What's Everyone Reading?

[Jayson]

Floorboards  --  sorry, didn't make myself clear, did I?   I meant that I was flabbergasted that A-S houses had floorboards since I thought that until the late middle ages they just had straw floor coverings.   I asked, I think Roy, about the floor boards and of course was told that since they could make excellent ships why couldn't they transfer the idea of planks of wood to floors.   Hadn't thought of that.

And I loved that A-S house at West Stow, complete with floor boards, beams and plaster.   If it could be moved to Surrey it could fetch at least £500,000.

Anyway, back to the topic:  does anyone know of a book on how houses were built in those days?

[Godwulf]

The Well and the Tree : World and Time in Early Germanic Culture by Paul C. Bauschatz.  This is an extremely interesting book which has given me a lot of food for thought on early Germanic culture and their view of Wyrd and more.

Unfortunately the book is hard to find (possibly out of print) and can be expensive to purchase if found. 

[Jayson]

-----I've just started a book I bought at a jumbles sale, years ago  --  the Makers of the Realm by Arthur Bryant.  Don't know what the rest of it's like, but the first two chapters, The Islanders and The First Invaders, are pretty good, worth reading.

BTW, yes, Bowerthane, about woven trousers:  you may have forgotten this, but I didn't even know until I went to West Stow last July.   Found it quite amazing  --  just like the floor boards in the houses there.   Honestly, life in England really went down hill once those pesky Normans arrived!

[Jayson]

Poirot, the famous Agatha Christie detective, apparently had Anglo-Saxon beginnings.   Or at least, according to Simon Bret, the later detective fiction writer.

As I knew I'd be up and down over Christmas, cooking, washing up and whathaveyou, I decided to just read something simple, a collection of short stories edited by Tim Heald, under the heading of 'A Classic English Crime'.  One of the last of these was 'A Little Learning' by Simon Bret where he talks about apparently finding an MS on The Literary Antecedents of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, the first of which is traced back to one of the Digressions in Beowulf.

'The killing in Hrothgar's meadhall described in the ensuing passage', says the MS, 'was lcearly theorigin of the many Country House murders which were to feature in Hercule Poirot's investigations...'

'Felled n the floor

[Bowerthane]

Now the seasonal hubbub is settling down, so am I with Norman Vesey’s The Medieval Warrior ( ISBN 978 1 84884 204 5, Pen and Sword Books 1971).  See my thread ‘Alone With Their Greaves?’ for why it’s getting good, already.

[Jayson]

---sorry, everyone, my computer did a wobbly and I thought the whole of my post hadn't gone through but now I see that part of it did.   To continue with the important part about Poirot and his English beginnings:

"Felled on the floor     limp lay the earl,
Blood from the blade     blackening his back,
While all the warriors,     muddled with mead-drinkiong,
Snored in their slumbers,     lost like the daylight
That darkness has doused.     One of their number,
A murdering bondman  --     hated by Hrothgar
(Bringer of boons,     mighter meat-giver)
And by He who made heaven     (granter of goodwill,
Holy hgelper)  --     unfairly faked sleep.
Wakeful eyes worked,     lurking behind lids,
Knowing that another,     whose sword he had stolen,
A goodman not guilty,      a worthy warrior,
Would be caught for the killing --     unless
One much wiser,     a righteous unraveler,
A reader of runes,     a conner of clues
Might see through the slaying,     righting its wrong,
And finger the fiendish one.


Very clerverly done, I thought, by Simon Bret!

[Horsa]

Reading Rushdie's Satanic Verses at the moment. I've been curious about it since the hoo ha in the 90's. I've always wondered how much money in royalties he made on book sales to religious nuts who'd bought it for the purpose of burning it while shouting.

I'm only 60 odd pages in and it's very very good.

Anyway, in terms of the Old English, I'm well into Aelfric at the moment. I'm slowly reading through his Lives of Saints which is on Google books. I'm up to Saint Julian. I'm also reading his homilies - http://users.ox.ac.uk/~stuart/kings/

I've been learning Old English since '95 and it's been tough going, especially seeing as all the books seem to repeat the same passages. I've read and reread Ohthere countless times, so it's nice to read something brand spanking new (for me anyway), and there's so much of it. I'll be flipping fluent by the time I finish (which is one of the reasons behind doing it).

These works are all in poetic prose, so I imagine there are no clumsy word for word translations from Latin. I'm only up to St. Julian but there's been something of a pattern so far. A person discovers Christianity and is all happy, then a cruel king outlaws Christianity and the saint does a few miracles gets tortured but miraculously doesn't get hurt too much, then gets killed and continues to work miracles. However, despite this, they are entertaining reads in their own right and I'd recommend them.

The biblical paraphrases are very good too.

[Jayson]

----as I've noted elsewhere, I've started Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England and I now realise that one has to be careful about translations since in the first chapter it talks about 'five nations' and I've been told that it should be 'languages of five nations'.   But I shall keep going as it is much more interesting that I thoujght it would be  --  I've put off for years reading it because I thought it would be hard going.

I've also borrowed a coffee-book about The Anglo-Saxons edited by James Campbell but I wouldn't recommend it.   The pictures are pretty but he obviously doesn't like the A-S very much...

[Roge]

I'm reading Richard Rudgley's 'Pagan Resurrection' which it says is 'The Biography of a God'. It has a lot of short paragraphs and chapters which I think makes the book easier to digest as at times it is slightly hard going.

It covers from Victorian science fiction, to proto hippies of early twentieth centuary Germany and the ideas of the psychologist Carl Jung. All on the subject of  Woden/Odin which ever name you prefer to use.

Definitely a Marmite book,

Cheerz.

[Bleydh]

Esperanto version of Lord of the Rings

[Brian Murrell]

I am reading The Lost King of England, by Gabriel Ronay, this follows the trail of Edward the Aetheling and his brother following their exile from England, to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and back to England.
You can read a taster below

http://www.historytoday.com/gabriel-ronay/edward-aetheling-anglo-saxon-englands-last-hope

Brian

[peter horn]

I am reading The Lost King of England, by Gabriel Ronay, this follows the trail of Edward the Aetheling and his brother following their exile from England, to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and back to England.
You can read a taster below

http://www.historytoday.com/gabriel-ronay/edward-aetheling-anglo-saxon-englands-last-hope

Brian

thats quite a large teaser, Brian
hardly worth reading the book now
peter

[Garrett]

Just started Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead, by Peter Manseau. He analyses the concept and history of venerating holy relics. Although very well researched, it's written in an anecdotal style, which makes it easy to read.

Leads me to wonder if there are any relics of Anglo-Saxon saints in English churches. (I know relics aren't really a C of E thing, but still...)

[John Nicholas Cross]

Relics of Anglo-Saxon saints in churches today?  I should think there are several, what can our more learned members come up with, I'd love to know?   Thanks.     John.

[Jayson]

I'd like your opinion.

The Beowulf I have is the Penguin Classics version but I've been hearing a lot about a fairly new version by Seamus Heaney.    Is it very different from the Classic and is it worth buying?