This is the third in a series of Old English readings. If you haven't read the previous entries in the series yet, <a href="/articles/old-english-reading-matthew-12">start there</a>.
Like the previous texts, this text is lightly adapted from <a href="https://archive.org/details/ananglosaxonrea00whitgoog/page/n158/mode/2up">Sweet's reader</a>.
I have added explanatory notes for:
<ol>
 <li>All the words that did not appear in the previous reading,</li>
 <li>All words not on the <a href="/articles/old-english-vocabulary">basic vocabulary list</a></li>
 <li>All grammar points that might be tricky for a beginner</li>
</ol>
Happy reading!<aside class="flex flex-col text-md items-start bg-white dark:bg-black p-8"><h2 class="mt-0 mb-4 text-lg">By the way...</h2>If you find this content interesting, consider subscribing to my newsletter to hear when something new gets published.<div class="not-prose"><a class="button button-primary mt-1 py-2" href="https://colingorrie.substack.com"><svg stroke="currentColor" fill="currentColor" stroke-width="0" role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="h-4 w-4 mx-1 inline-block mr-2" height="1em" width="1em" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title></title><path d="M22.539 8.242H1.46V5.406h21.08v2.836zM1.46 10.812V24L12 18.11 22.54 24V10.812H1.46zM22.54 0H1.46v2.836h21.08V0z"></path></svg>Read on Substack</a></div></aside>
<h2>Matthew 13:3–8</h2>
Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew. Here is the complete text.
<blockquote>
 Sōþlīċe ūt eode se sāwere his sǣd tō sāwenne. And þā þā hē sēow, sume hiġ fēollon wiþ weġ, and fuglas cumon and ǣton þā. Sōþlīċe sume fēollon on stǣnihte, þǣr hit næfde myċle eorþan, and hrædliċe upp sprungon, for þām þe hiġ næfdon eorþan dȳpan; sōþlīċe upp sprungenre sunnan, hiġ ādruwedon and forsċruncon, for þām þe hiġ næfdon wyrtruman. Sōþlīċe sume fēollon on þornas, and þā þornas wēoxon, and forþrysmodon þā. Sume sōþlīċe fēollon on gōde eorþan, and sealdon wæstm, sum hundfealdne, sum sixtiġfealdne, sum þrittiġfealdne.
</blockquote>
Let's break it down into more manageable parts.

 Sōþlīċe ūt eode se sāwere his sǣd tō sāwenne.
 Now out went the sower to sow his seeds.

<ul>
 <li>ūt out.</li>
 <li>eode went. Irregular past tense of gān to go in its 1st/3rd person singular form.</li>
 <li>sāwere sower. From the verb sāwan to sow (seeds).</li>
 <li>sǣd seeds. Accusative plural (or singular) of sǣd seed.<a href="#user-content-fn-3a" id="user-content-fnref-3a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a></li>
 <li>tō sāwenne to sow. Sāwenne is the inflected infinitive of sāwan to sow. The inflected infinitive is used to express purpose, among other things.</li>
</ul>

 And þā þā hē sēow, sume hiġ fēollon wiþ weġ,
 And when he sowed, some of them fell along the road,

<ul>
 <li>þā þā when.</li>
 <li>sēow sowed. Past tense of sāwan to sow in its 1st/3rd person singular form.</li>
 <li>sume some. Nominative plural neuter strong form of sum one, a certain; some.</li>
 <li>hiġ they. Variant form of hīe they.<a href="#user-content-fn-4a" id="user-content-fnref-4a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a></li>
 <li>wiþ against; along; with.</li>
 <li>weġ way, road.</li>
</ul>

 and fuglas cumon and ǣton þā.
 and birds came and ate them.

<ul>
 <li>fuglas birds. Nominative plural of fugol bird (> fowl).</li>
 <li>ǣton ate. Past tense of etan to eat, in its plural form.</li>
 <li>þā them. Neuter accusative plural of hīe they.</li>
</ul>

 Sōþlīċe sume fēollon on stǣnihte, þǣr hit næfde myċle eorþan,
 Now some fell on stony (places), where it did not have much earth.

<ul>
 <li>stǣnihte stony (ones). Variant form of stāniht stony. Accusative plural neuter strong form, governed by on onto).</li>
 <li>þǣr where.</li>
 <li>næfde = ne hæfde did not have.<a href="#user-content-fn-4a" id="user-content-fnref-4a-2" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a> Hæfde is the 1st/3rd person singular past tense form of habban to have.</li>
 <li>myċle much. Feminine accusative singular strong form of miċil much, many, agreeing with eorþan earth.</li>
 <li>eorþan earth. Accusative singular of eorþe earth.</li>
</ul>

 and hrædliċe upp sprungon, for þām þe hiġ næfdon eorþan dȳpan;
 And at once they sprang up, because they did not have depth of earth.

<ul>
 <li>hrædliċe promptly, at once.</li>
 <li>upp up. Variant form of ūp.</li>
 <li>sprungon sprang. Past plural form of springan to leap; burst forth; spring.</li>
 <li>for þām þe because.</li>
 <li>eorþan of earth. Genitive singular form of eorþe earth.<a href="#user-content-fn-5a" id="user-content-fnref-5a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">3</a></li>
 <li>dȳpan depth. Accusative singular form of dȳpe depth (variant of dīepe).</li>
</ul>

 sōþlīċe upp sprungenre sunnan, hiġ ādruwedon and forsċruncon,
 Then the sun having sprung up, they dried up and withered.

<ul>
 <li>sprungenre sprung. Feminine dative singular of (ġe)sprungen, past participle of springan to leap; burst forth; spring. In agreement with sunnan sun</li>
 <li>sunnan sun. Dative singular form of sunne sun. Together sprungenre sunnan is a dative absolute clause,<a href="#user-content-fn-6a" id="user-content-fnref-6a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">4</a> which expresses the circumstances under which something has taken place. They have the structure X(dative) Y(dative), where X is usually a noun and Y is usually a participle. X and Y can appear in either order. You can translate these constructions as X having Y or with X having Y, as I have here with the sun having sprung up.</li>
 <li>ādruwedon dried up. Past plural form of ādrȳġan to dry up. The textbook past tense form of this verb is ādrȳġdon, but, in Old English as in so many things, real life isn't always like the textbook.</li>
 <li>forsċruncon withered. Past plural form of forsċrincan to shrink up, wither.</li>
</ul>

 for þām þe hiġ næfdon wyrtruman.
 because they did not have roots.

<ul>
 <li>wyrtruman roots. Accusative plural of wyrtruma (var. of wyrttruma root).<a href="#user-content-fn-6b" id="user-content-fnref-6b" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">5</a></li>
</ul>

 Sōþlīċe sume fēollon on þornas,
 Some, however, fell on thorns,

<ul>
 <li>þornas thorns. Accusative plural of þorn thorn.</li>
</ul>

 and þā þornas wēoxon, and forþrysmodon þā.
 and the thorns grew, and choked them.

<ul>
 <li>þā þornas the thorns. Here þornas is nominative plural.</li>
 <li>wēoxon grew. Past plural form of (ġe)weaxan to grow. Compare Present-Day English wax, something the moon does for about half of the month.</li>
 <li>forþrysmodon choked. Past plural form of forþrysmodon to choke.</li>
</ul>

 Sume sōþlīċe fēollon on gōde eorþan, and sealdon wæstm,
 Some, however, fell onto good earth, and gave fruit.

<ul>
 <li>gōde good. Feminine accusative singular form of gōd good. Accusative agreeing with eorþan earth, the phrase as a whole taking accusative due to on in its directional meaning onto.</li>
 <li>sealdon gave. Past plural form of sellan to give; betray.<a href="#user-content-fn-7a" id="user-content-fnref-7a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">6</a></li>
 <li>wæstm fruit. From the same root as weaxan to grow. No descendant form survives in Present-Day English.</li>
</ul>

 sum hundfealdne, sum sixtiġfealdne, sum þrittiġfealdne.
 some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

<ul>
 <li>hundfealdne hundredfold. Masculine accusative singular form of hundfeald, agreeing with an elided wæstm fruit.</li>
 <li>sixtiġfealdne sixtyfold. Ditto.</li>
 <li>þrittiġfealdne thirtyfold. Ditto.</li>
</ul>
<h2>References</h2>
<ul>
 <li>Sweet, Henry (1879). An Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. Oxford: Clarendon.</li>
</ul>
<section data-footnotes="" class="footnotes">
 <h2 class="sr-only" id="footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
 <ol>
 <li id="user-content-fn-3a">
 The word sǣd is the same in the singular and plural in the nominative and accusative cases. <a href="#user-content-fnref-3a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-4a">
 sume hiġ some of them, literally some they. <a href="#user-content-fnref-4a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a> <a href="#user-content-fnref-4a-2" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩2</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-5a">
 Nouns of this declension (called n-stems, or weak nouns) is sometimes difficult to translate because so many forms take the same ending: -an. <a href="#user-content-fnref-5a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-6a">
 The dative absolute construction in Old-English is comparable to the Latin ablative absolute construction. <a href="#user-content-fnref-6a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-6b">
 Etymologically, wyrttruma is a compound of wyrt plant (as in St. John's Wort) and truma troop of soldiers, which does not survive. <a href="#user-content-fnref-6b" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-7a">
 The principal meaning of sellan in Old English was to give, and secondarily to betray, that is, to sell (someone) out. The main modern meaning involving commerce is a later development which only starts appearing at the very end of the Old English period. <a href="#user-content-fnref-7a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 </ol>
</section>

Old English Graded Reader #3. Matthew 13:3–8

This is the second in a series of Old English readings. If you haven't read the first yet, <a href="/articles/old-english-reading-matthew-12">start there</a>.
Like the previous text, this text is lightly adapted from <a href="https://archive.org/details/ananglosaxonrea00whitgoog/page/n158/mode/2up">Sweet's reader</a>.
I have added explanatory notes for:
<ol>
 <li>All the words that did not appear in the previous reading,</li>
 <li>All words not on the <a href="/articles/old-english-vocabulary">basic vocabulary list</a></li>
 <li>All grammar points that might be tricky for a beginner</li>
</ol>
Happy reading!<aside class="flex flex-col text-md items-start bg-white dark:bg-black p-8"><h2 class="mt-0 mb-4 text-lg">By the way...</h2>If you find this content interesting, consider subscribing to my newsletter to hear when something new gets published.<div class="not-prose"><a class="button button-primary mt-1 py-2" href="https://colingorrie.substack.com"><svg stroke="currentColor" fill="currentColor" stroke-width="0" role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="h-4 w-4 mx-1 inline-block mr-2" height="1em" width="1em" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title></title><path d="M22.539 8.242H1.46V5.406h21.08v2.836zM1.46 10.812V24L12 18.11 22.54 24V10.812H1.46zM22.54 0H1.46v2.836h21.08V0z"></path></svg>Read on Substack</a></div></aside>
<h2>Matthew 12:18–21</h2>
Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew. Here is the complete text.
<blockquote>
 Hēr is mīn cnapa, þone iċ ġeċēas; mīn ġecorena, on þām wel ġelīcode mīnre sāwle. Iċ āsette mīnne gāst ofer hine, and dōm hē bodaþ þēodum. Ne flīt hē, ne hē ne hrȳmþ; ne nān mann ne ġehȳrþ his stemne on strǣtum. Tōcwȳsed hrēod hē ne forbrȳt, and smēocende fleax hē ne ādwǣsċþ, ǣr þām þe hē āwurpe dōm tō siġe. And on his naman þēoda ġehyhtaþ.
</blockquote>
Let's break it down into more manageable parts.
Hēr is mīn cnapa, þone iċ ġeċēas; Here is my servant, whom I have chosen;
<ul>
 <li>hēr here.</li>
 <li>is is. 3rd person singular present form of wesan to be.</li>
 <li>cnapa boy, young man; servant.<a href="#user-content-fn-18b" id="user-content-fnref-18b" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a></li>
 <li>þone whom. Accusative singular form of the definite article sē he.<a href="#user-content-fn-18a" id="user-content-fnref-18a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a></li>
 <li>iċ I.</li>
 <li>ġeċēas chose. 1st person singular past form of ġeċēosan to choose.<a href="#user-content-fn-18c" id="user-content-fnref-18c" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">3</a></li>
</ul>
mīn ġecorena, on þām wel ġelīcode mīnre sāwle. my chosen one, in whom my soul has been well pleased.<a href="#user-content-fn-18d" id="user-content-fnref-18d" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">4</a>
<ul>
 <li>ġecorena chosen (one). Nominative singular masculine weak form of ġecoren, the past participle of ġeċēosan to chose</li>
 <li>þām whom. Dative singular form of the definite article sē he.</li>
 <li>wel well.</li>
 <li>ġelīcode it was pleasing. 3rd person past form of ġelīcan/ġelīcian to delight, please.<a href="#user-content-fn-18e" id="user-content-fnref-18e" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">5</a>. Grammatically, an impersonal form: on X ġelīcode Y in X it was pleasing to Y, but best translated in a more idiomatic way, such as X was pleasing to Y.</li>
 <li>mīnre. Dative singular feminine form of mīn my. Agreeing with the feminine noun sāwol soul.</li>
 <li>sāwle soul. Dative singular form of sāwol soul.</li>
</ul>
Iċ āsette mīnne gāst ofer hine, I will place my spirit over him,<a href="#user-content-fn-18f" id="user-content-fnref-18f" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">6</a>
<ul>
 <li>āsette (I) place. 1st person singular present from of āsettan to place, set up.</li>
 <li>minne my. Accusative singular masculine form of mīn my. Agreeing with the masculine noun gāst spirit.</li>
 <li>gāst spirit.</li>
 <li>hine him, accusative singular governed by ofer over.</li>
</ul>
and dōm hē bodaþ þēodum. and judgement he will proclaim to the nations.
<ul>
 <li>dōm judgement; law.</li>
 <li>hē he.</li>
 <li>bodaþ (he) proclaims. 3rd person singular present form of bodian to proclaim, tell; show.</li>
 <li>þēodum to (the) nations. Dative plural form of þēod nation.</li>
</ul>
Ne flīt hē, ne hē ne hrȳmþ,<a href="#user-content-fn-19a" id="user-content-fnref-19a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">7</a> He will not contend, nor will he shout,
<ul>
 <li>flīt (he) contends. 3rd person singular present form of flītan to contend, strive.</li>
 <li>ne... ne. Multiple negation is used for emphasis, not to negate the negation and thereby make a positive.</li>
 <li>hrȳmþ (he) shouts. 3rd person singular present form of hrȳman/hrīeman to shout, scream.</li>
</ul>
ne nān mann ne ġehȳrþ his stemne on strǣtum nor will any person hear his voice in the streets.
<ul>
 <li>nān not... one; not... any. Ne... ān.</li>
 <li>stemne voice. Accusative singular of stemn/stefn voice.</li>
 <li>strǣtum streets. Dative plural of strǣt street, road, governed by on in.</li>
</ul>
Tōcwȳsed hrēod hē ne forbrȳt, A bruised reed he will not break,
<ul>
 <li>tōcwȳsed bruised. Past participle of tōcwȳsan/tōcwīsan to shatter, crush; bruise.</li>
 <li>hrēod reed.</li>
 <li>forbrȳt (he) breaks. 3rd person singular present form of forbryttan to break, smash, crush.</li>
</ul>
and smēocende fleax hē ne ādwǣsċþ, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish,
<ul>
 <li>smēocende smoking. Present participle of smēocan to (give off) smoke.</li>
 <li>fleax flax.</li>
 <li>ādwǣsċþ (he) extinguishes. 3rd person singular present form of ādwǣsċan to extinguish, quench.</li>
</ul>
ǣr þām þe hē āwurpe dōm tō siġe. until he has sent forth judgement to victory.
<ul>
 <li>ǣr þām þe before, until.</li>
 <li>āwurpe (he) sent forth. Singular past form of āweorpan to cast off, cast away; send forth.</li>
 <li>tō to</li>
 <li>siġe victory</li>
</ul>
And on his naman þēoda ġehyhtaþ. And in his name the nations will trust.
<ul>
 <li>naman name. Dative singular of nama name, governed by on in.</li>
 <li>ġehyhtaþ (they) trust. Plural present form of ġehyhtan to trust.</li>
</ul>
<h2>References</h2>
<ul>
 <li>Sweet, Henry (1879). An Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. Oxford: Clarendon.</li>
</ul>
<section data-footnotes="" class="footnotes">
 <h2 class="sr-only" id="footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
 <ol>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18b">
 Cnapa servant is related to Present-Day English knave, which is descended from the OE form cnafa servant. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18b" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18a">
 Recall from the <a href="/articles/old-english-reading-matthew-7">previous reading</a> that the definite article can be used as a relative pronoun, as it is here, referring back to cnapa. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18c">
 Sometimes the Present-Day English seems to require a present perfect form have V-ing when translating the Old English simple past. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18c" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18d">
 Literally, in whom it has been well pleasing to my soul. See the note under ġelīcode for details. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18d" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18e">
 It is easy to confuse ġelīcian to delight, please with ġelīċian to imitate; to compare, liken, especially in texts which do not mark the palatals. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18e" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-18f">
 Grammatically, the verbs in this sentence (and most of the following lines) are in the present tense. But, as Old English had no separate future tense, the present tense sometimes expressing future meaning. This is also sometims true in Present-Day English: We leave tomorrow. Here we have good reason to translate āsette as will place and bodaþ as will proclaim because the Latin original that this is a translation of has future forms ponam will place and nuntiabit will proclaim. <a href="#user-content-fnref-18f" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-19a">
 Note that the word order with the negative marker ne is often verb-second: hē flīt he contends, but ne flīt hē he does not contend. <a href="#user-content-fnref-19a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 </ol>
</section>

Old English Graded Reader #2. Matthew 12:18–21

Old English Vocabulary: Your First 700 Words

The following text is lightly adapted from <a href="https://archive.org/details/ananglosaxonrea00whitgoog/page/n158/mode/2up">Sweet's reader</a>,<a href="#user-content-fn-1" id="user-content-fnref-1" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a> a collection of Old English texts for learners now in the public domain. This is one of the easiest texts in that collection and is a good place to start for students of Old English who are interested in beginning to read.
As this is a beginner-level text, I have glossed all the words and all grammar points that might be tricky to a beginner. Happy reading!<aside class="flex flex-col text-md items-start bg-white dark:bg-black p-8"><h2 class="mt-0 mb-4 text-lg">By the way...</h2>If you find this content interesting, consider subscribing to my newsletter to hear when something new gets published.<div class="not-prose"><a class="button button-primary mt-1 py-2" href="https://colingorrie.substack.com"><svg stroke="currentColor" fill="currentColor" stroke-width="0" role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="h-4 w-4 mx-1 inline-block mr-2" height="1em" width="1em" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title></title><path d="M22.539 8.242H1.46V5.406h21.08v2.836zM1.46 10.812V24L12 18.11 22.54 24V10.812H1.46zM22.54 0H1.46v2.836h21.08V0z"></path></svg>Read on Substack</a></div></aside>
<h2>Matthew 7:24–27</h2>
Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew.<a href="#user-content-fn-2" id="user-content-fnref-2" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a> Here is the complete text.
<blockquote>
 Ǣlċ þǣra þe þās mīne word ġehȳrþ, and þā wyrcþ, biþ ġelīċ þām wīsan were, se his hūs ofer stān ġetimbrode. Þā cōm þǣr rēn and myċel flōd, and þǣr blēowon windas, and āhruron on þæt hūs, and hit nā ne fēoll: sōþlīċe hit wæs ofer stān ġetimbrod. And ǣlċ þǣra þe ġehȳrþ þās mīne word, and þā ne wyrcþ, se biþ ġelīċ þām dysiġan menn, þe ġetimbrode his hūs ofer sandċeosel. Þā rīnde hit, and þǣr cōm flōd, and blēowon windas, and āhruron on þæt hūs, and þæt hūs fēoll; and his hryre wæs myċel.
</blockquote>
Let's break it down into more manageable parts.
Ǣlċ þǣra þe þās mīne word<a href="#user-content-fn-24a" id="user-content-fnref-24a" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">3</a> ġehȳrþ, and þā wyrcþ, biþ ġelīċ þām wīsan were, Each of them that hears these words of mine, and works them, is like the wise man,
<ul>
 <li>ǣlċ each. Note that ǣlċ takes a genitive, just as its Present-Day English descendant each often takes of, e.g. each of them.</li>
 <li>þǣra of them. This is the genitive plural of the article se/þæt/sēo the. The genitive is required by ǣlċ each. It is often used, as it is here, as a weak demonstrative pronoun them.</li>
 <li>þe which, who, that. Marks a relative clause.</li>
 <li>þās the. This is the accusative plural of þes/þis/þēos this. It is accusative because it is agreeing with word words, the direct object of ġehȳrþ hears.</li>
 <li>mīne my. Accusative plural, agreeing with word words.</li>
 <li>word words. Accusative plural as it is the direct object of ġehȳrþ hears. Don't be fooled by the lack of ending: word is the same in the accusative singular and plural. You can tell word is plural here because of þās mīne.</li>
 <li>ġehȳrþ hears. 3rd person singular of ġehȳran to hear. The singular is used here because the true subject is ǣlċ each (one).</li>
 <li>and and.</li>
 <li>þā them. Accusative plural of se/þæt/sēo the, here being used as a weakly demonstrative pronoun, equivalent to them.</li>
 <li>wyrcþ works. 3rd person singular of wyrċan to make; to work; to do. A more idiomatic translation might be puts into practice.</li>
 <li>biþ is. 3rd person singular of bēon. Bēon is used to express general truths, which makes sense given the context: a parable.</li>
 <li>ġelīċ like. Note that ġelīċ requires a dative.</li>
 <li>þām the. Dative singular masculine of se/þæt/sēo the, agreeing with were man.</li>
 <li>wīsan wise. Dative singular weak form of wīs wise. Dative because it agrees with were man. Weak because it follows the definite article.</li>
 <li>were man. Dative singular of wer man, as required by ġelīċ like.</li>
</ul>
se his hūs ofer stān ġetimbrode.<a href="#user-content-fn-24b" id="user-content-fnref-24b" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">4</a> who built his house on stone.
<ul>
 <li>se who. Here the definite article is being used as a relative pronoun, referring back to were man.</li>
 <li>his his.</li>
 <li>hūs house.</li>
 <li>ofer over, on. Here, governing the accusative.</li>
 <li>stān stone. Accusative singular, governed by ofer.</li>
 <li>ġetimbrode built. 3rd person singular past form of ġetimbran to build.</li>
</ul>
Þā cōm þǣr rēn and myċel flōd, and þǣr blēowon windas, and āhruron on þæt hūs, and hit nā ne fēoll: Then there came rain and a great flood and there blew winds, and fell upon the house, and it did not fall down at all:
<ul>
 <li>þā then.</li>
 <li>cōm came. 3rd person singular past form of cuman to come.</li>
 <li>þǣr there. Here used existentially, as in the Present-Day English there is....</li>
 <li>rēn rain. Var. of reġn rain</li>
 <li>myċel great.</li>
 <li>flōd flowing waters; flood.</li>
 <li>blēowon blew. 3rd person plural past form of blāwan to blow.</li>
 <li>windas winds. Nominative plural of wind wind.</li>
 <li>āhruron fell. 3rd person plural past form of āhrēosan to fall (upon), attack.</li>
 <li>on upon, onto, into. Here taking the accusative case with a verb of motion āhrēosan to fall (upon).</li>
 <li>þæt the. Accusative singular neuter form of se/þæt/sēo.</li>
 <li>hūs house.</li>
 <li>hit it. Neuter because referring back to þæt hūs.</li>
 <li>nā ne not at all.</li>
 <li>fēoll fell down. 3rd person singular past form of feallan to fall (down).</li>
</ul>
sōþlīċe hit wæs ofer stān ġetimbrod. For it was built on stone.
<ul>
 <li>sōþlīċe indeed, for, however</li>
 <li>wæs was. 3rd person singular past form of wesan to be.</li>
 <li>ġetimbrod built. Past participle of ġetimbran to build.</li>
</ul>
And ǣlċ þǣra þe ġehȳrþ þās mīne word, and þā ne wyrcþ, se biþ ġelīċ þām dysiġan menn, þe ġetimbrode his hūs ofer sandċeosel. And each of them that hears these words of mine, and does not work them, he is like the foolish man, who built his house on sand.
<ul>
 <li>ne not.</li>
 <li>dysiġan foolish. Dative singular weak form of dysiġ foolish.<a href="#user-content-fn-24c" id="user-content-fnref-24c" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">5</a> Dative because it agrees with menn man. Weak because it follows the definite article.</li>
 <li>menn man. Dative singular of mann man (hence the umlaut-affected form menn), governed by ġelīċ like.<a href="#user-content-fn-24d" id="user-content-fnref-24d" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">6</a></li>
 <li>sandċeosel sand. Literally sand-gravel.</li>
</ul>
Þā rīnde hit, and þǣr cōm flōd, and blēowon windas, and āhruron on þæt hūs, and þæt hūs fēoll; Then it rained and there came a flood and the winds blew, and rushed into the house, and the house fell;
<ul>
 <li>rīnde rained. 3rd person singular past form of rīnan, var. of riġnan to rain.</li>
 <li>hit it. This is the "dummy" or "pleonastic" it used in equivalent Present-Day English it rained.</li>
</ul>
and his hryre wæs myċel. and its destruction was great.
<ul>
 <li>his its. Note that his can mean his or its, since it is the genitive singular form of both the masculine and neuter pronouns.</li>
 <li>hryre fall, ruin, destruction.</li>
</ul>
<h2>References</h2>
<ul>
 <li>Sweet, Henry (1879). An Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. Oxford: Clarendon.</li>
</ul>
<section data-footnotes="" class="footnotes">
 <h2 class="sr-only" id="footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
 <ol>
 <li id="user-content-fn-1">
 Sweet (1879: 51). The adaptations include marking the palatal pronunciations of &#x3C;g> and &#x3C;c> using the over-dot notation: &#x3C;ġ> and &#x3C;ċ>, marking long vowels with a macron &#x3C;ā> rather than an acute accent &#x3C;á>, and marking the dental fricative with &#x3C;þ>. <a href="#user-content-fnref-1" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-2">
 The translation dates to the early 11th century but has been normalized for teaching purposes by Sweet (1879). <a href="#user-content-fnref-2" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-24a">
 þās mīne word. Lit. these my words. Unlike in most forms of Present-Day English, possessive pronouns and demonstratives can occur together. You can translate this idiomatically as these words of mine. <a href="#user-content-fnref-24a" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-24b">
 ofer stān ġetimbrode. Usually ofer takes the accusative only with verbs of motion, with the meaning onto, across but here we have an exception. <a href="#user-content-fnref-24b" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-24c">
 Dysiġ foolish gives us, after a semantic shift, the Present-Day English word dizzy. <a href="#user-content-fnref-24c" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-24d">
 The primary sense of mann was person (i.e. a human being), but it could also refer more specifically to adult males as the modern form man has tended to do. Here I have glossed it as man because it is contrasting with wer man, and both are translating the Latin vir man. <a href="#user-content-fnref-24d" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 </ol>
</section>

Old English Graded Reader #1. Matthew 7:24–27

Here is a list of all the free resources I've found helpful or had recommended to me. If you have something to recommend, please send me a message on <a href="https://twitter.com/colingorrie">Twitter</a>.<aside class="flex flex-col text-md items-start bg-white dark:bg-black p-8"><h2 class="mt-0 mb-4 text-lg">By the way...</h2>If you find this content interesting, consider subscribing to my newsletter to hear when something new gets published.<div class="not-prose"><a class="button button-primary mt-1 py-2" href="https://colingorrie.substack.com"><svg stroke="currentColor" fill="currentColor" stroke-width="0" role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="h-4 w-4 mx-1 inline-block mr-2" height="1em" width="1em" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title></title><path d="M22.539 8.242H1.46V5.406h21.08v2.836zM1.46 10.812V24L12 18.11 22.54 24V10.812H1.46zM22.54 0H1.46v2.836h21.08V0z"></path></svg>Read on Substack</a></div></aside>
<h2>Textbooks &#x26; Courses</h2>
<ul>
 <li><a href="http://www.csun.edu/~sk36711/WWW/KAG/index.html">King Alfred's Grammar</a>. This is an introductory Old English textbook by Michael C. Drout. It was later revised and published as Drout's Quick and Easy Old English but you can read the entire earlier version online for free. It follows a traditional grammar-translation method, and includes grammatical explanations, vocabulary lists, exercises (with answers), and reading passages.</li>
 <li><a href="https://oldenglish.info/">Old English Online</a> is an introductory digital Old English textbook written by a team led by Victoria Koivisto-Kokko and Tom Birkett. It includes well-written grammar notes, passages for reading (with translation), and exercises (with answers).</li>
 <li><a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net">Old English Aerobics</a> is not really a textbook itself, but rather a companion site to Peter S. Baker's textbook Introduction to Old English. But you don't need the textbook to make good use of this site: it contains grammatical exercises as well as lots of texts for reading. And better yet, the texts are all glossed to varying degrees, so you can get help with unfamiliar vocabulary and grammatical constructions.</li>
 <li><a href="https://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/apps/web/eoe/">Essentials of Old English</a>. This is a free digital textbook written by Jeremy J. Smith. It is a fairly "heavy" textbook in the sense that it does not shy away from grammatical terminology, even in the beginning. It includes self-correcting exercises as well as a glossary. If you are using it for self-study, a suggested sequence is given by the author <a href="https://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/apps/web/eoe/about/">here</a>.</li>
 <li><a href="https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/engol">Old English Online</a> is a digital textbook offered by UT Austin's Linguistics Research Center. It is organized around a sequence of readings, accompanied by extensive grammatical notes. It is a great resource but it does not take you by the hand at all: for this reason I recommend it mainly for experienced learners of historical languages.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Morphology</h2>
<ul>
 <li>The Magic Sheet of Old English Inflections (<a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/resources/magic_letter.pdf">Letter</a>/<a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/resources/magic_A4.pdf">A4</a>). This is a single-page cheat sheet of Old English morphology. It's handy to print out and stick on your wall for reference while you're reading, at least until you've fully internalized all the forms. It comes courtesy of the <a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net">Old English Aerobics</a> site by Peter S. Baker.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Syntax</h2>
<ul>
 <li><a href="http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361oesyntax.htm">Old English Syntax</a>. This is a handout from the course "History and Structure of the English Language I" taught at the University of Toronto.<a href="#user-content-fn-1" id="user-content-fnref-1" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a> It covers, in very abbreviated form, many points about the syntactic structure of Old English. But, be warned, you will probably need some linguistic training to decode these notes.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Vocabulary</h2>
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/OldEnglish/comments/eqox1t/old_english_word_frequency_list/">Old English word frequency resources by /u/Deadlyheimlich</a>. This Reddit thread has some good discussion of the state of the art with respect to Old English word frequency lists, as well as links to attempts at creating frequency lists for the Old English poetic and prose corpus. These are probably the best resources we have so far for looking at Old English word frequency.</li>
 <li><a href="http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctb/wordhord.html">Circolwyde Wordhord</a> (by Carl T. Berkhout) is a glossary of modern<a href="#user-content-fn-2" id="user-content-fnref-2" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a> computer terminology in Old English, in case you want to talk about websites in Old English.</li>
 <li><a href="https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cr30/vocabulary/">Old English Core Vocabulary</a> by Christine Rauer. This is a list of 500 words that are either especially common or particularly important to a key text. Modern-language cognates are given to ease memorization. For students who know these five hundred words by heart, trips to the dictionary when reading would be relatively infrequent. This makes reading more pleasant, which means you're likely to do more of it, which means you'll learn faster. So if you have the time and inclination to memorize a word list, this is a good one to start with, as is the following one.</li>
 <li>Old English Aerobics Word Frequency List (<a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/497_words.pdf">Letter</a>/<a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/resources/497_words_A4.pdf">A4</a>). A vocabulary list ordered by frequency of all words that occur 10 or more times within the <a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net">Old English Aerobics</a> corpus. Since the frequency list is specific to this rather small corpus (32000 words), this frequency list should not be used for research purposes. It is, however, useful for learners as a baseline vocabulary list to ease reading (like the Old English Core Vocabulary list above). Unfortunately the wordlist is stuck inside a PDF, which makes getting the text out and into, say, a spaced-repetition system, rather inconvenient.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Dictionaries</h2>
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://rachelafletcher.wordpress.com/2019/08/15/old-english-dictionaries-a-guide-for-the-mildly-perplexed/">How to Use Old English Dictionaries: A Guide for the Mildly Perplexed</a> by Rachel Fletcher. This superb blog post teaches you how to use Old English dictionaries, from choosing the right dictionary to strategies for finding the word you want,<a href="#user-content-fn-3" id="user-content-fnref-3" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">3</a> to interpreting the results you get. Don't use a dictionary before reading this post! See also the <a href="https://rachelafletcher.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/decoding-abbreviations-examples-from-bosworth-toller/">follow-up post</a>.</li>
 <li><a href="https://bosworthtoller.com/">Bosworth-Toller Dictionary</a>. The classic Bosworth-Toller dictionary of Old English presented online in a beautiful and easy-to-use interface. Note: read the <a href="https://rachelafletcher.wordpress.com/2019/08/15/old-english-dictionaries-a-guide-for-the-mildly-perplexed/">How to Use Old English Dictionaries</a> blog post before attempting to look things up in Bosworth-Toller.</li>
 <li><a href="http://glossary.oldenglishaerobics.net/">Old English Aerobics Glossary</a>. A good mini-dictionary for all the words in the <a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net">Old English Aerobics</a> corpus, with links to where each word appears in context. Covers approximately 4600 unique words.</li>
 <li>Two 19th century dictionaries available on the Internet Archive: <a href="https://archive.org/details/handyanglosaxond00grei">A Handy Anglo-Saxon Dictionary</a> (Harrison and Baskervill 1885) and <a href="https://archive.org/details/studentsdictiona1897swee">The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon</a> (Sweet 1896). I have not used these myself but I will update this text once I have. Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/ksymil">@ksymil</a> on Twitter for the recommendation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Thesaurus</h2>
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://oldenglishthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/">A Thesaurus of Old English</a>. A thematically organized thesaurus of Old English vocabulary. I have not used this yet but it looks fantastic. Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/ksymil">@ksymil</a> on Twitter for the recommendation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Texts</h2>
<h3>Readers</h3>
<ul>
 <li><a href="https://archive.org/details/ananglosaxonrea00whitgoog/">Sweet's An Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse</a>. A 19th-century graded reader of Old English. It does not give as much help as 20th-century graded readers might, but it is a good place to get level-appropriate readings. It also contains a short student's grammar of Old English which is a handy reference.</li>
 <li><a href="https://archive.org/details/AnAnglo-saxonReader">Bright's An Anglo-Saxon Reader</a>. Bright's reader is very much like Sweet's, to the degree that the similarities raised some eyebrows on its release.<a href="#user-content-fn-45" id="user-content-fnref-45" data-footnote-ref="" aria-describedby="footnote-label">4</a> It can be used in much the same way as Sweet's reader. There is overlap in the texts covered, but not complete overlap.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Beowulf</h3>
<ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://ebeowulf.uky.edu/">Electronic Beowulf</a> at the University of Kentucky. This is the full text of Beowulf in Old English, side-by-side with the manuscript page. It also has an integrated glossary. This is a truly amazing resource! The only downside is that the user interface is showing its age, and some of the controls were a little fiddly. I also had to open it in incognito mode in order for it to work, so ad-blockers and other quality-of-life tools for the modern web may interfere with its functionality. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended!
 <figure>
 <img src="/ebeowulf.png" alt="Electronic Beowulf user interface">
 <figcaption>Electronic Beowulf</figcaption>
 </figure>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.maldura.unipd.it/dllags/brunetti/OE/TESTI/Beowulf/Trilingue/index.php?lingua=eng">Trilingual Beowulf</a>. The complete text of Beowulf along with interlinear glosses. A monumental achievement! Available in Italian as well as Present-Day English.
 <figure>
 <img src="/trilingual-beowulf.png" alt="Trilingual Beowulf user interface">
 <figcaption>Trilingual Beowulf</figcaption>
 </figure>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://readbeowulf.herokuapp.com/">Read Beowulf</a>. Thanks to a team led by <a href="https://jtauber.com">James Tauber</a>, we have a setting of Beowulf, along with interlinear glosses (courtesy of the Trilingual Beowulf) in a modern web application. Also highly recommended. Free login required.
 <figure>
 <img src="/read-beowulf.png" alt="Electronic Beowulf user interface">
 <figcaption>Read Beowulf</figcaption>
 </figure>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://archive.org/details/beowulffightatfi00hall/page/8/mode/2up">Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (Clark Hall translation)</a>. This is a public domain translation of Beowulf into Present-Day English prose. Here is a sample of the style:
 <blockquote>
 LO! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes' warrior-kings in days of yore, —how the princes did valorous deeds! Often Scyld of the Sheaf took mead-benches away from troops of foes, from many tribes. The noble inspired awe from the time that he was first found helpless; for that he met with consolation, increased under the heavens and throve in honours, until each one of those who sojourned near, across the whale's road, had to serve him, and to pay him tribute. A noble king was he!
 </blockquote>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/beowulf.html">Beowulf at Old English Aerobics</a>. Here Beowulf is given the <a href="http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net">Old English Aerobics</a> treatment of glossing and grammatical aid. As of October 2021, this is still a work in progress.
 </li>
</ul>
<section data-footnotes="" class="footnotes">
 <h2 class="sr-only" id="footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
 <ol>
 <li id="user-content-fn-1">
 My alma mater! <a href="#user-content-fnref-1" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-2">
 Since the list has an entry for write-protect notch (gewritwearnhol, if you're curious), something I haven't seen since N*Sync was on the charts, we can date "modern" to the late 1990s. <a href="#user-content-fnref-2" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-3">
 Looking up a word you find in a text in an Old English dictionary is not always a straightforward task. Word inflection and spelling variation mean that you often have to normalize the word before attempting to find it. <a href="#user-content-fnref-3" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 <li id="user-content-fn-45">
 As <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bright">Wikipedia</a> has it, the book's "similarity to the reader published by the more well-known British philologist Henry Sweet prompted Sweet to remark that Bright's work 'bears a striking resemblance to an earlier version of my Reader.'". <a href="#user-content-fnref-45" data-footnote-backref="" class="data-footnote-backref" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
 </li>
 </ol>
</section>

Free Old English Resources

If you're interested in learning Old English, you don't have an easy road in front of you. As an historical language, there are no native speakers to chat with, no movies to watch, and no immersion programmes. In recent years, some historical languages, Latin in particular, have made great strides in the quantity and quality of material available for learners of those languages. The resources available for Old English still have a way to go to reach the level of those available for Latin. That said, through the diligent efforts of many teachers and scholars, good resources do exist. The trick is finding them.
This portion of the site is my attempt to improve the situation. I have gathered together a <a href="/articles/old-english-resources">list of free resources</a> I and others have found helpful. I have also created some resources of my own, which are listed below. Finally, as of January 2023, I will be teaching an <a href="https://ancientlanguage.com/old-english/">Old English course</a> for beginners with the Ancient Language Institute.
I plan to augment this collection of resources with things I find along my path as well as things I create myself, so check back often, or – better yet – subscribe to the <a href="/newsletter">newsletter</a> and I'll let you know when there's something new.

Resources for students of the Old English language.

Old English

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