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... PEOW'S FALL. (Beowulf, 11. 2957-2960.) IN connexion with his description of Scyld's funeral obsequies, Knut Stjerna makes especial reference to the circumstance that the departed hero was accompanied to the other world not only by his sword and corselet but by his ensign of gold as well, in order that he might there lead his Scyldings to victory under the assembling banner. The standard was placed over his head, 'somewhat as armies were led forward in battle under the war banner' (cf. Clark Hall's translation of Stjerna's Essays, Coventry, 1912, p. 130), and the author alludes for support to Beowulf, 11. 2957-8. The error which he commits in selecting these lines as an illustration is shared in some of the numerous details by most of the editors of the poem. Clearly, something will be gained in harmonizing the various conjectures and stating the case correctly as a whole. The four lines which have furnished one of the small storm-centres of the textual criticism appear in the manuscript in the following form: pa wes aeht boden sweona leoda segn higelace. freoSo-wong pone ford ofer-eodon sy'S6an hrel-lingas to hagan jrungon.