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I've got the Seamus Heaney translation, too, it's pretty good. Last night I just posted a bit more-or-less at random to give effdot pause for thought in his usual chunterings. I'd had a beer or two, too! ;-)

A good resource for Anglo-Saxon stuff is available on the website of Georgetown University... are you familiar with it? It has sounds and texts, including some interesting old spells for getting rid of warts and Wulfstan's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English).

Old English is certainly very different from modern and as you say it had changed a lot by Chaucer's time: blame those Norman barbarians for some of that, I guess!

Hwæt! Old English in Context