Old English Mægen: A Note on the Relationship Between Exodus and Daniel in MS Junius 11

Abstract

This article engages with the Anglo-Saxon word mægen in order to demonstrate that the Old English Daniel displays a possible working knowledge or memory of the Old English Exodus, the poem preceding it in the Junius 11 manuscript. One of the most daring detours made from the biblical book by the poetic Daniel is that it picks up from where the poetic Exodus left off: the Israelites move seamlessly from one poem into the next. More intriguingly, the beginning of Daniel plays on the Old English word mægen—a multivalent term used alone and in compounds more frequently and inventively in Exodus than in any other Old English poem. In Daniel, this word is utilised as part of a summarising history of Moses and his people. The word-focused analysis in this article will shed new light on the possibility that Daniel and Exodus are in conversation with one another across the manuscript, and with the notion that Daniel may have undergone reformulation at some stage on the journey that brought it to Junius 11, so that it became a more fitting continuation of the astounding representation of salvation portrayed in Exodus.