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Widsith
"Widsith" ( ang, Wīdsīþ, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the ''Exeter Book'', a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th century, which contains approximately one-sixth of all surviving Old English poetry. "Widsith" is located between the poems " Vainglory" and " The Fortunes of Men". Since the donation of the ''Exeter Book'' in 1076, it has been housed in Exeter Cathedral in southwestern England. The poem is for the most part a survey of the people, kings, and heroes of Europe in the Heroic Age of Northern Europe. Date of original composition There is some controversy as to when "Widsith" was first composed. Some historians, such as John Niles, argue that the work was invented after King Alfred's rule to present "a common glorious past", while others, such as Kemp Malone, have argued that the piece is an authentic transcription of old heroic songs. Among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hroðgar
Hrothgar ( ang, Hrōðgār ; on, Hróarr) was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD. Hrothgar appears in the Anglo-Saxon epics ''Beowulf'' and ''Widsith'', in Norse sagas and poems, and in medieval Danish chronicles. In both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tradition, Hrothgar is a Scylding, the son of Halfdan, the brother of Halga, and the uncle of Hrólfr Kraki. Moreover, in both traditions, the mentioned characters were the contemporaries of the Swedish king Eadgils; and both traditions also mention a feud with men named Fróði and Ingeld. The consensus view is that Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian traditions describe the same person. Names Hrothgar, also rendered ''Hrōðgār'', is an Old English form attested in ''Beowulf'' and ''Widsith'', the earliest sources to mention the character. In non-English sources, the name appears in more or less corresponding Old Icelandic, Old Danish, and Latinized versions. He appears as ''Hróarr'', ''Hroar'', etc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Myrging
The Myrgings were a clan and people of Saxon origin who, together with their king Eadgils, are only mentioned in the Old English poem ''Widsith''. They are mentioned as the people of the scop Widsith. They appear to have been the neighbours of the Angles and Offa of Angel, who was involved in a war against them. Perhaps they were a dynasty or clan competing for power with Offa over the rule of the Angles, though Offa slew two Myrging princes, probably the sons of Eadgils (not to be confused with the Swedish king Eadgils); this Eadgils was later killed by Ket and Wig, the sons of Freawine, a governor of Schleswig who challenged Eadgils to combat while he was pillaging in the Angle lands. Freawine was killed in combat and the Myrgings may then have overrun Schleswig, as they are said to have settled or had holdings at Schleswig, though they were eventually defeated by Offa, who extended the boundary with them to Fifeldor. Although the Myrgings only appear in the Old English poem Wid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ingeld
Ingeld or Ingjaldr (Old Norse: ) was a legendary warrior who appears in early English and Norse legends. Ingeld was so well known that, in 797, Alcuin wrote a letter to Bishop Higbald of Lindisfarne questioning the monks' interest in heroic legends with: 'Quid enim Hinieldus cum Christo?' - What has Ingeld to do with Christ? The legends that survive tell of Ingeld as an enemy of Hroðgar, Halga and Hroðulf. The conflict between the Scyldings Hroðgar and Hroðulf on one side, and the Heaðobards Froda and Ingeld on the other, appears both in ''Beowulf'' and in ''Widsith''. Scholars generally agree that these characters appear in both Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon (''Beowulf'') and Scandinavian tradition (Norse sagas and Danish chronicles). However, in the Norse tradition the Heaðobards had apparently been forgotten and the conflict is instead rendered as a family feud, or as a conflict with the Saxons, where the Danes take the place of the Heaðobards. ''Beowulf'' In ''Beowulf'', I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9–22. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, Volga Bulgaria, the Middle East, and North America. In some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a collective whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'. Expert sailors and navigators aboard their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast, as well as alon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival is associated with the migration westward of an Iranian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430, they had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders and causing many others to flee into Roman territory. The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, they invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452, they invaded Italy. After the death of Attila in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Neidorf
Leonard Neidorf (born ) is an American philologist who is Professor of English at Nanjing University. Neidorf specializes in the study of Old English and Middle English literature, and is a known authority on '' Beowulf''. Biography Raised in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, Neidorf graduated from Eastern Regional High School in 2006. He gained a BA, summa cum laude, in English from New York University in 2010, and a PhD in English from Harvard University in 2014. Upon gaining his PhD, Neidorf became a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows (2014-2016). Admittance to the Harvard Society of Fellows is considered one of the greatest academic achievements possible in the United States. Since 2016, Neidorf has been Professor of English at Nanjing University. Research Leonard Neidorf specializes in the study of Old English and Middle English literature. He is known as an authority on Beowulf. Neidorf is the author of ''The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet'' (2022) and ''The Tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thula (poetic Genre)
The thula (; pl. thulas, from pl. ''þulur'') is an ancient poetic genre in the Germanic literatures. Thulas are metrical name-lists or lists of poetic synonyms compiled, mainly, for oral recitation. The main function of thulas is thought to be mnemonic. The Old Norse term was first applied to an English poem, the Old English "Widsith", by Andreas Heusler and Wilhelm Ranisch in 1903. Thulas occur as parts of longer poems, too; Old Norse examples are found in various passages of the poetic and the prose '' Edda'' (esp. ''Skáldskaparmál'' with the ''Nafnaþulur'', ''Grímnismál'', ''Alvíssmál''), the ''Rígsþula'' as well as in the ''Völuspá''. Thulas can be considered as sources of once canonic knowledge, rooted in prehistoric beliefs and rituals. They generally preserve mythological and cosmogonical knowledge, often proper names and toponyms, but also the names of semi-legendary or historical persons. Their language is usually highly formalized, and they make extensi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old English poetry, along with the Vercelli Book in Vercelli, Italy, the Nowell Codex in the British Library, and the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The book was donated to what is now the Exeter Cathedral library by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072. It is believed originally to have contained 130 or 131 leaves, of which the first 7 or 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 leaves are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest and perhaps oldest known manuscript of Old English literature, containing about a sixth of the Old English poetry that has come down to us. In 2016, UNESCO recognized the book as "the foundation volume of English literature, one of the world's principal cultural artefac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ermanaric
Ermanaric; la, Ermanaricus or ''Hermanaricus''; ang, Eormanrīc ; on, Jǫrmunrekkr , gmh, Ermenrîch (died 376) was a Greuthungian Gothic king who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of Oium, the part of Scythia inhabited by the Goths at the time. He is mentioned in two Roman sources: the contemporary writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, and in ''Getica'' by the sixth-century historian Jordanes. He also appears in a fictionalized form in later Germanic heroic legends. Modern historians disagree on the size of Ermanaric's realm. Herwig Wolfram postulates that he at one point ruled a realm stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains. Peter Heather is skeptical of the claim that Ermanaric ruled all Goths except the Tervingi, and furthermore points to the fact that such an enormous empire would have been larger than any known Gothic political unit, that it would have left bigger traces in the sources and that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weaving (mythology)
Mention of textiles in folklore is ancient, and its lost mythic lore probably accompanied the early spread of this art. Textiles have also been associated in several cultures with spiders in mythology. Weaving begins with spinning. Until the spinning wheel was invented in the 14th century, all spinning was done with distaff and spindle. In English the "distaff side" indicates relatives through one's mother, and thereby denotes a woman's role in the household economy. In Scandinavia, the stars of Orion's belt are known as ''Friggjar rockr'', "Frigg’s distaff". The spindle, essential to the weaving art, is recognizable as an emblem of security and settled times in a ruler's eighth-century BCE inscription at Karatepe: "In those places which were formerly feared, where a man fears... to go on the road, in my days even women walked with spindles" In the adjacent region of North Syria, historian Robin Lane Fox remarks funerary stelae showing men holding cups as if feasting and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scop
A ( or ) was a poet as represented in Old English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of the Old Norse ', with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designate oral poets ''within'' Old English literature. Very little is known about scops, and their historical existence is questioned by some scholars. Functions The scop, like the similar gleeman, was a reciter of poetry. The scop, however, was typically attached to a court on a relatively permanent basis. There, he most likely received rich gifts for his performances. The performances often featured the recitation of recognisable texts such as the "old pagan legends of the Germanic tribes." However, the scop's duties also included ''composing'' his own poetry in different situations, the eulogizing of his master. While some scops moved from court to court, they were (generally speaking) less nomadic than the gleemen and had positions of gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English Poetry
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work ''Cædmon's Hymn'' is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People''. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature. In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; chronicles and narrative hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
