The Chronicle
Old English Reading 1
Chapter 4 · The Chronicle
📜 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Back to prose, and to plain narrative. The Chronicle records events year by year in short entries. Four of them, about the arrival of the English and what followed, make a compact reading: short sentences, concrete words, and a lot of cases at work.
The text
455. Her Hengest and Horsa fuhton wið Wyrtgerne þam cininge on þære stowe þe is cweden .Ægeles þrep. and his broðor Horsan man of sloh. and æfter þonn feng to rice Hengest. and Æsc his sunu.
here Hengest and Horsa fought against Wyrtgern the king at the place which is called Ægeles þrep, and his brother Horsa one slew, and after that took to kingdom Hengest and Æsc his son
"In this year Hengest and Horsa fought against King Wyrtgern at the place that is called Ægeles þrep, and they killed his brother Horsa; and after that Hengest, and Æsc his son, took the kingdom."
465. Her Hengest and Æsc gefuhton wið Walas neh Wippedes fleote. and ðær of slogon xii Wilsce ealdor men. and heora an þegn wearð þær of slegen. þam wæs nama Wipped.
here Hengest and Æsc fought against Welsh near Wipped's stream, and there slew twelve Welsh chief-men, and their one thane was there slain; to-whom was name Wipped
"In this year Hengest and Æsc fought against the Welsh near Wipped's stream, and killed twelve Welsh leaders there; and one of their own thanes was killed there, whose name was Wipped."
473. Her Hengest and Æsc ge fuhton wið Walas. and genamon unarimenlicu here reaf. and þa Walas flugon þa Englan swiðe þaearle.
here Hengest and Æsc fought against Welsh, and took countless army-booty, and the Welsh fled the English very (þaearle)
"In this year Hengest and Æsc fought against the Welsh, and took countless war-spoils; and the Welsh fled from the English very (severely?)."
477. Her com Ælle on Brytenland. and his iii suna. Cymen. and Wlencing. and Cissa. mid iii scipum on ða stowe þe is genemnad Cymenesora. and þær of slogon manige Walas. and sume on fleame be drifon. on þone wudu þe is nemned Andredes lege.
here came Ælle to Britain, and his three sons Cymen and Wlencing and Cissa, with three ships, to that place which is named Cymenesora, and there slew many Welsh, and some in flight drove into the wood which is called Andredes lege
"In this year Ælle came to Britain, and his three sons Cymen and Wlencing and Cissa, with three ships, to the place that is called Cymenesora; and they killed many Welsh there, and drove some to flight into the wood that is called Andredes lege."
Source: Wikisource, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E), annals 455, 465, 473 and 477, from Plummer's 1892 edition; text CC BY-SA 4.0 on the page (the underlying work is public domain). Text as printed there. The page gives no translation: the glosses and translations are mine, so they are marked as mine and unverified. The Old English is exactly as the page prints it, including its quirks (see the Watch out box).
Reading it: the routine in action
Annal 455
- Her opens each annal. Wikisource says it means "in this year".
- Verb and subject: fuhton, the past plural of feohtan "fight", agreeing with Hengest and Horsa. The plural past takes -on, as with stǣlon in Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 9.
- Cases: þam cininge is the article þām (Chapter 5) with a noun ending in -e: a dative singular, so wið "against" has a dative here. on þære stowe is þǣre (feminine dative) plus stowe "place": "at the place".
- Passive-looking phrase: is cweden "is called" is a form of wesan plus a past participle in -en. þe is the relative word again (Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 10). The place-name Ægeles þrep is left unglossed because I do not know the meaning of þrep.
- "They killed": man of sloh has the word man "one, someone" (my own knowledge; Wikisource does not gloss it) and of sloh "slew". Horsan is the object. The verb is last here, which is not the verb-second order of a main clause; the clause comes after and, and I did not read a rule explaining it.
- Verb-second in action: æfter þonn feng to rice Hengest. The sentence opens with æfter þonn "after that"; the verb feng comes second; the subject Hengest follows. That is the inversion of Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 10.
Annal 465
- wið Walas uses wið with a plural in -as, which I read as an accusative plural (Chapter 2). So the same preposition appears with a dative in 455 and an accusative here. As I read it, the ending of the noun, not the preposition, tells you the case.
- neh Wippedes fleote "near Wipped's stream": a genitive (-es) and a dative (-e).
- wearð ... slegen is weorðan "become" plus a past participle: "was slain". Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 8 noted that Old English had no passive of its own; this is the substitute.
- þam wæs nama Wipped is literally "to whom was name Wipped": a dative of possession, my reading of the form.
Annal 473
- ge fuhton is printed with a space, but it is the same verb as gefuhton in 465. The prefix ġe- adds a sense of completion; I did not read a rule for this.
- unarimenlicu "countless" agrees with here reaf, my reading of "army-spoils".
- þa Walas flugon þa Englan has two nouns after þa, and the forms alone do not make clear to me which side fled. The sense decides: "the Welsh fled the English". This is a good reminder that endings sometimes need context.
- þaearle is printed so on Wikisource. It may be a misprint for þearle ("severely", my reading), so I leave it glossed with a question mark.
Annal 477
- com is the past singular of cuman "come": no ending, a strong past. The subject Ælle comes with his iii suna, the three sons; the verb agrees with the first subject only.
- mid iii scipum "with three ships": -um, dative plural after mid.
- on ða stowe has ða, not þære as in 455. I read that as an accusative after a verb of motion ("came to the place") against the dative of rest ("at the place") in 455. This is my own reading of the two forms, not something the page or Old English Grammar 1 states.
- genemnad and nemned are both the past participle of "to name" in the phrase "is named / is called", and the spelling differs within one annal.
- be drifon is printed as two words; it is the verb bedrīfan "drove" with its prefix split off. on fleame is a dative, "in flight". on þone wudu uses þone, the accusative masculine, "into the wood".
New words
| Old English | Meaning | Modern English relative |
|---|---|---|
| her | here; "in this year" | here |
| fuhton | fought | fought |
| cining | king | king |
| stow | place | (as in Stow, a place-name) |
| broðor | brother | brother |
| sunu | son | son |
| rice | kingdom | (cf. German Reich) |
| Walas | the Welsh, Britons | Welsh |
| þegn | thane | thane |
| scip | ship | ship |
| wudu | wood | wood |
The meanings are my glosses from the context of the annals, not taken from Wikisource, which gives no translation. The "Modern English relative" column is my own knowledge.
- These four annals spell out and. Elsewhere on the page there are scribal abbreviations (for example ꝥ in the 449 annal and tilde marks in sc̃s), which appear in the Wikisource text but not in these four annals.
- Numbers are Roman numerals: xii is twelve, iii is three.
- Mixed þ and ð: þær and ðær are the same word.
- Prefixes split from the verb: ge fuhton, be drifon, and ealdor men.
- No dots over ġ or ċ, and few macrons. The page says macrons appear only "in places".
- Spelling varies: cininge where you might expect cyning; Walas and Wilsce for the Welsh.
- The page text is partial: it ends at the 477 annal in what the tool returned, and the page footnotes are English commentary, not translation.
📋 Quick Reference
| Feature | Where |
|---|---|
| Annal opening | Her + subject + verb |
| Strong past plural | fuhton, slogon, flugon, genamon |
| Strong past singular | sloh, feng, com |
| Passive by participle | wearð slegen, is cweden |
| Verb-second with fronted adverbial | æfter þonn feng ... Hengest |
| Datives | þam cininge, þære stowe, scipum, fleote |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. What does Her mean at the start of an annal?
Show answer
"In this year" (Wikisource's note on the entries); literally "here".
2. What tense and number is fuhton, and how do you know?
Show answer
Past plural: the ending -on on a strong past stem (Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 9).
3. What does þam tell you about cininge in 455?
Show answer
That it is dative masculine singular, "the king", after wið (Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 5).
4. In æfter þonn feng to rice Hengest, why does the subject come last?
Show answer
The sentence opens with an adverbial (æfter þonn), the verb takes the second place, and the subject follows it.
5. Translate and his broðor Horsan man of sloh.
Show answer
"And they killed his brother Horsa" (literally "one slew"). man is "one"; this reading of man is mine.
6. How is "was slain" built in 465?
Show answer
wearð (past of weorðan) plus the past participle slegen.
7. What ending is on Walas, and what does it usually mark?
Show answer
-as, the plural of the commonest noun class (Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 2).
8. What ending is on scipum in 477, and why?
Show answer
-um, the dative plural, after mid "with".
9. Find two ways the annals say "is called". What do they have in common?
Show answer
is cweden (455), is genemnad and is nemned (477): each is "is" plus a past participle.
10. wið appears with þam cininge and with Walas. How does that change how you read a preposition?
Show answer
As I read the endings, the same preposition can take different cases, so read the ending of the noun rather than assuming one case per preposition. This is my reading of two examples, not a rule I read in a source.