October 22, 2018 by L.A. Smith

Anglo-Saxon Literature: The Wife’s Lament

On of the poems contained within the Exeter book is one called “The Wife’s Lament”. It’s an elegy, a poem that is a melancholy lament on death or other such sorrow, In this particular poem, a wife laments her separation and exile from her husband. It is written in Old English. As the Exeter book dates back to the late 10th century, we know that this poem is at least that old.

I have given you some simple facts about this poem in that first paragraph, but actually some of them are not facts, they are conjecture. Which makes this poem very tricky to write about! Like the Franks Casket, this little poem (53 lines) is subject to many interpretations and much scholarly debate.

Before we get into the general murkiness of the poem’s meaning, I will start with the bare bones of what it is about, in the minds of most scholars. The poem begins with a woman’s general lament over the state of her life. Keeping in mind that Old English is very difficult to translate, and so there are many variations of translations available, here is one fairly easy to understand version of the first stanza:

I make this song of myself, deeply sorrowing,
my own life’s journey. I am able to tell
all the hardships I’ve suffered since I grew up,
but new or old, never worse than now –
ever I suffer the torment of my exile.

The poem then gets into the details of her “life’s journey”. She is in exile because she has married into a different tribe/kingdom, and is without friends or family. And a secondary exile seems to take place in the poem, as he husband leaves her, the reason for which is unclear. Perhaps because of a feud, or a crime, we don’t know enough to say. The upshot of this is that the woman leaves as well, to look for her husband. She is thwarted in this by her husband’s kinsmen, and is then commanded to live in a hole in the ground. Which leads her to pen this sorrowful poem. Can’t say I blame her.

There is also a section in the poem that could be about a tryst with another lover (perhaps that’s why she is put in the hole), or could also refer to a betrayal of her love by the husband. Some say that the “hole” is actually a grave, in other words, that the woman has been killed, and this is her ghost speaking. Either way, it’s all gloomy.

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

So, getting back to the first paragraph of this post, here’s a little more enlightenment on the controversies surrounding this poem:

The title – It is true that the poem is found within the Exeter Book, and is written in Old English. But, like the other elegies and poems in that book, it doesn’t actually have a title in the original manuscript. The poem simply starts with the first line. The first person to name it, Anglo-Saxon scholar Benjamin Thorpe, actually named it “The Exile’s Lament” in 1842. It wasn’t until eight years later that the title was changed to “The Wife’s Lament”. What’s going on, here?

Well, first of all, the Old English equivalent for the word “wife” does not appear in the poem. The poem is clearly meant to be in a woman’s voice, however, because the pronouns and adjectives in the poem are written in the Old English feminine form, rather than masculine. And by the way, this is one of the first pieces of English literature written from a woman’s point of view, which makes it pretty special aside from anything else, don’t you think? This is likely why Benjamin Thorpe did not ascribe it to a woman, because there isn’t much literature from a woman’s point of view that comes from this male-dominated era. Perhaps he was just not expecting to see that, and so he didn’t. And as I said, Old English, especially poetic Old English, is very tricky to translate.

The subject of the poem is of a more domestic nature, as compared to the heroic poems such as “Beowulf”, with its monsters, fighting, and mead-halls. This also makes “The Wife’s Lament” stand out amongst the other poems we have from this era.

Of course, just because it’s in a woman’s “voice” doesn’t mean the creator of the poem was a woman. Don’t forget, very few people could read or write at the time. These poems were meant to be spoken, performed for an audience. It is possible that there were women who created poems, but it is likely that it would only be men who performed them. We only have a few poems from this era that were captured by a scribe at some point and written down. This scribe, however, could have been male or female, as this work was done pretty much exclusively in monasteries or nunneries.

Because of the female voice of the poem’s narrator, she is assumed to be a wife of the “lord” that she is mourning over in the poem. Hence, “The Wife’s Lament”.

The style of poem – although the interpretation of the poem being an elegy is the most common one, some scholars think that this is not an elegy, but is actually a riddle. They believe this because of a lot of complicated textual analysis that I can’t claim understand well enough to write about, so I will take their word for it. The poem ends, Woe to the one who must suffer longing for a loved one. This type of epitaph is typical of Anglo-Saxon riddles, which always end with these bits of what is called “gnomic” wisdom. It is interesting that this poem, along with “The Wanderer “and “The Seafarer”, are found in the Exeter Book, which also contains 92 other riddle poems. So, I suppose it’s possible….

Yeah. Basically.

We have comparatively little extant written material from the Early Middle Ages, and so each piece we have is so very important to help us understand the culture and the times in which it was written. “The Wife’s Lament”, in particular, even with it’s difficulties, puts a small spotlight on a woman’s perspective (albeit a very sad one!), and that makes it very special, indeed.

Want more? Here are the posts in my Anglo-Saxon Literature series:

The Dream of the Rood

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Wanderer

What’s In a Word?

Bald’s Leechbook: The Doctor is In

The Lindisfarne Gospels

Feature image of the Exeter Book from exeter-cathedral.org

October 10, 2018 by L.A. Smith

The Franks Casket

The Franks Casket, also known as the Auzon Casket, is a singularly fascinating object from early 8th century Anglo-Saxon England, probably Northumbrian in origin.

It is a small chest (the word “casket” is a bit deceiving, it is only 9″ by 4″). It’s unknown exactly what its original purpose was, but possibly it was made to hold a Gospel book or a book of Psalms (a psalter). It is made out of whale bone.

It is amazing that this small chest survived at all through the centuries. It first came to light in medieval France, as a reliquary in St. Julien’s Basilica in Brioude. It next appears on the record as a possession of a family in Auzon, France. Possibly it was looted from the church during the French Revolution, but it’s hard to say. At any rate, the box was used as a sewing box until the silver hinges and fittings were taken off and traded for a silver ring.

Sir Augustus Wolloston Franks, described by Marjorie Caygill, historian of the British Museum, as “arguably the most important collector in the history of the British Museum, and one of the greatest collectors of his age”. Image from Wikicommons

Without the hinges the box fell apart, and the panels were shown to a professor who sold them to an antique dealer in Paris. Three of the panels were bought by Sir Augustus Wolloston Franks in 1857, and he donated them to the British Museum as he was the Keeper of the British and Medieval collections there,

The missing fourth panel (the right end) was found in a drawer by the family in Auzon and sold to the Bargello Museum in Florence, where it still resides. It wasn’t until 1890 that the discovery was made that it belonged to the other pieces in the British Museum. The British Museum made a cast of the missing piece and reassembled the casket, and it is now on display there.

What is so interesting about this small chest are the exquisite carvings that adorn the sides and the top. Each panel depicts a different scene, all of them include runic inscriptions of varying lengths, with one Latin word thrown in for good measure. The dating and place of origin of the Franks casket comes mainly from the linguistic evidence of the words and the artistic style of the carvings.

The inscription on the front is a riddle, which also includes the answer. It is a riddle that describes what the box is made out of:

The flood lifted up the fish on to the cliff-bank;
the whale became sad, where he swam on the shingle.

Whale’s bone.

The casket was most certainly made in a monastery for some important figure, likely a king. There have been some attempts to tie it to the monastery at Ripon, founded by Wilfrid, but nothing definitive can be said about that.

There have been reams of scholarship on the decorative carvings, and that is because they are all so very different, and have many possible interpretations. The runes are not exactly straightforward, either, as in one spot the carver has used a simple substitution cipher to encrypt the words, and in other places has even written words backwards. This type of playing with words and letters is familiar – the use of riddles and encryption is seen in other surviving manuscripts from this time period. Anglo-Saxons obviously had a great respect for the power of the written word, don’t you think? I find it so fascinating, Don’t you wish you could sit down with the maker and find out exactly what was in his mind as he made this object?

Originally all the carved panels were thought to be random scenes, placed with no overall thought or design in mind. However, scholars are starting to reject that idea. They are now coming to see the carvings as an extremely clever and intellectually rich commentary, chosen precisely for how they all fit together.

The trouble is that the overarching theme or commentary is still unknown, and likely will never be known. Some postulate that the casket is telling the story of the history of England, from its pagan past to its Christian present (at least at the time of the 8th century, when it was created). Others see it as a commentary of the superiority of Christianity over pagan religions.

Because the obviously Christian element on the panel is only one small part of it, though, the thinking is that the casket was likely meant for a secular ruler. There are certainly many references to secular/pagan legends and history.

There is so much informed and scholarly thought about what each of the carved panels represent that it would be a longer blog post than you likely want to read to tell you all of the possible interpretations. But, in a nutshell, here are a brief description of the panels and some of the proposed meanings of them.

Front panel – contains the riddle described above, flowing around the top, bottom, and sides of the panel, written in runes. The pictures are broken up into two distinct scenes. One the right, you have the only obviously Christian scene on the casket, that of the Adoration of the Magi after Christ was born in Bethlehem. We know this because the maker has helpfully included the word “mægi” over the three figures who are bowing to the baby held by the woman. Easy-peasy.

On the left, there is something completely different, namely, a depiction of part of the Germanic legend of Weyland the Smith. In this scene Welyand has been captured by the cruel king Niohad.. It also depicts the headless body of Niohad’s son, whom Weyland has killed in revenge for his captivity. Weyland is holding a goblet in his tongs, this could be the missing head, which he has made into a goblet. In the legend he offers a goblet of drugged beer to Niohad’s daughter, whom he then rapes. A female figure is in this scene, probably this is her.

Why on earth would the creator of this casket put these two scenes together? Possibly it is juxtaposing the benign Christ and his rule as opposed to the darkness and death of paganism from which the Saxons have escaped.

Front panel. Image from John W. Schulze, on Flickr

Left side panel – this is a depiction of the legend of the twins Romulus and Remus, the two founders of Rome. The legend states that they were suckled by a she-wolf. The panel shows the wolf on her back, protecting and suckling the twins, with four men with spears watching. The runic inscription says, Romulus and Remus, two brothers: a she-wolf fed them in Rome city, far from their native land.

This legend shows up in other Anglo-Saxon artifacts from the 8th century, so it’s not necessarily surprising to see it here. There are some parallels to it and the story of Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon brothers who were the legendary founders of England. Bede tells us that they were invited to Britain by King Vortigern along with a mercenary army of Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, to help him fight against the Picts of the north in the light of the departure of Rome’s legions in the 5th century. Soon the money ran out and the erstwhile saviours turned against the British and began to claim England for their own.

Therefore, this panel could also be a reference to England’s past.

Alternatively, Rome was the centre of the Christian church at the time, so this could be symbolizing the aid and succour that Mother Church gives to her children.

I hope you are starting to see the difficulty scholars have in interpreting these scenes!

Left panel. Image from Wikicommons

Back Panel – this depicts the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD by Titus. Again, the runic inscription explains this. Interestingly, some of the words here are carved in Latin script, not with the runic alphabet.

Again, one might wonder why this scene is included here. This conquest of the Jews by the Gentile Roman, Titus, was seen as a divine punishment by God for the wickedness of the Jews in their rejection of Christ. Similarly, Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of England, presents the invasion of the Saxons as punishment of the Britons for their moral laxity. This panel, then, could be a subtle, or not-so-subtle, commentary on a painful episode in England’s history that God used to chasten his wayward people. Others speculate it is more general than that, and is a commentary of the triumph of Christianity over Judaism.

Back panel. Roman soldiers are on the left, beseiging Jerusalem. On the right are the captive prisoners being led away. Note the Latin letters on the top right. Image from Wikicommons

Lid – The top is missing the two panels that border the centre panel, which, assuming it was similar to the sides, contained the runic inscription. Perhaps these were made of silver as well, with the runes etched on it? Hard to say. It also has a round spot in the middle which could have had an embellished silver boss or a knob-like handle attached.

Without the helpful runic inscriptions, it’s a little harder to suss out the meaning of the carvings. Some speculate it depicts an unknown part of the legend of Egill, a Germanic hero who is Weyland’s brother. There is one runic word incorporated in the carving, which says Ægill, hence the above interpretation. Other scholars argue that the word is actually referring to Achilles, and the carving is a depiction of the death of Achilles at Troy.

Lid. Image from Wikipedia

Here you can see the centre panel on the lid, with the obvious missing pieces on either side. Image from Wikicommons

Right Side Panel – this is the most enigmatic of all, and the one that generates the most scholarly debate. The inscription reads,

Here the horse stands above the mound of woe,
It suffers tribulation; just as to her Erta appointed anxiety,
A grave of grief, in sorrow and anguish of heart.

Wood. Biter. Rush.

Hmm. Not really helpful. This is the panel that contains the encrypted words, and as well the words run together without separation between them, adding to the difficulty of translation.

The picture is of a horse standing over a mound, which contains a human-like figure (possibly a burial mound, the “mound of woe”). On the left there is a strange figure with the body of a man and the head of a horse sitting on a mound, with a man wearing a helmet and carrying a spear in front of it. On the right there are three figures. This possibly echoes the three magi on the front.

The word “horse” is sometimes translated as Hos, a name. But no one knows who Hos and Erta (or Eratae) are, or what legend they refer to. There are also possible references to the Norse god Woden, as the symbols under the legs of the horse are ones that could refer to him.

Some believe this picture refers back to Hengist and Horsa again. The word “horsa” means “horse” in Old English, so perhaps this depicts Horsa mourning over the death of his brother Hengist.

There are several other interpretations of this panel which I won’t go into here. Needless to say, it’s a mystery!

Right side panel (this is the cast that was made from the original). Image from Wikicommons

So, the pictures and inscriptions on the casket are a great source of scholarly discussion. To top it all off, there seems to also be some numerological significance to the number of runes on the casket. There are 72 runes on the front and left panels, and a total of 288 runes in total. The 72 could correspond to the 72 disciples mentioned in the Latin Vulgate Bible familiar to the Anglo-Saxons. The number 288 is a multiple of 24, which is the number of runes in an early continental Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, which had magical significance for the Anglo-Saxons.

Phew! No wonder many scholars have devoted so much time and effort on trying to decipher the runes and pictures on this little box. The more you look at it, the more you discover.

This beautiful box has so much to tell us about this fascinating period in England’s history. It’s an extremely important object that demonstrates for us the rich cultural milieu from which it sprang, giving us tantalizing hints into the way they saw themselves.

Featured image from Wikipedia

Do you want to know more about Anglo-Saxon England, or the other topics I cover here on the blog? Do you want to be kept up to date on the publication of my first novel, Wilding: Book One of the Traveller’s Path? Sign up for my newsletter and you will get all this, and more!

September 18, 2018 by L.A. Smith

The Celts: An Introduction

England in the 7th century was made up of diverse groups of people. I’ve been blogging a lot about the Anglo-Saxons, those descendants of the invaders who made their way to Britain after the Roman legions left the island undefended in the 4th century.

The Romans left behind the Romano-British people, including, some speculate, the legendary Arthur, who fought against the Saxon invaders. But the other group of people who were there were the British Celts, the original inhabitants of the British Isles.

The Romans had never really conquered the Celts, just subdued them and made alliances with them when they could, and put up Hadrian’s Wall in the north to stop the raiding Picts and British Celtic tribes they never did tame. And in the west, the Welsh Celts retreated into their mountain strongholds but were never subdued. The Irish Celts, of course, continued their lives on their remote island much as they ever had.

The Druids were the priestly class of Celtic society. Their place in society gradually diminished until the old religion was pretty much wiped out by the 8th century in Britain, but in the 6th century, St. Patrick still acknowledged the high status of Druids by allowing that oaths could be made in front of them. Image from Harbinger451

Things remained much the same when the invading/colonizing Germanic tribes came along. The people groups we now call the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish did not welcome the newcomers with open arms, but by the time of the 7th century there existed a fair amount of cooperation and even intermarriage between them. The Picts in Northern England also had embraced the Christian faith by this time.

The Celts and the Anglo-Saxons had similar societies, being that they were warrior societies, based around strong kings and familial ties.

But there were definite differences, as well.

1. Christian vs pagan – by the 7th century, the Irish and Welsh had pretty much been Christianized*, and had begun to set up their monasteries which were centres of learning and innovation. They had access to the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans and they were beginning to bring this wisdom and knowledge back to the rest of Europe who had lost it during the chaotic centuries after Rome fell and the barbarians took over. The Anglo-Saxons were beginning to be Christianized by the Irish monks as well, but there were still kings who held onto the pagan ways of their forefathers, most notably, Penda of Mercia. In fact, the 7th century was a time when the future of Christianity in Britain and even in Europe was very much up in the air. Whichever religion won over the society was going to be the religion held by the strongest king. And with the way the power shifted from one king to another over this century, it was far from certain that the Christian faith would come out on top.
Nature gods vs Norse gods – the Irish and Welsh Celts were Christians, but they came from a pagan background of nature worship. Theirs was a religion where trees, water, and the natural world were held sacred. Echoes of this still survived in the practice of their Christian faith. The Saxons held to the worship of Woden, Thunder, and Frig, the Nordic gods of their ancestors. It’s not entirely clear how either of these cultures practiced their religions, exactly, although we have some hints here and there. But the foundations of their worldviews would have been very different. For example, the Saxon idea of Fate, or wyrd, would have been much different from the way the ancient Celts, and most certainly the Christian Celts, saw the world.
Place of women – I have mentioned before that Anglo-SAxon women had more rights and a more powerful place in society than their MIddle Ages counterparts who followed them. It was similar for women in Celtic societies, and maybe even more so. I have heard it said that the Celts practiced matriarchy, but in the research I have done it does not seem that was the case. But certainly women could be warriors and even lead armies, be judges, and otherwise hold a considerable amount of power among the Celts. You see this translate over to the IRish church, where women such as Hild could be leaders of both women and men in the double monasteries.
Tribal Chief vs King – the Celts had a tribal, familial based society, as compared to the Saxons, whose loyalties were centered on the warrior-kings. In practice, this might look similar, but it was nonetheless a subtle inference between them. Family ties were important in Anglo-Saxon life, of course, but not to quite the same extent as the Celts.
Language – the Anglo-Saxons spoke various dialects of what we now call Old English. For example, the Mercians had slight differences from the language the Angles in Bernicia spoke. But it was all the same basic root language, derived from the one spoken by their ancestors who had originally migrate to Britain after the Romans left. The Celts spoke their own language, which also had the same root language called Brythonic but by the 7th century it had diverged from its common root into distinct languages amongst the groups we now call the Welsh, Irish and Scots. The Celtic language was divided up

In future posts on the Celts I hope to touch on more of these elements of their society in more detail. Stay tuned!

*When I say “Christianized”, I mean that the faith had gained acceptance among both the ruling class and mainstream society. That’s not to say that there might not have been some hold-outs who clung to the old ways, however.

Featured image from The British Museum

September 10, 2018 by L.A. Smith

Society News: Ceorls

In every society you have the elites and the rest. The percentage of people belonging to those two classes will fluctuate, and those broad categories are almost always broken down into further sub-categories, but in general, that’s how human societies tend to organize themselves.

The Anglo-Saxons were no different. The elites were made up of the Kings, Earldomen, and to a lesser extent, the thegns and the clergy. These were the powerful people, the ones with wealth and prestige. They owned the most land, and had the political power. The movers and shakers, as it were. It’s impossible to say exactly how many there were at that time, but suffice to say that they were not the majority. The majority of the people were the lower classes, those who were called the ceorls. We would call these the peasants.

The word ceorl is where we get our English word churl from, but that word has connotations that give us a false picture of this class of people in 7th century England. The ceorls were freemen who owned or rented land, or were the tradesmen who were the silversmiths, weavers, carpenters, etc. They would work the land cooperatively with their neighbours, often sharing the burden of planting and harvest. Which would mean they would live in close proximately to each other in order to accommodate this division of labour, and as well as for protection.

Often there was a lord, such as a thegn, to whom the ceorls would give either rent and/or labour to in exchange for protection. The thegn would also call on these ceorls as a fighting force, or fyrd, when needed.

That is the broad strokes. Looking more closely at the ceorls, you will discover that this class was further broken down into three sub-classes, divided up by how much land the ceorl owned and therefore how wealthy they were.

Typical clothing of the ceorls. Image from ThoughtCo.com

The highest class amongst the ceorls was the geneatas. These were the peasant aristocracy, who owned the most land, sometimes as much or more as a thegn. They might not have to work the thegn‘s land in exchange for his protection, but they would have to pay some kind of rent or payment for his services. This could be in the form of food or livestock, not just money. They also could be messengers for the thegn, or help build fences around his lord’s land, or even provide entertainment.

Below the geneatas were the kotsetla. They would provide labour on their lord’s land at least one day a week, and up to two or three days per week during harvest. The rest of the time they would work their own land. They could also do other work for the thegn, such as helping during the hunt or coast guarding duties. They could also be called up for duty in the fyrd.

The gerburas were the lowest class of ceorl. They owned the least amount of land, or none at all, and in order to survive had to depend on their lord for land they needed to produce the crops and livestock to feed themselves and their families. In exchange they would work the lord’s land, at least two days a week, and more during planting and harvest. They would not have much free time to improve their lot, and would have been the ones with the hardest lives in Anglo-Saxon England (excluding the slaves, whom I will write about in a future post).

Definitely my favourite peasants ever…

It’s important to note that there was opportunity for movement between the classes. If one was born a gerbur, it didn’t mean you would necessarily be one for life, although, as I mentioned, the lower down you were the harder it was to move up.

But in Anglo-Saxons society, hard work and service to your lord, whether that be militarily or otherwise, could be rewarded with gifts of land or booty from the latest military campaign, so it was definitely possible for people to improve their lot in life–if not for them, at least for their children. A hard-working ceorl who fought valiantly at his lord’s side could find himself rewarded generously in land, bumping him up the social scale.

It was even possible for slaves to move up the social ladder, but that is a tale for the next post in this series! Stay tuned…

Note: this post is part of a series on the class levels that made up Anglo-Saxon society in 7th century Anglo-Saxon England. For other posts in this series, check out the links below:

Society News: Introduction

Society News: The Kings (and Queens).

Society News: The Upper Crust

Society News: The Church

Society News: Weregild

Feature image is an artist’s reconstruction of Tintagel, off the coast of Cornwall, in 600 AD, from English Heritage

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August 24, 2018 by L.A. Smith

The Celtic Cross: A History

I’ve been spending a lot of time here on the blog giving you a detailed look at life in England in the 7th century, from the various classes that make up that society, to the literature they produced, and to important places such as Bamburgh.

Lately I’ve been focussing mainly on one section of that society, that being the Anglo-Saxons. But of course there were other groups of people living on the British Isles at that time, one of the biggest being the Celts.

I’ve touched on their society here and there, mainly in explaining how the Celtic Christianity of the native Britons differed from the Roman Christianity brought to England by Augustine in 597 AD. But I thought I should spend some time here delving into their culture a little bit more deeply.

Much of it is similar to the Anglo-Saxons. Both were warrior cultures, for example. But just as there are some significant differences in how they practiced their religion, there were significant differences in other aspects of their culture as well.

I will explore some of those societal differences in future posts. But to start with, I wanted to look a little more closely at one of the symbols of the Celtic Church. The Celtic Cross, with its distinctive circle encompassing the cross-beams, has become an iconic representation of Celtic Christianity, and as such, I wanted to give you some background on how this cross became to be used by the Celtic Christians.

Deep breath. There are a whole lot of rabbit trails that one can go merrily along when studying this subject. I am going to give you just a brief overview, but if you are interested I encourage you to do some research yourself.

One of the legends about this unique style of cross was that Saint Patrick combined the Christian cross with the sun cross, a pagan symbol, in order to make Christianity more appealing to the pagan Britons. This theory also surmises that putting the cross on top of the symbol was a way for Patrick to show the superiority of Christ over the pagan sun-god.

The sun cross is a circle divided into four quadrants, and this symbol has been found in religious objects from Bronze Age Europe (and in many other times and cultures as well). In the European context, it is speculated that this symbol represents the wheel of the chariot of the sun god.

The Fahan Mura Slab is an early form of Irish Celtic Cross. Initially they were merely incised upon a stone slab, and then they got a little more intricate. You can see how the carving here is more bas-relief. This eventually resulted in the free-standing stone crosses that became so prolific across Ireland. Even now, after many centuries of wear and sometimes deliberate destruction, there are at least a couple hundred crosses in various states of repair still standing across Ireland, and there are more in Scotland, Wales and Northumbria.

I think this explanation of the origin of the Celtic cross might be stretching things a bit. First of all, it seems to be a little too speculative. There is a lot of uncertainty about what that “sun cross” really represents, so right there we are treading in murky waters. I do believe that St. Patrick presented the new faith using language and symbols (and places) that were familiar to the pagan Celts of Ireland, but to definitively say that he “invented” the Celtic cross in order to aid him in this seems a bit of a stretch.

But I don’t discount that theory completely. I’m not a historian, so there may be compelling evidence out there that I don’t know about which would show me wrong. But until I know of it, I’ll stick with my gut feeling on that.

What I think might be more plausible are a couple of other theories I’ve come across. One being that the circle on the Celtic cross originated from an even earlier symbol of Christianity, the chi-ro.

Let’s back up a bit. The cross was not the preferred symbol of the early Christians. To them, who lived in the Roman Empire, the cross was an instrument of torture and death. They used other symbols, which are another very fascinating rabbit trail to go down, but I’ll stick to the main point here.

One of those early symbols was the Chi-Ro, which was a stylized combination of the first two Greek letters of the word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ – Christos, or “Christ”.

The Chi-Ro

The Emperor Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, made his new faith the official state religion in the fourth century, and he was the one who popularized the chi-ro. Christians began to show this symbol with a laurel wreath superimposed on top, to symbolize the resurrection of Christ as the victory over death (the laurel wreath being worn by Emperors and awarded to victors in the Games).

So you can see how this idea of having a Christian symbol (the Chi-Ro) with a circle on top could explain a Celtic Cross, once the cross became a popular symbol of the faith (which happened after the collapse of the Roman Empire and the end of public crucifixions).

A chi-ro carved into the rock in the catacombs at San Callisto, Rome. One of my favourite memories of Rome is going into the catacombs and seeing the evidence of the early Christians there. They used the catacombs as hiding places from the Roman authorities during the time of persecution in the early years after Christ. Image by Dnalor_1 on Wikicommons

Another theory is a much more practical one. It postulates that the stone crosses were modelled after the earlier, wooden ones, which may have had cross beams supporting the horizontal beams of the cross for strength and stability. The stone carvers wanted to have the same support when making the heavy stone crosses, and so used the stone circle for that end.

It’s impossible to know for sure. Likely there is some truth to all of these theories. But no matter the origins of this unique style of cross, by the seventh century large, intricately carved stone crosses began to become a regular feature of the landscape in Anglo-Saxon England and across what later became known and Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Irish monks who established monasteries began to erect them both at their monasteries and churches but also in public squares. They became teaching tools, with the elaborate carvings a visual representation of important Biblical characters and events.

cross_celtic_religious_ancient_church_christian_celtic_cross_christianity-804858.jpg!d

This close up shows another feature of many of the Celtic Crosses – that of the notched arms where the two beams meet. Some speculate that this also hearkens back to the original, wooden crosses, which could have been notched right there to allow for the two pieces to be lashed together with a rope. Image from pxhere

They are beautiful to look at now, but would have been even more spectacular to see then, because they originally were painted in bright colours, to draw the eye and attract those who saw them. In a future post I want to examine one of these crosses in more detail, to give you an idea of the intricate work with profound theological significance that adorn them.

The faithful Christians who built them made them to last, and they have certainly done that. But I’m sure even they would be astonished to know that some two thousand years later their work is still on display for all to see and admire, in many cases in the very spots, or very close to it, that they themselves erected them.

August 9, 2018 by L.A. Smith

The Exeter Book

This post is part of an ongoing series of posts on literature from Anglo-Saxon England.

Lnks to other posts in this series can be found at the end of this post.

One of the important sources of surviving literature from Anglo -Saxon England is the Exeter Book. There are only four surviving collections of Anglo-Saxon literature, and of these, the Exeter Book is the oldest, most varied, and the best preserved. I have mentioned this book before in posts on various manuscripts that are found within the book, and I will be highlighting more in the future, but I thought you might find it interesting to know more about the book as a whole.

The Exeter Book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral in 1072 AD by Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, and there it has stayed ever since. In his will, which details the sixty-seven books and other objects he wished to be donated to the then-impoverished Cathedral, Leofric describes “a large English book of poetic works about all sorts of things,” which is believed to be what is now known as the Exeter Book, or as the Codex Exoniensis. Scholars estimate that is was compiled somewhere between 960-990 AD, and is a collection of various works of religious and secular Anglo-Saxon poetry, including The Wanderer. In fact it contains over 1/6th of the surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry. It also includes over ninety Anglo-Saxon riddles. Several of the poems included in the book are much older than the tenth century compilation date; some go as far back as the seventh century. In many cases the Exeter book contains the only known source of these works. All in all it’s the largest known collection of Anglo-Saxon literature in the world, and as such was recognized by UNESCO in 2016 as one of the “world’s principal cultural artifacts.”

One of the most fascinating entries in the book is The Rhyming Poem, which dates to the tenth century. It consists of Old English rhyming couplets, which is quite different from any other Anglo-Saxon poetry, which was done in alliterative verse.

This is an excerpt from Riddle 24 of the Exeter Book. Can you see the runes embedded in this it? They are towards the bottom. This is an example of a riddle-within-a-riddle. In this case the answer to this riddle, which is “magpie” is spelled out by those runes. (see my post on Cynewulf the poet for another example of this). There are other riddles in the Exeter Book which also include runes as an aid for the reader who is able to read both Old English and the runes. Riddle 24 is fairly straightforward, but there are others, even with the aid of the runes, are still so obscure that the riddle has still yet to be solved. Cool, hey? If you want to read more about this, check out this fascinating article from the University of Notre Dame , which is where this image comes from.

The book itself is visually unremarkable, however, especially compared with the beautifully illustrated manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Kells. It was inscribed with brown ink on vellum, likely copied from an earlier version, and has minimal decorations on a few leaves. A couple of initial letters are slightly ornamented. It has lost its original cover as well as the first original eight pages, which were replaced by others at a later date.

One of the ornamented letters. Image from exeter-cathedral.org

It’s been used as a coaster at some point, you can see the water ring left behind. The early pages are scored through with a sharp object, so perhaps it was also used as a cutting board. The final pages bear some scorch marks. So despite the value of its contents, perhaps its ho-hum appearance was the reason that it was left behind at Exeter Cathedral when a bunch of the Cathedral’s most precious books were donated to the newly founded Bodleian Library at Oxford in 1602 AD. It was obviously not deemed very valuable.

So, it is still at Exeter Cathedral. If you go to visit, you can see it on display there, along with a bunch of other intriguing books and manuscripts, including a Shakespeare Second Folio. But of all of them, the Exeter Book is the greatest treasure.

The Exeter Book still is not recognized today as the important work of literature it is. Most people have barely heard of it, compared with the Diary of Anne Frank or the Magna Carta, both of which have also been recognized by UNESCO and entered into their Memory of the World register.

But that might change. Exeter University professor Emma Cayley began developing an app in 2016 to make the book more accessible to the public. I checked, but it’s not available yet. I hope it is soon! I can’t help but think that Leofric would be pleased.

Links to other posts in this series:

The Dream of the Rood

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Wanderer

What’s In a Word?

Bald’s Leechbook: The Doctor is In

The Lindisfarne Gospels

The Cotton Library

Cynewulf the Poet

Beowulf Basics

If you like what you see in my posts, and if you want to be kept up to date with the publication journey of my first novel, Wilding, a historic fantasy set in 7th century England, you should subscribe to my newsletter! You will recieve one approximately once a month, but probably a little more frequently as my hoped-for publication date of October 31st, 2018, approaches. Click here to subscribe. Thank you for your interest in my words!

Featured image: The Exeter Book on display at Exeter Cathedral. The book is open to The Wanderer. Image from UNR English 440A, photo credit UMD iSchool

August 1, 2018 by L.A. Smith

Re-post: The Wanderer

Note: this is a fun post from a couple years ago. The blog is on hiatus this week but I’ll be back with fresh content next week. In the meantime I hope you enjoy this “wander” down memory lane….

One of the poignant moments in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers is the scene where King Théoden, newly restored to himself after Wormtongue’s enchantment, prepares for the upcoming battle of Helm’s Deep. Have a listen:

Wonderful! Just this little snippet made me want to go back and watch all three movies, but I digress…

The poem that Théoden quotes here comes from Tolkien, but in the book it is said by Aragon, as he introduces the Riders of Rohan to his companions. It has been condensed somewhat in the film, the original version is this:

Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?

Where is the spring and the harvest, and the tall corn growing?

They have passed like rain on the mountains, like wind on the meadow;

The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into Shadow.

Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning?

Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

One day I am going to do a longer post about Tolkien, the Anglo-Saxons, and Aragon in particular, but for today I wanted to give you just a little tidbit, illustrated by this poem.

Ah, yes, Aragon, aka Strider, aka son of Arathorn, aka heir of Esildur, aka…well, stay tuned to the blog to find out!

Tolkien, of course, was an Anglo-Saxon scholar, and in particular he modelled the Rohirrim after the people and culture of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

This poem that Aragon quotes is adapted from one of the poems that survive from that period, called The Wanderer. It begins like this (translated, of course, from Anglo-Saxon):

Often the solitary one

finds grace for himself

the mercy of the Lord.

Although he, sorry-hearted,

must for a long time

move by hand [i.e. row]

along the waterways,

(along) the ice-cold sea,

tread the paths of exile.

Events must always go as they must!

This poem can be found in the 10th century anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry called the Exeter Book, but many scholars believe that this poem existed long before then in oral tradition, and could date back to the 6th century.

Wanderer-Exeter-Book-first-page-Bernard-Muir

Facsimile of the first page of The Wanderer from the Exeter Book (from Wikipedia). This looks like it is written like prose, not poetry, but if you look carefully you will see extra spaces between words, which is the indication of a half-line division of a line of poetry. Also you will see some dots between words, which is also meant to show other half-line breaks.

The poem itself is about a warrior who is wandering in exile, having lost his liege lord, kin, and comrades in battle, defending his homeland from attack. It is melancholy in nature, which comes as no surprise – for in the Anglo-Saxon culture with its emphasis on close family ties and allegiance to a lord, to be alone in a strange land with no kin or lord to protect you is almost a fate worse than death.

In the first stanza quoted above, you can see a fascinating mix of the old Saxon religion and beliefs and the new Christian ones. It shows a culture in the midst of transition from the old ways to the new. The opening lines show that the warrior is looking for mercy from God, but at the end of the stanza you see “Events must always go as they must!”

When you look up this poem you will find that there are many different ways to translate the Anglo-Saxon original, so that last line I can also find translated as, “Fate is established!” or “Fate has been decreed.”

This is the Saxon concept of wyrd, the inexorable fate that binds every person, that cannot be denied. So the poem begins with both the Christian concept of God’s mercy and the Saxon idea of fate. And you will see these two world-views juxtaposed throughout the poem.

In the midst of The Wanderer is the part that Tolkien adapted for The Two Towers. It comes in the poem after the warrior has contemplated the brevity of life, “as now in various places throughout this middle-earth walls stand, blown by the wind, covered with frost, storm-swept the buildings.” After meditating on this the warrior says,

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?

Where the giver of treasure?

Where are the seats at the feast?

Where are the revels in the hall?

Alas for the splendour of the prince!

How that time has passed away,

dark under the cover of night,

as if it had never been!

It’s all a bit gloomy, I’ll admit, but I can imagine the effect of the scop singing or reciting this poem on the people gathered in the mead hall, snug against the winter storms, surrounded by their kin and secure in their own place in the world. It would have given both a sobering contemplation of the fate of the exiled stranger, and the delicious relief that they were not him. Kinda like the effect of a thunderstorm when you are in bed, you feel extra cozy knowing that you are not outside in the storm itself.

The Wanderer ends with the counsel, “It is better for the one who seeks mercy, consolation from the father in the heavens, where, for us, all permanence rests.” The Christian world-view has obviously won out for the original writer of the poem. Of course there are other speculations that one could make, for example, that some scribe along the way altered the poem, adding more overtly Christian elements than were originally in there. It’s hard to say, and I guess we will probably never know.

One of the best ways to understand a culture is to read their literature. Unfortunately, as the Anglo-Saxon culture was in many ways an oral culture, we have lost so much of their stories. I’m so glad this poem survived to open up to us the world of the mead-hall, and to enable us to meet the exiled wanderer, journeying alone through the icy mist.

I took my translation of The Wanderer from Anglo-Saxons.net. Hop on over there if you want to see the whole poem in Anglo-Saxon along with the English translation.

And just for fun, click here if you want to hear it read in the original Anglo-Saxon.

Featured photo: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich, from WikiCommons

the traveller's path

The blog of L.A. Smith, writer

Category Archives: Dark Ages

Anglo-Saxon Literature: The Wife’s Lament

The Franks Casket

The Celts: An Introduction

Society News: Ceorls

The Celtic Cross: A History

The Exeter Book

Re-post: The Wanderer

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