Welcome to Litsy!

Seeing a post earlier from @Bookwomble reminded me about kennings, those metaphorical compound words used in Old English and Norse poetry. Think “earth-stepper” to mean wanderer, etc. As expressed above, “we can only speak of what we do not know in terms of what we know.” I learned about these delightful constructs in a college course on Tolkien- I‘ve been filled with fond memories all day.

#weirdwords @CBee #WeirdWordWednesdays

Wasn‘t sure what to expect. It was nice, the poems, and then I encountered The Wanderer and The Seafarer (the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon manuscript is above). You have to understand these were completely new to me. They have such a different perspective compared to everything I know of that‘s older. They look inward at an emotional state in their own kind of touching way. And to imagine, as I currently am, that they just came out of the mist.

It‘s interesting when an introduction can tell me how limited in quality the contents are and yet still get me interested. He tells me “Anglo-Saxon will never be considered one of the great languages of the world.” And “Beowulf, because is it extant, has sometimes been overvalued, as if it were the work of an English Homer. But it was not preserved, as the Iliad was, by the unanimous judgment of all the people through successive generations.”