Speak like an Anglo-Saxon

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Speak like a Saxon: hair colour

on March 23, 2013

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Blondenfeaxe ('grey haired' - from Beowulf, l. 1594)

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What a mess!

There are many occasions which might cause you to shout this - a burglary, a bedroom floor, a naughty puppy. But for the Anglo-Saxons, who had much less stuff than us to worry about, there was only one cause: pigs! Hw æt! Hlosstede! [Hwat! Hlos-stay-duh] Indeed! A Pigsty! Try shouting that in anger and see if it makes you feel better. Image by Pascal Debrunner via Unsplash Disclaimer: these pigs are actually probably quite tidy

Speak like a saxon: Good night (and words beginning with N)

As I procrastinate before bedtime, I thought finding out how to say 'Good Night' in Old English might be quite useful. But then I found some other words beginning with N, so the phrase will have to wait. Quoting from J.R. Clark Hall's wonderful Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary , here they are: neodspearuwa - (?restless) sparrow ["nay-odd-spay-are-oo-wa"] neorxnawang - Paradise ["nay-orks-na-wang"] nestpohha - wallet ["nest-poch(like in Scottish 'loch')-ah"] nihtglom - gloom of night ["nicht -glom"] nicorhus - sea monster's dwelling ["nick-or-hoos"] The editors of the dictionary explain in the previous entry that the nicor , could be a sea-monster, a water sprite, a hippo or a walrus. Take your pick. And one final one: nigontynlic - containing the number nineteen ["ni-yon-toon-litch"] This just goes to show that our modern vocabulary is pitifully diminished. Why haven't we got a...

Bath time

A couple of weeks ago I watched a tiny robin having a bath just feet away from me. It was cold. It was wet. But the little bird was happy. When your Old-English ancestors went for their annual* wash I bet they were just as cold and wet, and probably less happy about it than our feathery friend. But we have the Anglo- Saxons to thank for our word 'bath' ( bæþ ) at least. And they even got quite poetic about it. The sea was 'the seal's bath' ( seolhbæþ ) Gif me þone sāpe [Yif me tho-nuh saa-puh] Pass me the soap (please) And how about this for the end result... Eart þu sȳferlīċ nu? [Ey-art thoo soo-fer-litch noo?] Are you clean now? *I'm guessing there was none of this modern daily shower malarky...

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