The Old English Déor or “Deer”

A lament from the 10th century Exeter Book

In this short poem from the 10th century Exeter Book, the single largest collection of Old English poetry, the poet hints at the tragic lives of five figures from Germanic heroic legend, before telling of his own. The five figures are:

1. Wayland the Smith,¹ who was captured by the tyrant Nithad and forced to make jewelry for him and his family. He took revenge by raping

2. Nithad’s daughter, Beadhild. The child born from this act was Woody (OE Wudga), an obscure hero.

3. Mathild (Matilda), the protagonist of poorly attested love tragedy.

4. Thedric (Theoderic) the Great, who ruled over the Goths before

5. Erminric (Ermanaric). His cruelty and wolfishness may refer to his murder of Swanhild or Sunhilda, attested both in Jordanes and in much later Norse poetry.

After shortly describing these five lives, the poet reflects on the fickleness of the World (6). He then shares his own tragedy as an ousted court-poet (7).

His name, Déor, is the ancestor of modern English deer, and can mean this in Old English as well, but it can also mean ‘beast, animal’. It is not otherwise known as a personal name, but in Norse heroic poetry the hero Siward (Sigurðr) at one point calls himself gǫfugt dýr ‘noble beast/deer’.² Regardless of whether the story is fictional, the feelings expressed are genuine and the poem is very fine. I have attempted to render it as best I can in a literal translation that retains the style and feel of the original.

Deer.

1. Wayland with worms his exile experienced;
the one-minded earl hardship did suffer;
had him for fellows sorrow and longing,
winter-cold exile. Woes he often found,
since Nithad on him fetters did lay,
hard sinew-bonds on the better man.
That passed over; this may likewise.

2. For Beadhild was not her brothers’ deaths
on her heart so sore as her own thing:
that she clearly had understood
that she was pregnant. Never could she
readily think out what she should do about it.
That passed over; this may likewise.

3. That for Mathild many, we have heard,
bottomless [troubles] arose, for Geat’s beloved,
that the sorrowful love her of sleep all deprived.
That passed over; this may likewise.

4. Thedric owned for thirty winters
the fort of the Meerings; that was to many known.
That passed over; this may likewise.

5. We have learned of Erminric’s
wolven nature. He ruled widely the folk
of the realm of the Gots—that was a grim king!
Sat many a man by sorrows bound,
woes in his thoughts, wished aplenty
that that kingdom might be overcome.
That passed over; this may likewise.

6. One sits grieved with sorrow, of blessings bereft;
his heart darkens; to himself he thinks
that endless must be his share of hardships.
He may then think that through this world
the Wise Lord turns coat aplenty.
To many an earl honour he shows,
sure success—to another a share of woes.

7. This of myself I wish to say,
that for a while I was the Heedenings’s shop,
dear to their lord—Deer was my name.
I had for a great many winters a good retinue,
a true bread-giver, until Harrend now,
the lay-crafty man, the land-right has won,
that to me the shelter of earls of yore did grant.
That passed over; this may likewise.

Page 100r of the Exeter Book featuring the beginning of the poem, up to the second line of stanza five.

1. The story of Wayland is told more at length in the Norse Lay of Wayland, found in the Poetic Edda. See my translation.

2. Fáfnismǫ́l 2. See my post on the Stag as a heroic symbol.