Line 17 - wealdendes

The MS has "wealdes". Although this produces reasonable sense - "tree of the forest", it leaves a verse of only three syllables (see Context: Old English Metre) and no comparable use of the genitive is found. Dickens and Ross suggested that the error could easily have arisen by haplography (omission of an identical letter sequence) if the word had previously been written with the nasal abbreviation i.e. "wealdedes". (a line over a letter is the characteristic form of the nasal abbreviation).