Moon S Day, January 14: Britlit

Moon S Day, January 14: Britlit

Tyr’s Day, January 15: Britain Before 1066

EQ: What was the culture that produced Beowulf?

  • Welcome! Gather paper, pen/pencil, notebook, wits!
  • Lecture/Presentation: Britain Before 1066
  • Artifacts
  • Invasions
  • Warriors
  • Language
  • Mythology
  • Ragnarök
  • CLOZE: Britain Before 1066

YOU may use YOUR notes

  • Freewrite: Ragnarök

ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop

ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text

ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience

ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis

ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames

ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions

ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

Artifacts of Stone Age Britain

Stone Circles are found all over Britain and North Europe.

We don’t really know who built them, or why, but they are generally supposed to be religious/astrological sites.

Stonehenge (c. 1000 BC)

Rollright (FAR older)

A History of Invasions

  • Prehistory: Celts, Picts, Druids
  • 55 BCE: Romans
  • “King Arthur” was probably a Celtic chief vs. Romans
  • 450 CE: Vikings and Gothic tribes (“Anglo-Saxons”) from North Europe (what is now Germany)
  • Angles: East Anglia
  • Jutes/Geats (Beowulf):London
  • Saxons: Essex, Wessex, Sussex
  • 1066: Normans (North France)

Each wave of invaders pushed inhabitants farther North and West. Each wave considered predecessors inferior, so vilified Northwest. Even today, Londoners consider Northwestern folk “outlandish.”

Why did the Anglo-Saxons do so well?

Well, whom would youbet on?

Druid (modern reenactor) Pictish Warrior (artist’s conception)

Celtic Warrior (artist’s conception) Saxon Warrior (action figure)

Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature

  • Saxon words tend to be short (1-2 syllables) with simple sounds, giving us our most basic English words: love, hate, life, death, skin, bone, food, drink, good, bad, big, small, etc. Saxon words are the oldest and most essential in English.
  • Saxon poetry uses versification appropriate to short words. Does not rhyme!
  • Alliteration – repeating beginning consonant sounds
  • Heavy beats, usually 4 per line; 3 of these alliterate

I war with the wind, with the waves I wrestle;

I must battle with both when the bottom I seek….

I am strong in the strife, while still I remain;

As soon as I stir, they are stronger than I.

They wrench and they wrest, till I run from my foes;

What was caught in my keeping is carried away.

If my back be not broken, I baffle them still.

Hard rocks are my helpers, when hard I am pressed;

Grimly I grip them. Guess what I’m called.

  • Saxons did not write! They composed oral poetry.
  • “Folk literature”: ORAL Literature passed from generation to generation – not written down!
  • A favorite poem was customized by a s¢op, “shaper,” who sang to warriors in mead hall – still not written down!
  • Finally written downby Christian missionaries in the so-called “Cotton Manuscript.” These changed Pagan poems to suit Christian needs, replacing “Gods” with “God,” etc.

Anglo-Saxon/Norse Mythology

Days inEnglish have Norse namesDays in Spanish have Roman/Latin names

Sunday – the Sun (Old English word)Domingo – Domini (the Lord)

Monday – the Moon (Old English word)Lunes – Luna (Spanish/Latin for “moon”)

Tuesday – Tyr, the Norse God of WarMartes – Mars, the Roman God of War)

Wednesday – Woden, King of GodsMiercoles – Mercury, Messenger of Gods

Thursday – Thor, Hammer of the GodsJueves – Jove, King of the Roman Gods

Friday – Frigga, Norse Sex GoddessViernes – Venus, Roman Sex Goddess

Saturday – Saturn, Roman God of Harvest Sabado– again for Saturn

Loki – “Trickster” God – doesn’t get a day of the week!

Norse Mythology is very unusual – especially its eschatology.

Most religions teach that God(s)are eternal superbeings who create and control Nature and Fate, and live forever. Heroes or saints join God or the Gods in Paradise, and they too live forever.

As for the Norse, remember yesterday’s tale of Woden and the Troll King:

  • Norse Myth says that Gods created Order in heofan und miðgarðr (“sky and middle-earth”)after battling Dragons of Sea and Sky and Giants of Ice and Fire, natural forces of Chaos which are older and more powerful than the Gods
  • In Norse Myth Gods are subject to aspects of mortality – lusts, wounds, aging – and finally to Fate (Wyrd).

So they are flawed, and they fight, and can die – and will die.

Heroes who die brave deaths go Valhalla, a “Brave Hall” in Heofan. Here they feast with Gods until Ragnarök,when Loki will trick the Gods and Heroes into battle with the Dragons and Giants of Nature. Gods, Heroes, and all heofan und miðgarðr will be destroyed,leaving only fire and ice, sea and sky.

Valhalla burns at Ragnarök in this 1905 painting by Emil Doepler.

BIG POINT: In Anglo-Saxon battle culture, victory is never the point; a hero’s mod (“brave mood,” courage) is. Courage is valued for its own sake, because victory is never finally possible, even for heroes and gods. The best a warrior hopes for is a life of lof (“loving fame”) which brings him glory in life, a good reputation after death, and time in Valhalla before the collapse of everything.

CLOZE/Quiz: Britain Before 1066

You may use YOUR notes, and ONLY YOUR notes.

  1. Name a famous prehistoric Stone Circle in Britain:
  2. In Prehistory the British Isles were populated by ______, ______and ______.
  3. Where did the “Anglo-Saxons” (and Jutes) come from?
  4. What famous poem was about the hero of the Jutes/Geats/Goths?
  5. What part of Britain did the Jutes/Geats/Goths take as theirs?
  6. What was a Saxon warrior’s weapon of choice?
  7. List two modern English words derived from the Saxon:
  8. A line of Saxon poetry has ____ “heavy beats”; ____ of these alliterate.
  9. What is alliteration?
  10. What is folk literature?
  11. What did a s¢op do?
  12. Who finally wrote down (and changed) Saxon poems?
  13. Where do English names for days of the week come from?
  14. What is eschatology?
  15. What is wyrd?
  16. What isValhalla, and who got to go there?
  17. What happens at Ragnarök?

Freewrite (100 words): Ragnarök

Suppose you were a warrior going to a battle, and you KNEW that your side would lose, and you KNEW that you would die.

What would you do?

Be honest about it.

Of course, I will never know whether you are being honest about it.

Turn In Today:

  • CLOZE: Britain Before 1066
  • Closing Freewrite: Ragnarök
  • Closing Freewrite: Aristotle, Poetics (if you didn’t submit yesterday)
  • Corrections to yesterday’s work (if any)
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