afraid
When the veil of the temple was rent.
Every creature wailed
Heaven and earth trembled :
The sea proceeded to go over (its) bounds :
Hearts of black rocks split.
The King who suffered in (his) fair clay,
A cross for sake of Adam's children,
Thereafter took a prey (of redeemed souls),
So that he overcame Hell.
—
The metre in which the bulk of the Saltair is composed is deibidc,
each line of the quatrain consisting of seven syllables, the second and
1 So according to the A.S. Adrian and Ritheus (Kemble, Salomon and Saturnus,
p. 204) Christ was born of his Mother, ' fmrh )>xt swí¥re breóst,' through her right
breast. So the Bodhisattva was born from Máyá's right side (Kern, Der Buddhismus,
30, n.). See, too, other strange births, Liebrecht, Volkskunde, 490 ; and note the
punishment of certain sinners, Visio Tnugdali, ed. Wagner, 1882, p. 28 : 'Pariebant,
dico, non solum femine, set et viri, non tantum per ipsa membra, que natura
constituit tali officio convenientia, verum per brachia simul et per pectora, exibantque
erumpentes per cuncta membra.'
—