Book Review: Anglo-Saxon Prose

 From 7 years in college, I have only continued with a very few things in terms of things that I learned there:  Japanese of course, and World Literature, and horticulture, and the harp.

And, Old English.

Old English, otherwise known as Anglo Saxon, represents the language spoken by the invaders of the Province of Britain in or about 446 A.D.to sometime around the 1200's, where it transformed itself in the Middle English of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  It is unique among early medieval languages of Europe in that so much of it has survived - not just in Bibles and homilies and religious writings but in laws and stories and books and riddles. Most people know the most famous - Beowulf, for example, or The Battle of Maldon - but in point of fact there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of bits and pieces that we have.  Perhaps more than any other early Medieval culture, we know a great deal about the Anglo-Saxons, what they believed, and how they lived.

I have puttered about with a study of Old English for well nigh on 30 years, sometimes waxing in interest, sometimes waning.  I have spent some profitable mornings or evenings on the weekends translating small selections of texts (I have about a 40% success rate sight reading).  

But just as with Beowulf or The Battle of Maldon, not all of these texts are only there for the scholars and those of unusual interests:

Anglo-Saxon Prose is an edited version of a number of different Anglo Saxon texts, some well known (Some of Alfred the Great's introductions, Legal Codes, The Life of St. Guthlac) and some that are less well known (Bald's Leechbook, sermons by bishops Ælfric and Wulfstan, letters and estate transfers) in modern English.  It gives an interesting - and humorous at times - glance into life well over 1,000 years ago.

From The Laws of Whitræd, King of Mercia, 695 A.D.:

"Men living in an illicit union are to turn to a righteous life with repentance of sins, or to be excluded from the fellowship of the church.  Foreigners, if they will not regularize their marriages, are to depart from the land with their possessions and with their sins; our own men in the nation are to forfeit the fellowship of the Church without suffering the confiscation of property.

If a traveler from afar or a foreigner leave the road, and he then neither shouts nor blows a horn, he is to be regarded as a thief and to be either killed or ransomed."

From the Land Grant at Crediton, 739 A.D.:

"Now these are the lands.  First from Creedy bridge to the highway, along the highway to the plough ford on the Exe, then along the Exe until the grassy islets, from the grassy islets onto the boundary ridge, from the boundary ridge to Luha's tree, from Luha's tree to the enclosure gate, from the enclosure gate to Dodda's ridge, from Dodda's ridge to Grendel's pit, from Grendel's pit to the ivy grove..."

From Bald's Leechcraft (A book on herbal lore):

"For the dorsal muscle, seethe green rue in oil and in wax; anoint the dorsal muscle with it.  Again:  take goat hair; let it smoke under the breeches against the dorsal muscle.  If a heel sinew be broken, take Fornet's palm, seethe it in water, foment the limb with it, and wash the limb with it; and make a salve of butter; anoint after the fomentation.

Against a woman's chatter:  eat a radish at night, while fasting; that day the chatter cannot harm you."

From Ælfric's Colloquy On The Professions:

"Master:  "What do you say, shepherd?  Do you have any work?

Shepherd:  I have indeed, sir.  In the early morning I drive my sheep to their pasture, and in the heat in the cold, stand over them with dogs, lest wolves devour them; and I lead them back to their fields and milk them twice a day, and move their folds; and in addition I make cheese and butter, and I am loyal to my lord.

Master:  What do you say, baker?  What is the use of your trade; or can we survive without you?

Baker:  You might live without my trade, but neither for long nor very well.  Truly, without my craft every table would seem empty; and without bread all food would turn distasteful.  I make people's heart strong ; I am the stamina of men, and even the little ones are unwilling to pass me by."

As you can see, the Anglo-Saxons were descriptive and aware of their world.  Truly, for what is an academic text, the book is a lot of fun.

The picture above is the latest version but, like many academic texts, you can pick up an older version for much cheaper and with little significant content change.  Well worth the money to see how, for some of us in the U.S. and Canada, our ancestors viewed themselves and their world.