Anglo-Saxons FTW
I walked in on my husband watching one of the ubiquitous airings of The Two Towers on TNT a few days ago during the "where is the horse and the rider" bit of the movie (though why anyone would want to watch anything other than the extended version is beyond me). In the movie, Theoden says "Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains. Like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow". This is one of my favorite parts of the movie. The Rohirrim make The Two Towers movie easily the best of the trilogy (though The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the books).
In the book, these lines are recited by Aragorn. In case you don't remember the full text, they are as follows:
Where now 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 hand 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 mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
I think the thing I love most about The Lord of the Rings in general, and the Rohirrim in particular, is the strong sense of history, of decline and loss, which derives from Tolkien's love of the Anglo-Saxons and their Germanic heritage. As a kid growing up in Miami, I always felt out of place, because I loved history and all things old, while Miami has a love for the new. Buildings are considered old in Miami if they have been standing for a hundred years. So, of course, when my husband and I bought our house in Pittsburgh, we picked a house built in the 1920s because it was OLD and has CHARM, which is, of course, white people code for it's a money pit and we're idiots for having bought it. "They don't make 'em like they used to" actually means "when something inevitably goes wrong, it will cost a fortune to fix it, because they don't make the same floor planks, so you will just have to accept plywood patches to cover the holes in your floors". But I digress.
I actually have no idea where this was going. Oh, right, decline and loss. Norse mythology and such. Anyway, a theme of Norse mythology, and therefore Anglo-Saxon mythology, is the slow decline of the world until Ragnarok and the world's ensuing rebirth. Tolkien was one of the first, and arguably the best, at world building. World building doesn't even begin to cover Tolkien's establishment of millennia of history. Even the destruction of the Ring is bittersweet, because it marks the end of the Elvish time on Middle Earth (middangeard, or Midgard). Well, it's supposed to be bittersweet, but let's be honest, the Elves are a tad boring. Bring on the Age of Men, because they are not nearly as hoity-toity.
The above passage accurately reflects that perceived decline. It feels old. Because it is. It's a passage that stops you in your tracks. You instinctively know that, despite Tolkien's genius, this is older than him. That's because Tolkien adopted that passage from the Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer.
Here are links to two translations, the accuracy of which I cannot vouch for. I took one class in Anglo-Saxon literature over ten years ago, so.... form your own opinions.
http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=wdr
https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wanderer/
The first link also has a transcription of "The Wanderer" in the original Anglo-Saxon. The relevant word is eardstapa, which is commonly - but not always - translated as Wanderer. The best word, though, is hrimcealde, which is really fun to say, and loosely means ice-rimmed. Anyway, the poem tells the story of a warrior whose lord dies, seemingly in battle. "Lord" beeteedubs, descends from "hlafweard" or bread-guard. Man, I love Anglo-Saxon. Here, the kenning for "lord" that the poet uses frequently is "goldwine", literally, gold-friend. The warrior is then exiled, and doomed to wander the earth ("middangeard"). The narrator meditates on how all victories are fleeting, and, ultimately, all will come to ruin.
Easter egg: you'll note that the last line of the first stanza is "Wyrd bid full araed". Please forgive me, I don't know how to make special characters, so pretend that the d in "bid" is an eth, and the ae in "araed" is an aesc. Anyway, that line can be recognized as the motto of Uhtred Ragnarson in The Saxon Tales series, which Bernard Cornwell translates as "fate is inexorable" (or "fate is all" in the opening to The Last Kingdom show).
Currently reading:
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf
Possession, by A.S. Byatt
Queen Isabella, by Alison Weir
In the book, these lines are recited by Aragorn. In case you don't remember the full text, they are as follows:
Where now 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 hand 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 mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
I think the thing I love most about The Lord of the Rings in general, and the Rohirrim in particular, is the strong sense of history, of decline and loss, which derives from Tolkien's love of the Anglo-Saxons and their Germanic heritage. As a kid growing up in Miami, I always felt out of place, because I loved history and all things old, while Miami has a love for the new. Buildings are considered old in Miami if they have been standing for a hundred years. So, of course, when my husband and I bought our house in Pittsburgh, we picked a house built in the 1920s because it was OLD and has CHARM, which is, of course, white people code for it's a money pit and we're idiots for having bought it. "They don't make 'em like they used to" actually means "when something inevitably goes wrong, it will cost a fortune to fix it, because they don't make the same floor planks, so you will just have to accept plywood patches to cover the holes in your floors". But I digress.
I actually have no idea where this was going. Oh, right, decline and loss. Norse mythology and such. Anyway, a theme of Norse mythology, and therefore Anglo-Saxon mythology, is the slow decline of the world until Ragnarok and the world's ensuing rebirth. Tolkien was one of the first, and arguably the best, at world building. World building doesn't even begin to cover Tolkien's establishment of millennia of history. Even the destruction of the Ring is bittersweet, because it marks the end of the Elvish time on Middle Earth (middangeard, or Midgard). Well, it's supposed to be bittersweet, but let's be honest, the Elves are a tad boring. Bring on the Age of Men, because they are not nearly as hoity-toity.
The above passage accurately reflects that perceived decline. It feels old. Because it is. It's a passage that stops you in your tracks. You instinctively know that, despite Tolkien's genius, this is older than him. That's because Tolkien adopted that passage from the Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer.
Here are links to two translations, the accuracy of which I cannot vouch for. I took one class in Anglo-Saxon literature over ten years ago, so.... form your own opinions.
http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=wdr
https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wanderer/
The first link also has a transcription of "The Wanderer" in the original Anglo-Saxon. The relevant word is eardstapa, which is commonly - but not always - translated as Wanderer. The best word, though, is hrimcealde, which is really fun to say, and loosely means ice-rimmed. Anyway, the poem tells the story of a warrior whose lord dies, seemingly in battle. "Lord" beeteedubs, descends from "hlafweard" or bread-guard. Man, I love Anglo-Saxon. Here, the kenning for "lord" that the poet uses frequently is "goldwine", literally, gold-friend. The warrior is then exiled, and doomed to wander the earth ("middangeard"). The narrator meditates on how all victories are fleeting, and, ultimately, all will come to ruin.
Easter egg: you'll note that the last line of the first stanza is "Wyrd bid full araed". Please forgive me, I don't know how to make special characters, so pretend that the d in "bid" is an eth, and the ae in "araed" is an aesc. Anyway, that line can be recognized as the motto of Uhtred Ragnarson in The Saxon Tales series, which Bernard Cornwell translates as "fate is inexorable" (or "fate is all" in the opening to The Last Kingdom show).
Currently reading:
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf
Possession, by A.S. Byatt
Queen Isabella, by Alison Weir
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