be justified more satisfactorily by sporadic lack of concord when the verb precedes its subject. In fact, there is another such instance in the Menologium: þæt us wunian ne mot (206a). Despite the plural subject, the singular form mot is used instead of the plural moton to attain the metrical half-line. Mitchell, who is ‘unwilling to accept the notion that the com- bination singular verb þ plural subject was as common as is suggested by Bethurum ... and Brook’, writes he ‘can find no defence for mot in Men 206, where the emendation moton seems obligatory’. 17 Yet, as far as the Menologium itself is concerned, there are two of these instances as if establishing each other’s authen- ticity. Considering the similar instances of mod- ifications of word-forms mentioned above, here again the poet seems knowingly to use the irreg- ular form for metrical purposes and accordingly it seems unnecessary to emend it to the more grammatical moton, despite Grein, 18 Dobbie, 19 Greeson, 20 and O’Keeffe’s 21 reading in their editions. Among others, Greeson and O’Keeffe, emending mot to moton on the one hand and retaining cigð on the other hand, seem inconsistent at these two points in that their treatments of the two equally original (scribal) and metrical but less grammatical half-lines are quite different. All these instances suggest that the Menologium poet, as far as possible, follows simple and standard metrical patterns, while he is flexible or even loose in his choice of word-forms, displaying a tendency toward modifying grammatical and/or conventional word-forms for metrical purposes even to rather irregular forms if necessary. We should also take this into account, when we consider the issue of Iacob/Iacobus mentioned above. The poet must have preferred the metrically sound Iacob rather than problematic Iacobus. Since the manuscript indicates Iacob (with the scribal dots), while the word-form itself is by no means irregular but, as far as poetic works are concerned, actually more common than the form with the Latin ending, 22 there is no reason we should make much of the scribal dots and print Iacobus as O’Keeffe does. In poetic works, indeed, the only instance of the word-form Iacobus is found in the Menologium 132b, where the poet seems to adopt the irreg- ular word-form again for metrical purposes; without the Latin inflectional ending –us, the half-line would be too short for a b-verse, having only one syllable after the alliterated stressed syllable. The poet’s flexibility or looseness in the choice of word-forms examined in this essay may well betray his limited skill as a poet or may more generally reflect the ‘breakdown in the traditional verse technique’ in later poems. 23 When editing the poem, therefore, we should take this into account and pay closer attention to the poet’s prosodic charac- teristics, avoiding hyper-corrections of the original text. KAZUTOMO KARASAWA Komazawa University doi:10.1093/notesj/gjp183 ß The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org GIANTS AND SNAKE-CHARMERS: OE ÞYRS FERDINAND HOLTHAUSEN in his etymo- logical dictionary of Old English glossed þyrs ‘Riese, Da¨mon; Zauberer,’ 1 the senses, and their order, as given by Holthausen are appo- site. Apart from three famous occurrences in 17 Mitchell, Old English Syntax, vol. 1, 637 (§ 1524). 18 Grein, Bibliothek der angelsa ¨chsischen Poesie, 6. 19 Dobbie, The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, 54. 20 Hoyt St. Clair Greeson, Jr., ‘Two Old English Obser- vance Poems: Seasons for Fasting and The Menologium—An Edition’, diss., University of Oregon, 1970, 210. 21 O’Keeffe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 9. 22 The word-form Iacob is much more frequently attested than Iacobus in poetic works. The word-form Iacob is attested in Andreas 691b and 794a, the Fates of the Apostles 35b and 70a, the Descent into Hell 44b, the metrical Paris Psalter 52.8, 78.7, 104.19, 134.4, A Journey Charm 14, Instructions for Christians 132b, whereas Iacobus is attested only once in the Menologium 132b. 23 K. Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), 124. This may also explain the existence of several other metrically quite rare, unusual, or even problematic half-lines, which escaped the poet’s efforts. See lines 18a, 117a, 139a, 159a, 193a, 196a, 212a, 220a. The heavy use of non-poetic terms such as saints’ names and Latin months’ names may well have much to do with the metrical problems. In fact, five of these half-lines include non-poetic terms. 1 Altenglisches etymologisches Wo ¨rterbuch, 2nd edn (Heidelberg, 1963; rpt. 1974), s.v. December 2009 NOTES AND QUERIES 487 at University of San Diego on January 4, 2017 http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from