Old English text translation

The Old English Texts (1) - (6) have been normalised into Early West Saxon. The punctuation of all texts in this section is editorial, since the originals were only irregularly punctuated; the punctuation is designed to help the modern reader. Texts (1), (2) and (4), taken from the OE translation of the Bible, and Text (3), from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, have been rewritten to remove obscurities or irregularities which may confuse beginners, in the same way that texts designed for foreign learners of PDE are frequently rewritten; they have also been accompanied by very literal translations. For normalised but otherwise unmodified versions of these texts, see Sweet 1953. Texts (5) and (6), Cædmon’s Hymn, and a selection of two passages from The Dream of the Rood, however, have not been rewritten, although they have been normalised; for easily-accessible, non-normalised versions of these texts, see H.Sweet (rev. D. Whitelock), Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). Texts (7) and (8), a portion of a homily by Ælfric and a passage from the great OE epic poem Beowulf, have neither been rewritten nor normalised, and may act as “bridge” texts to more advanced work.