Bodleian: Hebban olla vogala

"Hebban olla vogala" is not the name of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. It is part of a single line scribbled in the margin of a larger manuscript. In 1933, Kenneth Sisam, professor of Anglo-Saxon linguistics at Oxford, looked at a probatio pennae that had been jotted down on a manuscript page sometime before 1100. The manuscript was from St. Andrew's Church in Rochester, Kent. (Some trivia: one of Sisam's students was J.R.R.Tolkien.)A probatio pennae is done to test a pen (see more here). This one was just a scribble. Although faded, this particular "test" is considered to be:Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nuDirectly above it is written a Latin translation:(H)abent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu quid expectamus nu(nc)which (to us) means:All birds have begun nests, except me and you – what are we waiting for now?Sisam recognized that 1) This was a line from a love song, and 2) it was not Old English, or (as…