Abstract

The four Old English poems containing the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and proper interpretation. While the prevailing view is that they are predominantly logogrammatic instantiations of traditional runic names, a case has nevertheless also been made for alternative words indicated by initialisms. Referencing both of these lines of reasoning in conjunction with a semiotic literary methodological stance, this article evaluates a single Cynewulf poem (The Fates of the Apostles) and its particular inclusion of runes amongst the bookhand alphabet characters. The assessment demonstrates the poem’s multiliteral destabilization of associative boundaries between different scripts, as well as between perceived boundaries of orality and legibility. In doing so, it identifies in the text an unseen ‘eighth rune’ that is semiotically operative.

Highlights

  • In terms of direct source material, similarities and parallels have been noted between The Fates of the Apostles and continental martyrologies including the works of Florus of Lyon, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Ado of Vienne, but according to an investigative reassessment pursued by John McCulloh, there is no positive, single source that can at present be identified (McCulloh 2000; see Allen and Calderand 1976, pp. 35–39)

  • The Fates of the Apostles itself has not always even been viewed as independent from the work which directly precedes it in the Vercelli Book, Andreas

  • In the past, both were taken together as a single larger work ascribed to Cynewulf, but more recent analyses of meter and diction highlight discrepancies between the two and link The Fates of the Apostles with the other signed poems (Fulk 2001; Orchard 2003)

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Summary

Introduction

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Xvi).[1] This underappreciation for The Fates of the Apostles stems

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