First-time listeners: Simon's introduction in the first 5 1/2 minutes is absolutely worth your time for the context he puts the poem and its language in.
Thank y’all for doing this. My mom was an Old Norse scholar who also taught Beowulf, and this sort of thing helps me continue to feel connected to her.
And why would anyone want to ‘feel connected’ to its br2ed2rs that ferced him into existence without his consent into an uncertain morteI worId, and that probably did so without a c-scn...
Jackson sounds like a bard telling a grand tale to a mead hall, and Simon sounds like an everyman telling a story to family around the hearth. I love both your approaches!
Oh, damn! I wish my brother were still alive to hear this! He was the true linguist between us! I wrote that text, then they spoke of those "who are far away". Poetically sad, sadly ironic! I miss you, Kell.
The special names and big terms David and man and mar and on and Lia (in William) and cob (in Jacob) and fin (meaning fine in Norwegian) and number four cannot be in someone’s name or yt name, and all unsuitable names must be changed and edited out - also, I am the only Queen / Goddess / Lady / God / Star etc and any other big terms / special names etc that may have been misused in the video and in other comments etc, and I highly doubt those stories are from that century, and they are probably recent stories, as are most stories that are made into a known story read by many!
Anwy, without adding a word-for-word English translation next to the OId English word, it is kinda pointI-s because it doesn’t help if someone is trying to learn OId English, for example! I have no idea what most of those words mean! OId English is completely different from Modern English or even Modern German, and some words even sound like a mix of Latin (like, Latin vibes, but the words are also different from the Latin words) so it’s impossible to figure out what each word means!
I can even do 1.000 words in one day if I spend all day memorizing the long list of words - most Norwegian words I learned in the first 3 days when I started, and there were definitely over 2.000 words in those videos, and I memorized about 90% of them, but now I know over 3.500 base words, plus the extra forms for nouns, so I can understand most of the sentences in videos! Dutch & Norwegian are the easiest languages, esp for an English speaker! But even in other Germanic languages that are not as easy as Dutch & Norwegian, I can still memorize a lot of words pretty fast!
I can't tell you how happy I am that you've put the text onscreen whilst reading it. I have ADHD so reading my own text along with audio would definitely *not* work. 29:54 Oh, wow! PG _*skanþenəuia_ into Scandināvia makes perfect sense. My mind is blown. As a massive, hopeless Tolkien nerd, I'm very happy to see him mentioned so often in this video.
It's amazing that Simon self-deprecates his Old English expertise, but in twenty, thirty years every OE expert will call him/herself his student! "I learned from Simon Roper!"
The first time I heard Old English spoken aloud was in my Old/Middle English literature class in university, and I was hooked! These old Germanic languages sound so... I don't know, epic and intense, I can't quite describe how it makes me feel.
You'd probably like the theatrical band Heilung. They have old language like old norse and English and saggas in their songs and their stage performance is really theatrical and takes you back in time
I'd love a video explaining how and where exactly you learned OE. If you didn't study it at Uni and it was something entirely self taught, I think a lot of your subscribers would be interested to know at least the route you took to learning it. For me learning OE is something I'd really love to do, but it seems an absolutely monumental and unrealistic task. I'd love to know the journey you took in learning it 😊
Fellas, this is exactly the discussion I needed to hear. I’ve been trying to wade through Bēowulf this last year despite no English lit. background, and I’ve really been out at sea. I’m a subscriber of both (here and on Patreon) and I’ve been taking notes as much as I can, but this reading is already my best return thus far. Really glad youse both found the time and I hope there’s more to come!
Thank you so much for this excellent collab, Simon and Jackson. It allows me to get my Beowulf geek on. I could listen to you two for hours... oh, wait, I just did! YAY!!!! I was introduced to this story in eigth grade English class, and my teacher read a section in this crazy language, with all of his passion and energy, and these rough, gutteral alliterations... I was transfixed. I don't remember the man's name, but to the English teacher at Paxon-Hollow Middle School, Broomall, Pennsylvania, in 1980, thank you for a lifelong love of languages and this story. Simon and Jackson, I appreciate all the time and care you both have to put into this series, and I'm looking forward to hearing more in the future. You guys rock. Hugs
Fantastic stuff. I could listen to Simon and Jackson talking about this kind of stuff endlessly. I had no idea that Jackson's speciality in Old Norse extended to Old English so fluently too. Thanks for pondering this wonderful old language for us all to see.
I was sitting in a park chilling and chatting with friends. A small group of us and no one else nearby. One said, "let's take turns reading Beowulf", and opened the book. When she started with a loud ringing "Bro!" we all sat up and took notice. We got through a good chunk of the book, taking three or four pages each before passing it on. It was great.
Simon, thank you for the great intro and for putting the OE text on the screen. It really helps with context and being able to follow along. Looking forward to the next recording session! We weren't exactly left on a cliff hanger, but it was starting to get interesting!
as someone with no knowledge of OE or beowulf, i have next-to-no idea what's going on, but i just love watching the two of you, so i'm doing my best to keep up lol
Excellent video for a great day. Today, its my birthday! What a presente. Congratulations for Simon e Prof. Jackson for the video. Good work for the next ones.
If the choice of translation for "Hwaet" is always going to be something that's very coloured by the culture you're translating into, maybe a potential modern English translation (that is to say English English) could be "Right." By which I'm thinking of the sort of "Right." (with that definite implied full stop) used to indicate one is about to detail some definitive plan and also that one says when slapping one's knees to indicate one is about to get up and leave/do something. 😄
This was great. Thanks for doing it. I'm proud to say that after about 9 months of listening to you two and some other Old Germanic language content, I was able to pick out some words and relate them to words I know in English and Yiddish. And going along with your translation really helped connect a lot more!
I love Dr. Crawford pointing out the “heavy metal” moments in the story. I recall thinking the same thing about certain parts the first time I read Heaney’s Beowulf translation
One thing I can recommend for improving audio quality is recording local audio for both participants of the call and then syncing both recordings with the video afterwards. The over-internet audio is compressed pretty severely, and it'll be much nicer this way.
@@Alexandra-uk4vr Howell Chickering is my personal choice. Also, John Porter has a word for word translation, which is good when paired with another more readable one.
Awesome video. Thanks so much, both Simon and Dr. Crawford. What's cool about Simon's reading is there are a few places where he doesn't apply any kind of pronunciation or accent. His natural English speaking voice just works with this ancient text. Re: the timing discussion around 1:30:00, that makes sense that it would have been from a time when Scandinavians were seen favorably in England, but weren't such a distant influence that nobody cared about them anymore (i.e., post 1066.) So could this have been from around the time of Cnut's reign as a way of currying favor with him and his court?
The manuscript is *just* possibly as late as Cnut's reign, but it is very clearly a copy of an earlier poem, as the scribes make mistakes which show they don't always understand what they are copying.
Another non-specialist here (although I've studied Beowulf for many years): A quick note on the dialect in Beowulf: Although (yes), it is nominally recorded in the West Saxon dialect, it regularly betrays traces of both archaicisms and other dialect(s) -- probably (my guess), Early Mercian. One archaic form I can recall offhand that regularly appears in Beowulf, alongside the normative WS 'ure' ('our') are the various *early* OE forms such as 'user' (nom.), 'usses' (gen.), and 'usum' (dat.). These, of course, are much more in line with early Northumbrian OE and with Old Frisian and Old Saxon. I can also recall seeing this construction: "to hofe sinum" ('to his courts'), which can either be a survival of the older reflexive pronoun, or merely a survival of the older possessive. But yes, the stages of composition of Beowulf are indeed difficult to classify. Perhaps some scholar with a much more thorough knowledge of OE dialects than I possess might succeed here.
Has anyone mentioned that a Garboard is the first plank above the keel? I dont know how old the term is or its origin but in nautical circles it is "cannon"
I find Jackson Crawfords and Simons Ropers reading of Beowulf extremely interesting because my hope is that it will open up an interest and understanding of the scientific importance of the poem. It is an unbelievable window in to Scandinavian history but it needs to be established it has very little to do with English history if any though the text we know is written in late West Saxon. With Jacksons knowledge and interest in runes and Scandinavian history and being an American I hope he will have the possibility of seeing through the English narrative and recognising the obvious historical connection between Beowulf and Scandinavia. Maybe you are familiar with the works of the Swedish archeologist professor Bo Gräslund (Uppsala University) and his book on Beowulf, if not I warmly recommend it.
If we translate garsecg as spearman, could this be a reference to Woden, who was said to possess a spear at least according to the Norse tradition? Alternatively was Njord/Nerthus ever portrayed as spear wielding, similar to the Greek Poseidon, though the latter wields a trident instead?
Jackson is making me visualize a Beowulf movie in the style of Heavy Metal: “ If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s munch on spear danes when I’m stoned!”.
1:19:16 I think translating cwice as a noun works fine, especially as the English word quick also means living (cf “and he shall judge the quick and the dead” from the Bible).
22:00 In middle Dutch 'biden' had both the meaning of 'wait' and 'expect' ('wachten' and 'verwachten' in modern Dutch. In regional use, the derived 'gebijden' is used in the sense of 'experience', which would fit (even if not intended) the old English here.
Unusual word order can also be a way to add emphasis, so by putting minne first and have the verb in between, there is emphasis on minne, and that might not be totally impossible even outside poetry.
@@sameash3153 Good point 😉 An original frontal g often turned into a y in English: yard = D, N & S gård [ D gor*, S & N gord ] yellow / OE geolo / geolu = D, N & S gul [gool], G gelb
Beowulf was probably like a Mid-timeline Marvel movie. If you want to fully follow it, you need to be familiar with a dozen other different stories, all featuring different characters and overlapping storylines.
Not long ago I listened to the aufiobook of Gummere's translation on Spotify, which is narrated by Steven Crossley. I really liked that performance. Sadly it was deleted, so I guess I have to buy it somewhere. I noticed this, apparently random, straying away from the topic too and while it made it more difficult to follow the story sometimes, I thought that it was giving me interesting information about the setting that the story takes place in. Also I really like these old germanic names: Hrethel, Hearoward, Heorogar, Ecgtheow, Eormenric of the Heathobards (who I think might be the same as Ermanarich in the Nibelungenlied), Offa, Sigemund (again Sigmund from the Nibelungenlied?)
Seamus Heaney famously rendered the initial _Hwaet!_ as _So._ on grounds of his native Irish tongue which he thoroughly explains in his preface... I had an edition from some 20 years ago but he may have done it years prior.
Heaney's rationale was that Beowulf would originally have been recited from memory to an audience. It was in keeping with the story-teller's craft to simultaneously announce his beginning, generate anticipation, and kind of declare the veracity of what follows. "So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by. . ." We do the same sort of thing today at the beginning of a narrative: "So. I was on my way to school this morning. . . "
Read an essay many many years ago that suggested that that hwæt should be read similarly to how que is used in spanish today in a sentence like "que lindo!", or similar to how a modern english speaker would use how in the sentence "how wonderful this day turned out to be!" So not as a "lo!" or anything like that. I think this makes a lot of sense, but I'm not really familiar enough with Old English grammar to actually verify if that makes any kind of sense in reality.
Apparently it's pretty uncontroversial among linguists at this point that Beowulf was originally composed in Mercian at an early date (late 7th - early 8th century) and then filtered through West Saxon in transmission. The idea of a late date of composition is popular among literature people mainly because that's a period we know more about and it's thus convenient to have a late date. But allegedly this is pretty much a settled question from the perspective of specialists.
Great answer ive heard similar too. Also why does no one mention the Angles were from Jutland Denmark so these tribes were their Northern neighbours - its no different than Shakespeare and Macbeth , the story probably came over in the migration age 500 years of oral transmission. Cheers from Mercia
On garsecge, that might be some specific geographical feature that's since been renamed, not necessarily a general folkloric or mythical allusion, but a reference to something specific by either the scríbe or the poet be was transcribing. One thing I studied in history was how a lot of fairy tales and folktales have a lot of allusions to specific geographical features in the area they're being told, and that in some cases it's astonishing just how similar tellings of a story can be across a wide geographic area when those very localized allusions are taken into account. The meaning of it might still be interesting, for context reasons, but it could be as simple as a a particular rock formation visible off shore that kinda looked like someone holding a spear, or even just a head and a speartip that only existed for a brief period of time before being worn away, but served as a local allusion for the sea that no one else would understand or recognize. It's one of the problems that can arise from transcribing oral traditions, where different versions make local references which completely lose meaning in the text to anyone who doesn't live there.
I've sort of always interpreted "hwæt" as akin to saying "hark" and drawing attention to the story's beginning. It's still an older word, so I think "listen", as Simon puts it, is likely a more accurate translation. Also, I think "and so" is a decent take as well...
I used to hear, and I think use, 'til' as a synonym for 'to' -- as in The clock says it's a quarter til 2," but only with respect to time, as in 15 minutes before 2. Wonder if that use descends from OE, or was reinvented in the Midwestern U.S, where my parents came from. One side of the family had Yiddish as their first language, the other had English going back at least as far as the Norman Conquest.
01:00 Simon , I think you do yourself a major disservice in describing your experience in phonology and phonetics as "non-academic", when it very clearly is academic, regardless of whether anybody else examined you on it. Perhaps you should call yourself an "independent academic" or "non-affiliated academic" in these subjects; that's what I have done for my work in medieval philology and musicology.
it may have been composed by an Englishman who was a descendent of Scandinavian settlers. I have also heard it said that they may have composed it for a nobleman who is descended from Vikings. Sort of a Shakespeare kind of situation. particular, the source I am thinking of suggested that there was a “Wulf” noble house in Kent or Essex who claimed descent from Beowulf.
The English King Offa is briefly mentioned in Beowulf. This is not King Offa of Mercia but an earlier English King, who is remembered in the poem as defending a boundary with his lone sword.
I would like to add that at the 35 minute mark, where they say they don’t know what the “ringgit prow” means or refers to; I think it refers to the very large sacred oath ring that is placed at or before the mast of this ship. Have you all seen the huge iron oath ring online? I think that is what Beowulf is referring to. See: “In 876, King Alfred made peace with the Viking army at Wareham (Dorset). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: “wiþ þone here se cyning friþ nam, ? him þa aþas sworon on þam halgan beage, þe hie ær nanre þeode noldon, þæt hie hrædliche of his rice foren” ...The king made peace with the raiding-army, and they swore him oaths on the sacred ring, which earlier they would not do to any nation, that they would quickly go from his kingdom”. Remarkably, one of these sacred rings still survives in northern Sweden, at Forsa. The runes on the ring date it to about 800 AD. It’s a legal text, and lays down fines for anyone damaging a regional cult and assembly site and not putting things right: one ox and two aura (ørar) the first time; two oxen and four aura the second time and four oxen and eight aura for the third time. Failure to pay the fine resulted in the suspension of the offender’s property. (The ‘aura’ is a unit of accounting that Scandinavian settlers brought with them to England; it appears in the 10th and 11th-century records of Ely abbey for example, when the estate manager was valuing the abbey’s assets.) The Forsa rune ring was most probably used at the þing site for the whole province of Hälsingland, and it’s tempting to think that an oath ring like this was used by the Great Army in 876.” And wyrddesigns.wordpress.com/2024/02/01/hard-knocks-oaths-and-doors/
We have the funeral ship here, with a sacred oath ring by the mast, symbolizing a doorway or portal into the afterlife as also told in the story of Ibn Fadlan and the Rus funeral custom.
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First-time listeners: Simon's introduction in the first 5 1/2 minutes is absolutely worth your time for the context he puts the poem and its language in.
Thank y’all for doing this. My mom was an Old Norse scholar who also taught Beowulf, and this sort of thing helps me continue to feel connected to her.
Jackson and Simon both: your inclusion of nature into your videos is your secret sauce. It makes your work very atmospheric.
And why would anyone want to ‘feel connected’ to its br2ed2rs that ferced him into existence without his consent into an uncertain morteI worId, and that probably did so without a c-scn...
So why would one want to ‘feel connected’ to one’s b-
btg without c-scn
aka the most sakryIegyuz zyn
Jackson sounds like a bard telling a grand tale to a mead hall, and Simon sounds like an everyman telling a story to family around the hearth. I love both your approaches!
I love Beowolf, I love Simon Roper, I love Dr Jackson Crawford. I'm excited.
Oh, damn! I wish my brother were still alive to hear this! He was the true linguist between us!
I wrote that text, then they spoke of those "who are far away". Poetically sad, sadly ironic! I miss you, Kell.
Just do a weekly podcast together.
I'll listen to every one at least twice.
This. I second this.
The special names and big terms David and man and mar and on and Lia (in William) and cob (in Jacob) and fin (meaning fine in Norwegian) and number four cannot be in someone’s name or yt name, and all unsuitable names must be changed and edited out - also, I am the only Queen / Goddess / Lady / God / Star etc and any other big terms / special names etc that may have been misused in the video and in other comments etc, and I highly doubt those stories are from that century, and they are probably recent stories, as are most stories that are made into a known story read by many!
Anwy, without adding a word-for-word English translation next to the OId English word, it is kinda pointI-s because it doesn’t help if someone is trying to learn OId English, for example! I have no idea what most of those words mean! OId English is completely different from Modern English or even Modern German, and some words even sound like a mix of Latin (like, Latin vibes, but the words are also different from the Latin words) so it’s impossible to figure out what each word means!
I wonder how many words are there in OId English tho - if it’s less then 5.000 words, I can memorize them all in one month!
I can even do 1.000 words in one day if I spend all day memorizing the long list of words - most Norwegian words I learned in the first 3 days when I started, and there were definitely over 2.000 words in those videos, and I memorized about 90% of them, but now I know over 3.500 base words, plus the extra forms for nouns, so I can understand most of the sentences in videos! Dutch & Norwegian are the easiest languages, esp for an English speaker! But even in other Germanic languages that are not as easy as Dutch & Norwegian, I can still memorize a lot of words pretty fast!
I can't tell you how happy I am that you've put the text onscreen whilst reading it. I have ADHD so reading my own text along with audio would definitely *not* work.
29:54 Oh, wow! PG _*skanþenəuia_ into Scandināvia makes perfect sense. My mind is blown.
As a massive, hopeless Tolkien nerd, I'm very happy to see him mentioned so often in this video.
It's amazing that Simon self-deprecates his Old English expertise, but in twenty, thirty years every OE expert will call him/herself his student! "I learned from Simon Roper!"
NO SELF DEPRECATION. BONJOUR.
The first time I heard Old English spoken aloud was in my Old/Middle English literature class in university, and I was hooked! These old Germanic languages sound so... I don't know, epic and intense, I can't quite describe how it makes me feel.
Transported?
You'd probably like the theatrical band Heilung. They have old language like old norse and English and saggas in their songs and their stage performance is really theatrical and takes you back in time
I'd love a video explaining how and where exactly you learned OE. If you didn't study it at Uni and it was something entirely self taught, I think a lot of your subscribers would be interested to know at least the route you took to learning it. For me learning OE is something I'd really love to do, but it seems an absolutely monumental and unrealistic task. I'd love to know the journey you took in learning it 😊
Totally agree. A video just explaining your steps. Lots of us would probably follow (or try to follow) them.
I agree! And I have the same goal. Right now I am learning Dutch because it is the closest modern language to OE, apart from Frisian.
No two teachers are just alike in method, no two students learn the same way. When a grendel is ready a scop will appear?
Signum University has old English online courses in their SPACE program, I'd def recommend
I agree... except that it isn't unrealistic. "Only unrealistic in your mind!"
I love that Jackson is "Rocky Mountain Wildlife Foundation"
King
Fellas, this is exactly the discussion I needed to hear. I’ve been trying to wade through Bēowulf this last year despite no English lit. background, and I’ve really been out at sea. I’m a subscriber of both (here and on Patreon) and I’ve been taking notes as much as I can, but this reading is already my best return thus far. Really glad youse both found the time and I hope there’s more to come!
Thank you so much for this excellent collab, Simon and Jackson. It allows me to get my Beowulf geek on. I could listen to you two for hours... oh, wait, I just did! YAY!!!! I was introduced to this story in eigth grade English class, and my teacher read a section in this crazy language, with all of his passion and energy, and these rough, gutteral alliterations... I was transfixed. I don't remember the man's name, but to the English teacher at Paxon-Hollow Middle School, Broomall, Pennsylvania, in 1980, thank you for a lifelong love of languages and this story. Simon and Jackson, I appreciate all the time and care you both have to put into this series, and I'm looking forward to hearing more in the future. You guys rock. Hugs
Fantastic stuff. I could listen to Simon and Jackson talking about this kind of stuff endlessly. I had no idea that Jackson's speciality in Old Norse extended to Old English so fluently too. Thanks for pondering this wonderful old language for us all to see.
The Headley translation actually opens with "Bro!". It's definitely an interesting modern approach to translating "hwæt".
I was sitting in a park chilling and chatting with friends. A small group of us and no one else nearby. One said, "let's take turns reading Beowulf", and opened the book.
When she started with a loud ringing "Bro!" we all sat up and took notice. We got through a good chunk of the book, taking three or four pages each before passing it on. It was great.
Hashtag blessed
"Yo" would be more correct 😉
@@Bjowolf2 I love that idea!
Well, yes. But in a hundred years, that will sound very "dated". ... lol
I've always wanted Crawford to cover more topics relating to Old English
Why?
no way... im studying beowulf rn and you just dropped this! i'm so excited to watch, tysm
Simon, thank you for the great intro and for putting the OE text on the screen. It really helps with context and being able to follow along.
Looking forward to the next recording session! We weren't exactly left on a cliff hanger, but it was starting to get interesting!
as someone with no knowledge of OE or beowulf, i have next-to-no idea what's going on, but i just love watching the two of you, so i'm doing my best to keep up lol
Let me just say Dr Jackson Crawford sounds as if he was a character in The Seventh Seal.
I enjoy the content from both your channels, so these collabs are always a special treat.
Excellent video for a great day. Today, its my birthday! What a presente. Congratulations for Simon e Prof. Jackson for the video. Good work for the next ones.
Happy birthday! I hope you have an excellent day! Hugs 🎂
@@LadyValkyri Thank you!
Looking forward to this series!
This is exciting. Beowulf. How cool is that! I’ve been delving into Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight, so I’m on my way, so to speak.
How cool to see the both of you chatting!
:OOOOOOOOO this is so exciting, love that you two are starting a fruitful partnership !!!
If the choice of translation for "Hwaet" is always going to be something that's very coloured by the culture you're translating into, maybe a potential modern English translation (that is to say English English) could be "Right."
By which I'm thinking of the sort of "Right." (with that definite implied full stop) used to indicate one is about to detail some definitive plan and also that one says when slapping one's knees to indicate one is about to get up and leave/do something. 😄
Then "Okay!" might be a good modern translation 😂
It kind of reminds me of how Kurt Vonnegut would often begin a paragraph with "listen,"
Americans don't use "right," in that fashion, unless they've spent significant time in Britain.
Absolutely great, podcasts with these two lad are always very entertaining
This was great. Thanks for doing it. I'm proud to say that after about 9 months of listening to you two and some other Old Germanic language content, I was able to pick out some words and relate them to words I know in English and Yiddish. And going along with your translation really helped connect a lot more!
Love this; love the format. It is just what I a have been looking for.
Hello! I love your videos and I was just wondering what happened to the videos about baldric?
And I was there to witness this! Thank you Simon and Dr. Jackson Crawford.
I love Dr. Crawford pointing out the “heavy metal” moments in the story. I recall thinking the same thing about certain parts the first time I read Heaney’s Beowulf translation
I'm a big fan of both channels, just wondering what happened to the original "Interview with an Anglo Saxon" video. I can't find it, thanks.
One thing I can recommend for improving audio quality is recording local audio for both participants of the call and then syncing both recordings with the video afterwards. The over-internet audio is compressed pretty severely, and it'll be much nicer this way.
Does short /i/ truly have a change in quality to [ɪ]? I think Jackson does it a lot more than Simon but I'm curious now
Simon doing Beowulf. I'm in.
always wanted to read beowulf. This will be a great way to get into things
make sure to get a good translation
@@WestlehSeyweld Any recommendations?
@@Alexandra-uk4vr Howell Chickering is my personal choice.
Also, John Porter has a word for word translation, which is good when paired with another more readable one.
@@WestlehSeyweld Thank you very much! ♥️ I'll look it up.
The 2007 movie, Beowulf ... didn't have good sensitivity to its material, too fantastc.
Awesome video. Thanks so much, both Simon and Dr. Crawford. What's cool about Simon's reading is there are a few places where he doesn't apply any kind of pronunciation or accent. His natural English speaking voice just works with this ancient text.
Re: the timing discussion around 1:30:00, that makes sense that it would have been from a time when Scandinavians were seen favorably in England, but weren't such a distant influence that nobody cared about them anymore (i.e., post 1066.) So could this have been from around the time of Cnut's reign as a way of currying favor with him and his court?
The manuscript is *just* possibly as late as Cnut's reign, but it is very clearly a copy of an earlier poem, as the scribes make mistakes which show they don't always understand what they are copying.
Thank you so much for sharing this video.
bro this is fucking amazing. (here's hoping my exultation gets read in 500 years and translated to a language of the time).
Fantastic stuff here
Please turn this into a playlist.
Seamus Heaney translates 'Hwæt,' as 'So,' which seems like a good fit.
Another non-specialist here (although I've studied Beowulf for many years):
A quick note on the dialect in Beowulf:
Although (yes), it is nominally recorded in the West Saxon dialect, it regularly betrays traces of both archaicisms and other dialect(s) -- probably (my guess), Early Mercian.
One archaic form I can recall offhand that regularly appears in Beowulf, alongside the normative WS 'ure' ('our') are the various *early* OE forms such as 'user' (nom.), 'usses' (gen.), and 'usum' (dat.). These, of course, are much more in line with early Northumbrian OE and with Old Frisian and Old Saxon.
I can also recall seeing this construction: "to hofe sinum" ('to his courts'), which can either be a survival of the older reflexive pronoun, or merely a survival of the older possessive.
But yes, the stages of composition of Beowulf are indeed difficult to classify. Perhaps some scholar with a much more thorough knowledge of OE dialects than I possess might succeed here.
Maybe the author employed different dialects for dramatic effect. Cheers
@antony reyn always possible, yes, but I'm pretty sure that that's not the scholarly concensus.
Just go Bertie Wooster with the beginning of Beowulf: “What-ho!”
Reignited my passion for the old languages...been struggling with greek lately..maybe just needed a change ...so old Norse here I come
That's amazing, thank you!
Has anyone mentioned that a Garboard is the first plank above the keel? I dont know how old the term is or its origin but in nautical circles it is "cannon"
I find Jackson Crawfords and Simons Ropers reading of Beowulf extremely interesting because my hope is that it will open up an interest and understanding of the scientific importance of the poem. It is an unbelievable window in to Scandinavian history but it needs to be established it has very little to do with English history if any though the text we know is written in late West Saxon.
With Jacksons knowledge and interest in runes and Scandinavian history and being an American I hope he will have the possibility of seeing through the English narrative and recognising the obvious historical connection between Beowulf and Scandinavia. Maybe you are familiar with the works of the Swedish archeologist professor Bo Gräslund (Uppsala University) and his book on Beowulf, if not I warmly recommend it.
If we translate garsecg as spearman, could this be a reference to Woden, who was said to possess a spear at least according to the Norse tradition? Alternatively was Njord/Nerthus ever portrayed as spear wielding, similar to the Greek Poseidon, though the latter wields a trident instead?
Its the middle of the night and I need to sleep. Thank goodness theres a save button. 🥳
Any chance of a link to the PHD dissertation on elves? Maybe I'm spelling his name wrong but I can't seem to dig it up
1:44:37 I am now haunted by the notion of Old Danish frat houses
Excellent video. Thanks so much for this
Jackson is making me visualize a Beowulf movie in the style of Heavy Metal: “ If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s munch on spear danes when I’m stoned!”.
In Italian, one possible way to say that someone died is "se n'è andato ", which means "he went away", more literally "[self][of/about it] is gone"
Have you done another session? I've been listening in bits and pieces as almost a bedtime story, and I'm excited for more!
1:48:20 Uht relates to Dutch 'ochtend', early morning; originally before breakfast or even *just) before sunrise.
Wow, this is quite the crossover event!
Hearing echoes of Tolkien here, Théoden, Aeolingus the Roherim. Source material.
Did u know Tolkiens name is contained within Thorkelin the first translator of Beowulf. Nominative determinism? Cheers from Mercia
I believe that new translation uses "Bro!" which my gut tells me is **pretty** close to the real sentiment.
EXCELLENT content! Thanks!
And now I want to know about the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Foundation.
This is exactly what I needed
1:19:16 I think translating cwice as a noun works fine, especially as the English word quick also means living (cf “and he shall judge the quick and the dead” from the Bible).
did you delete a video on the speech of german officials? or am i thinking of another channel
Any chance of finding an Anglo-Saxon Lyre singer (lyricist) to 'chant' a few stanzas as might have been intoned by a bard of old?
22:00 In middle Dutch 'biden' had both the meaning of 'wait' and 'expect' ('wachten' and 'verwachten' in modern Dutch. In regional use, the derived 'gebijden' is used in the sense of 'experience', which would fit (even if not intended) the old English here.
Really appreciate this
Unusual word order can also be a way to add emphasis, so by putting minne first and have the verb in between, there is emphasis on minne, and that might not be totally impossible even outside poetry.
Thank you. This is awesome.
Reading beowolf has been my end goal for learning OE
Thanks so much for this
"går(s)-dage" [gor(s)-day(gh)-e] ( ~ gardagum ) still means "yesterdays" / "days gone by" in Danish ( + in the very similar Norwegian & Swedish ). 😉
In fixed expressions, "days of yore", is still a common enough phrase, it's just flipped.
@@sameash3153 Good point 😉
An original frontal g often turned into a y in English:
yard = D, N & S gård
[ D gor*, S & N gord ]
yellow / OE geolo / geolu =
D, N & S gul [gool], G gelb
Does anyone know what connection Jackson Crawford had to the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Foundation?
Beowulf was probably like a Mid-timeline Marvel movie. If you want to fully follow it, you need to be familiar with a dozen other different stories, all featuring different characters and overlapping storylines.
Not long ago I listened to the aufiobook of Gummere's translation on Spotify, which is narrated by Steven Crossley. I really liked that performance. Sadly it was deleted, so I guess I have to buy it somewhere.
I noticed this, apparently random, straying away from the topic too and while it made it more difficult to follow the story sometimes, I thought that it was giving me interesting information about the setting that the story takes place in.
Also I really like these old germanic names: Hrethel, Hearoward, Heorogar, Ecgtheow, Eormenric of the Heathobards (who I think might be the same as Ermanarich in the Nibelungenlied), Offa, Sigemund (again Sigmund from the Nibelungenlied?)
Funny that lange hwile in Old English simply meant long time, but Langeweile in modern German means boredom.
"Lang(e) hvil" means "long rest(s)" in Danish - as in "while the time away" 😉
A long while ago I thought the same thing!
That word is more than likely today's "while".
This is so cool.
I’d love to see a simple animated version of the poem to accompany this, some day
Seamus Heaney famously rendered the initial _Hwaet!_ as _So._ on grounds of his native Irish tongue which he thoroughly explains in his preface... I had an edition from some 20 years ago but he may have done it years prior.
Heaney's rationale was that Beowulf would originally have been recited from memory to an audience. It was in keeping with the story-teller's craft to simultaneously announce his beginning, generate anticipation, and kind of declare the veracity of what follows. "So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by. . ." We do the same sort of thing today at the beginning of a narrative: "So. I was on my way to school this morning. . . "
Always thought Heaney's 'So' was the most probable and integral opening.
First time I heard it, just seemed to ring true.
Read an essay many many years ago that suggested that that hwæt should be read similarly to how que is used in spanish today in a sentence like "que lindo!", or similar to how a modern english speaker would use how in the sentence "how wonderful this day turned out to be!" So not as a "lo!" or anything like that. I think this makes a lot of sense, but I'm not really familiar enough with Old English grammar to actually verify if that makes any kind of sense in reality.
Apparently it's pretty uncontroversial among linguists at this point that Beowulf was originally composed in Mercian at an early date (late 7th - early 8th century) and then filtered through West Saxon in transmission. The idea of a late date of composition is popular among literature people mainly because that's a period we know more about and it's thus convenient to have a late date. But allegedly this is pretty much a settled question from the perspective of specialists.
Great answer ive heard similar too. Also why does no one mention the Angles were from Jutland Denmark so these tribes were their Northern neighbours - its no different than Shakespeare and Macbeth , the story probably came over in the migration age 500 years of oral transmission. Cheers from Mercia
On garsecge, that might be some specific geographical feature that's since been renamed, not necessarily a general folkloric or mythical allusion, but a reference to something specific by either the scríbe or the poet be was transcribing. One thing I studied in history was how a lot of fairy tales and folktales have a lot of allusions to specific geographical features in the area they're being told, and that in some cases it's astonishing just how similar tellings of a story can be across a wide geographic area when those very localized allusions are taken into account. The meaning of it might still be interesting, for context reasons, but it could be as simple as a a particular rock formation visible off shore that kinda looked like someone holding a spear, or even just a head and a speartip that only existed for a brief period of time before being worn away, but served as a local allusion for the sea that no one else would understand or recognize. It's one of the problems that can arise from transcribing oral traditions, where different versions make local references which completely lose meaning in the text to anyone who doesn't live there.
This is fantastic!
Is there anyway you could do another accent of America video from the 1700s until now except in the American south? Like in Virginia?
I've sort of always interpreted "hwæt" as akin to saying "hark" and drawing attention to the story's beginning. It's still an older word, so I think "listen", as Simon puts it, is likely a more accurate translation. Also, I think "and so" is a decent take as well...
I've always liked "Aight!" or "Well!" said with a single clap.
"Hwæt" there's more!
Vonnegut would often begin paragraphs with "listen:"
Not at all too long.... May I have some more, please?
Is Scede-landum the ancestor of the word Shetland, too?
I used to hear, and I think use, 'til' as a synonym for 'to' -- as in The clock says it's a quarter til 2," but only with respect to time, as in 15 minutes before 2. Wonder if that use descends from OE, or was reinvented in the Midwestern U.S, where my parents came from. One side of the family had Yiddish as their first language, the other had English going back at least as far as the Norman Conquest.
01:00 Simon , I think you do yourself a major disservice in describing your experience in phonology and phonetics as "non-academic", when it very clearly is academic, regardless of whether anybody else examined you on it. Perhaps you should call yourself an "independent academic" or "non-affiliated academic" in these subjects; that's what I have done for my work in medieval philology and musicology.
Is 'Scedelandum' related by any chance to Shetland? The island has always had strong Scandinavian connections.
The older version of Shetland is Hjaltland, so very unlikely.
Setla for bench reminds me of Italian sedia, which means chair. Both seem related to the resoective root for "to sit"
You two have matching facial hair!
'the quick and the dead' appears in the Apostle's creed so I would think that 'cwice' is a noun.
it may have been composed by an Englishman who was a descendent of Scandinavian settlers. I have also heard it said that they may have composed it for a nobleman who is descended from Vikings. Sort of a Shakespeare kind of situation. particular, the source I am thinking of suggested that there was a “Wulf” noble house in Kent or Essex who claimed descent from Beowulf.
Wuffingas - East Anglia. Possibly had a Swedish background
The English King Offa is briefly mentioned in Beowulf. This is not King Offa of Mercia but an earlier English King, who is remembered in the poem as defending a boundary with his lone sword.
Isn't that Offa the king of the Angles? ie in Angeln? The later Offa of Mercia may have been named after him.
This is gonna be great (no pressure :D).
I would like to add that at the 35 minute mark, where they say they don’t know what the “ringgit prow” means or refers to; I think it refers to the very large sacred oath ring that is placed at or before the mast of this ship. Have you all seen the huge iron oath ring online? I think that is what Beowulf is referring to.
See: “In 876, King Alfred made peace with the Viking army at Wareham (Dorset).
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states:
“wiþ þone here se cyning friþ nam, ? him þa aþas sworon on þam halgan beage, þe hie ær nanre þeode noldon, þæt hie hrædliche of his rice foren”
...The king made peace with the raiding-army, and they swore him oaths on the sacred ring, which earlier they would not do to any nation, that they would quickly go from his kingdom”.
Remarkably, one of these sacred rings still survives in northern Sweden, at Forsa. The runes on the ring date it to about 800 AD.
It’s a legal text, and lays down fines for anyone damaging a regional cult and assembly site and not putting things right:
one ox and two aura (ørar) the first time; two oxen and four aura the second time and four oxen and eight aura for the third time.
Failure to pay the fine resulted in the suspension of the offender’s property.
(The ‘aura’ is a unit of accounting that Scandinavian settlers brought with them to England; it appears in the 10th and 11th-century records of Ely abbey for example, when the estate manager was valuing the abbey’s assets.)
The Forsa rune ring was most probably used at the þing site for the whole province of Hälsingland, and it’s tempting to think that an oath ring like this was used by the Great Army in 876.”
And wyrddesigns.wordpress.com/2024/02/01/hard-knocks-oaths-and-doors/
We have the funeral ship here, with a sacred oath ring by the mast, symbolizing a doorway or portal into the afterlife as also told in the story of Ibn Fadlan and the Rus funeral custom.
That's always fascinating to have a look at your videos.
Finally, I can actually enjoy learning about this now that i'm not being psychologically tortured in the american public school system.