Here the A.S._geon_ (pronounced like the modern _yon_) is actually declined after the regular manner, being duly provided with the suffix _-re_, which was the special suffix reserved only for the genitive or dative feminine.

It is here a dative after the preposition _to_.
There is, in fact, no limit to the good use to which a reverent study of our dialects may be put by a diligent student.

They abound with pearls which are worthy of a better fate than to be trampled under foot.

I will content myself with giving one last example that is really too curious to be passed over in silence.
It so happens that in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of _Beowulf_, one of the most remarkable and precious of our early poems, there is a splendid and graphic description of a lonely mere, such as would have delighted the heart of Edgar Allan Poe, the author of _Ulalume_.

In Professor Earle's prose translation of this passage, given in his _Deeds of Beowulf_, at p.