FOURTH TO NINTH CENTURIES 19 
What must needs be the first mention ‘of the Solan Goose 
is discoverable in the Anglo-Saxon poetry here referred to, 
in what is knewn as the romance or poem of Beowulf. 
Here the most noticeable bird of the ocean, the Gannet, 
at once becomes emblematic, and the sea was figuratively 
referred to as its bath. In this sense— 
' .... Manig otherne 
godum gegrettan ofer ganotes bed 
sceal hring-naca ofer hea-thu bringan 
lac and luf-tacen. 
(Translation): . . . Many a one shall greet the other with 
benefits, over the Gannet’s bath; the ringed ship shall bring 
over the deeps offerings and tokens of love. 
It is difficult to fix the date of the writing of this poem, 
which, thanks to the Early English Text Society, is accessible 
in autotype, but it was subsequent and possibly long subse- 
quent to a.D. 597. The margins of the MS. are unfortunately 
sadly worn, and the word “‘ ganotes ”’ scarcely legible. 
The next mention of the Gannet is to be found in 
the celebrated “Codex Exoniensis”’ in an Anglo-Saxon song 
“The Perils of The Seafarer,” which will be quoted from Mr. 
Benjamin Thorpe’s translation :— 
Translation. 
“ At times the swan’s song 
I made to me for pastime, 
the ganet’s cry, 
and the ‘ hu-ilpe’s’ note ; 
for men’s laughter, 
the men singing ; 
for mead-drinking, 
storms there the stone-cliffs beat ; 
there them the starling answer’d, 
icy of wings. 
Full oft the eagle scream’d, 
dewy of wings. 
So also the cuckoo exhorts * 
with mournful voice.”’ 
* The Cuckoo also comes into ‘“ The Legend of Saint Guthlac’ (Bk. VL.}. 
