The human condition involves a fair bit of pain, so it's not surprising that Old English had a number of words for that unfortunate experience. Some, it turns out, are familiar to us even now. For example, one term was sār, which we know today as "sore, soreness". The Leechbook suggests that ...
Mugcwyrt ðæt sār ðara fōta of genimþ
("Mugwort the pain of the feet away takes")
In Beowulf (l. 975), there's a more vivid (indeed, poetic) description of how Grendel suffered:
ac hyne sār hafað
in nīð gripe nearwe befongen
balwon bendum
("but him pain has/in hostile-grip narrowly grasped/with baleful bonds")
Another OE word for pain was ece, which might initially look weird but is actually just "ache". Medieval medical texts were all over remedies for this:
Wiþ mūðes ece & wið tungan & wið þrotan genim fīfleafan wyrtwalan[1]
("For mouth pain or for tongue or for throat take root of cinquefoil")
Wiþ hēafod ece genim diles blōstman, sēoð on ele, smire þa þunwangan mid
("For head ache take dill flower, seethe it in oil, smear the temples with it")
One OE term for pain that seems to have been pretty common was wærc (sometimes wræc[2]). In the dictionary I use, I find these compounds, which frankly sound like a catalog of what it's like to get old, haha:
bānwræc: bone pain
brēostwærc: chest pain
cnēowærc: knee pain
ēagwræc: eye pain
endwærc: "pain in the anus", as it says in the dictionary
heafodwærc: head pain
heortwærc: heart pain
hypewærc: hip pain
inwræc: internal pain
liferwærc: liver pain
liþwærc: limb (joint) pain
sculdorwærc: shoulder pain
swēorawærc: neck pain
tōþwærc: tooth pain
þēohwræc: thigh pain
wambwærc: stomach pain
The word wærc survived into the early days of modern English as wark or sometimes warch ("Hee hath beene sore pained with great warch in his bones"), but has since fallen out of use. Fortunately (?), we were able to pick up the word pain from French, so we still have a full complement of words to describe our sufferings, whew. ;)
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