Aldfrith and Beozvulf 317 



As for Aldfrith, we have seen how studious he was, how liter- 

 ary, how virtuous, and, on at least one occasion, how urbane — 

 when, though in the sequel he showed himself unyielding in a 

 matter of the greatest concern, he met with courtesy the envoys 

 dispatched to him by Wilfrith.^ Accordingly, we must first of 

 all seek what there was in his character and circumstances which 

 could be converted by the poet to his uses ; and, since we have 

 been considering the episode of Offa and Thryth, it is natural at 

 the outset to dwell upon hitherto neglected features of that. 

 Osthryth was Ecgfrith's sister,- and therefore Aldfrith's half- 

 sister. She was so much under Ecgfrith's influence that she dis- 

 played indecent haste in ridding her realm of Wilfrith's presence; 

 and her unloveliness — to call it by no harsher name — may well have 

 been the cause of her violent death. Ecgfrith himself had been 

 capable of the wanton attack upon the Irish — some of whom were 

 Aldfrith's kinsfolk — a year before Aldfrith succeeded him on the 

 throne; and he had willingly allowed the latter to remain for 

 many years an exile, if indeed he was not directly responsible for 

 his banishment. We may fairly assume, then, an estrangement, 

 not only between Aldfrith and his half-brother the king, but also 

 between Aldfrith and his half-sister, the Mercian queen. The 

 royal family having been introduced into the poem by the bard of 

 the court, and displayed in an unfavorable light, what remained 

 except to introduce Aldfrith himself in an agreeable aspect, and 

 that in the same context? This, then, w^e may conceive of the 

 poet as doing in lines 1955-60''^, by making Aldfrith, under the 

 name of Ofifa, the husband, instead of the brother, of the queen, 

 and crediting his goodness with the power to redeem even her 

 f roward nature — while at the same time throwing the whole epi- 

 sode back more than three hundred years, and identifying Aldfrith 

 with the semi-mythical Offa, the most famous of the Anglian 

 kings of the Continent. The passage^ illustrating this introduces 

 Thryth after she has become queen in Offa's hall (1951^-60^) : 

 'There, while she lived, she enjoyed her destiny upon the throne, 

 famed for her goodness. She held high love toward the prince 

 of heroes, who, as I have heard, was the best of all mankind 



^ Above, p. 308. 

 ^ Eccl. Hist. 4. 21. 

 ' Tinker's translation. 



