'Beowulf', line 1459, 'ecg waes iren, atertanum fah'

On this description of the sword Hrunting Klaeber comments, 'ater is perhaps used figuratively with regard to the acid employed in the process of (false) damascening. Another possibility is that the serpentine ornamentation (cf. wyrmfah 1698, also waegsweord 1489) was supposed to have a miraculous poisoning effect (Stjerna), the figures of serpents suggesting their well-known attribute (cp. attorsceaða 2839, also 2523). It is less likely that the edge was really meant to be poisoned.' (1) 'Atertanum fah' literally means 'adorned with poison-twigs' or (as Wrenn rendered it) 'patterned by twigs of venom', (2) and W. F. Bolton was nearer the mark in glossing the phrase 'adorned with twiglike patternings of deadly effect'. (3) The sense may become clearer when we compare a passage in the Nine Herbs Charm dealing with snakebite. The actual remedy prescribed in the Lacnunga involves powdering nine herbs and making them into a poultice to apply to the wound, (4) but the charm to accompany the making of the poultice runs as follows:

Ðas VIIII magon wið nigon attrum: Wyrm com snican, toslat he man; þa genam Woden nigon wuldortanas, sloh ða þa naeddran þaet heo on nigon tofleah. Þaer geaendade aeppel and attor, þaet heo naefre ne wolde on hus bugan. (5) (These nine (herbs) avail against nine poisons: A snake came creeping, it wounded a man; then Woden took nine twigs of glory, then struck the serpent so that it burst into nine (pieces). There the swelling and the poison came to an end, so that it might never wish to dwell in (that) house again).)

Godfrid Storms explained this as follows: '[Woden] takes nine glory-twigs, by which are meant nine runes, that is nine twigs with the initial letters in runes of the plants representing the power inherent in them, and using them as weapons he smites the serpent with them. Thanks to their magical power they pierce its skin and cut it into nine pieces.' (6) Other explanations are possible, but the 'wuldortanas' ('glory twigs') of the charm are fairly evidently magical healing runes cut by the great runemaster of Havamal; and it seems likely that the 'atertanas' ('poison twigs') of Beowulf, line 1459 are deadly magical runes etched or scored on the blade of Hrunting. In ON the term kvistrunar ('twig runes') is used for a kind of cryptic runes resembling those found in England on the Hackness Cross, which look very much like stylized fir twigs. (7) Runes are certainly found on scabbards and on the blades of knives and spears, (8) while the sword Beowulf takes from the ogres' lair has runes inscribed on the hilt ('þurh runstafas rihte gemearcod', line 1695). A short sword or 'scramasax' found in the bed of the Thames in 1857 and now in the British Museum has a runic alphabet or futhorc inscribed on its blade, which has been thought to have a magical purpose. (9) But the most pertinent English inscription extant is probably...