The Coming of the Anglo-Saxons

In this episode, we get a little history about how Germanic peoples from northern Europe came to settle what is now Britain over 1500 years ago.  One of these tribes, the Angles, gave their name to this land (Anglelonde = England) and to the language (Anglisch = English).  We'll meet the first English historian, the first English poet, and we'll learn about some of the main characteristics of Old English language and poetry!

Music: "Rejoice" performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra; "Dies Irae" by Dee-Yan-Key; "Sunday Morning in the Great Hall" by Fool Boy Media

Interstitial Announcement: She Who Must Be Obeyed

Transcript

The Classic English Literature Podcast
Episode 2 – The Coming of the Anglo-Saxons

 Texts

 “The Ruin” from the Exeter Book

Wondrous is this wall-stead, wasted by fate.
Battlements broken, giant’s work shattered.
Roofs are in ruin, towers destroyed,
Broken the barred gate, rime on the plaster, walls gape, torn up, destroyed, consumed by age. Earth-grip holds the proud builders, departed, long lost, and the hard grasp of the grave, until a hundred generations of people have passed.
Often this wall outlasted, hoary with lichen, red-stained, withstanding the storm, one reign after another; the high arch has now fallen.
The wall-stone still stands, hacked by weapons, by grim-ground files.
Mood-quickened mind, and the mason, skilled in round-building, bound the wall-base, wondrously with iron.
Bright were the halls, many the baths,
High the gables, great the joyful noise, many the mead-hall full of pleasures.
Until fate the mighty overturned it all.
Slaughter spread wide, pestilence arose, and death took all those brave men away.
Their bulwarks were broken, their halls laid waste, the cities crumbled, those who would repair it laid in the earth.
And so these halls are empty, and the curved arch sheds its tiles, torn from the roof.
Decay has brought it down,  broken it to rubble.
Where once many a warrior, high of heart, gold-bright, gleaming in splendour, proud and wine-flushed, shone in armour, looked on a treasure of silver, on precious gems, on riches of pearl... in that bright city of broad rule.
Stone courts once stood there, and hot streams gushed forth, wide floods of water, surrounded by a wall, in its bright bosom, there where the baths were, hot in the middle.
Hot streams ran over hoary stone into the ring.
(http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/oeruin.htm)

“The Lord’s Prayer” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; si þin nama gehalgod; o becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

“Caedmon’s Hymn”

Nū sculon heriġean heofonrīċes weard,
Meotodes meahte ond his mōdġeæanc,
Weorc wuldorfæder swā hē wundra ġehwæs,
Eċe Drihten ōr onstealde.
Hē ǣrest sceōp eorðan bearnum heofon tō hrōfe hāliġ
Scyppend; þā middanġeard monncynnes weard,
Eċe Drihten æfter tēode fīrum foldan
Frēa ælmihtiġ.

Humbly we honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established earth's fearful foundations. Then he, the First Scop,
hoisted heaven as a roof for the sons of men:
Holy Creator, mankind's great Maker!
Then he, the Ever-Living Lord, afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!
(http://www.thehypertexts.com/C%C3%A6dmon's%20Hymn%20Translation.htm ii)

  Lecture Notes
1. The Coming of the Anglo-Saxons (Adventus Saxonum)
a. Germanic peoples from northern Europe begin settling Brittania c. 450 AD
b. Native Romanized Britons (Celtic peoples) absorbed and displaced
c. Venerable Bede
i. Northumbrian monk and first English historian .
ii. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 731) 
d. Caedmon
i. first English poet
ii. "Caedmon's Hymn"

2. Old English 
a. language from West Germanic Ingvaeonic language group 
b. inflected language: various suffixes and spelling changes (inflections) determined a word’s function in a sentence 
c. different letters 
i. æ - “asch”: a flat “a” sound 
ii. þ - “thorn”: a voiceless “th” sound 
iii. ð - “eth”: a voiced “th” sound 
iv. ƿ - “wynn”: the “w” sound 

3. Old English Poetic Devices 
a. alliterative accentual verse: a type of poetry in which the line length is determined by a fixed number of stressed syllables which begin with the same consonant sound 
b. caesura: a pause in the middle of a poetic line 
c. kenning: a metaphor comprised of two nouns 
i. when rendered from Old English into Modern English, a kenning may take two forms: 
1. a compound noun: “whale-road” for “sea” 
2. a prepositional phrase: “the road of whales” for “sea”