In the last verse, Saínte | Nícho|láes | gódes | drúð | is Glóri|óse | Níco|láe | with added foot of one stressed syllable; týmbrẹ us | faíre | scóne | hús | is vóca|lí con|córdi|à; Àt þi búrth | àt þi bár|è resembles ùbi páx | et glóri|à, and Saínte | Nícho|láes | bríng vs wel | þáre is the normal Ád sal|útis | pórtum | tráhe | with added foot. In Godric’s verse the strict syllabic principle, with its consequent abandonment of alliteration, save for ornament, and its consistent attempt at end-rhyme, has obtained already a complete mastery, whilst in most of the contemporary poetry it is still struggling with the traditional alliterative metric. His methods rank him with the writers of popular topical verse, while the more conscious artists still linger in the old ways. #Introduction:# S. Godric, the hermit of Finchale, near Durham, died 1170 A.D. In his earlier days he had travelled much as merchant and pilgrim, and learnt to venerate S. Nicholas as the patron of those in peril of the sea. Reginald tells us that the Virgin Mary, accompanied by S. Mary Magdalene, appeared to S. Godric, in the chapel which he had dedicated to her at Finchale, and taught him both words and melody of the first piece (Vita, ed. Stevenson, Surtees Society, no. 20, pp. 117-19). The occasion of the second piece was as follows. His sister Burgwen having died, S. Godric earnestly desired to know what judgement had been passed upon her, and he was privileged to see the Virgin Mary followed by two angels, clothed in albs, bearing the soul of his sister, who, from the centre of the altar in the Oratory, sang the hymn which filled the saint with joy (Reginald, 143, 4). The third piece was unknown to Reginald, but Godric told him that on one occasion S. Nicholas appeared to him, with a company of angels, and bade him join them in their hymns (id. 202). The literary value of Godric’s verses is small, but they are the first compositions we have in Northern English after the Conquest, and metrically interesting. There are, however, three earlier documents which have been printed by Liebermann in Archiv, cxi. 275-84; the first of these, Gospatric’s letter, is also in the Scottish Historical Review, i. 62, 105, 344, 353; ii. 340: it is possibly pre-Conquest. 1. #marie# has three syllables with the accent on the second; in OE. it is usually Maria with accent on the first (but ‘þæt is MARÍA · mædena felast,’ Be Domes Dæge, 18/293); in Orm naturalized as Marȝe and in ME. generally Marye. From his Latin models Godric takes his pronunciation and the associated uirgine, apparently its first occurrence in English. 2. #ihesu#, the general form for any oblique case, here genitive. #nazarene# is an invariable adj. like cristene, but Orm has, ‘Forr Nazarenuss tacneþþ sannt,’ 308/8865.