Old English Community

skjaere @ 03:06 am: Best edition of the A-S Chronicle?
I am now the proud owner of three different editions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and I just do not think I need that many. I'm here looking for opinions on which one I should keep. I have an enormous, lovely one translated by Anne Savage, which is full of gorgeous colour plates (I think I might just keep this one anyway). I also have a 1982 printing of G. N. Garmonsway's translation. And finally, I have Michael Swanton's translation, but due to a binding error, the publication info is missing. It looks fairly recent, though. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

lady_daereth @ 01:28 pm: Quote from Beowulf
Has anyone who has studied Beowulf at length come across the phrase in the original text that runs something like 'the poet combines words not by whim, but in truth'? This was cited by another researcher and I just borrowed the line (translated), which was good in the context of my paper, but now that I need to verify it, I need to scour the whole of the OE text of Beowulf for it, which is time-consuming at the final editing stage! Any tips welcome :)

lady_daereth @ 08:06 pm: Speculum - do you subscribe?
Hello academics and students,

It's been a while since anyone posted in this community - actually, it was me some 6 months ago, so let me try to bring some good vibes back to this page, and also hopefully, get some help with one issue I have.

I was member of the Medieval Academy in 2009-2010, and as member I was entitled to the Speculum journal. I got the first 2 volumes at once, but the others were slow in arriving. When I contacted the board to see what was happening, it turned out that they were sent, but never reached me. I requested a resend - which they claimed they did, to no avail. I then asked them to try send it to my university address - no books, again! I really don't know what is happening: whether MA is begrudging the extra costs, or the books really are getting lost.

My question is: dear all, what IS in the Speculum issues of end of 2009 thru 2010 (and 2011?). I am only interested in the article titles, of which there are only two per volume, so could I ask you to kindly look it up in the contents and post it as a reply here?

Thanks so much!

lady_daereth @ 01:05 pm: Performance of epics etc.
Dear fellow Anglo-Saxonist aficionados,
could anyone advise me on some reading about how poetry was actually performed, i.e. the surrounding, the context, the location (obviously this is the mead-hall), especially the food and drink and the kinds of social and magical rituals that may have accompanied it. Many thanks!

wulfmann @ 03:39 am: Learning Old English
I've been wondering recently how people learn Old English. I know that it's part of an English degree but what other ways are common?

How did you learn? What text(s) did you use? What websites were useful?

fernwithy @ 09:11 pm: Looking for a translation...
Someone on linguaphiles suggested trying here.

I do "Frère Jacques" in different languages for storytime, just to get kids hearing the different languages. We did contemporary English when we did a U.S. storytime this month, but next month is England, and I didn't want to do the same one... and I thought I might blow their minds by trying out some Old English. Could anyone help with a translation, either from the contemporary English version (Are you sleeping, Brother John? Morning bells are ringing) or the French one (Brother James, are you sleeping, Matins are sounding!)?

Thanks!

meriel_leirem @ 10:39 am: this isn't really about Old English, but maybe someone can help anyway
I'm trying to write a short paper about the vocabulary of the Middle English text Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and I'm a bit unsure about where to look up etymologies for Middle English words, since I've only been able to find Old and Modern English etymological dictionaries in our library and I can't even find one on google books, which leads me to the impossible conclusion that there are none. Does anyone know more?

guldan @ 11:29 pm: Sub-titling a movie?
A friend of mine is re-releasing an independant fantasy/comedy and is trying to get it subtitled into as many languages as possible.  My OE is nowhere near good enough to subtitle a movie, but I was wondering if any of you might be interested in doing so?

The movie is The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.

lady_daereth @ 06:25 pm: Looking for riddle translations
Hi! I would be very very grateful if you could help me with translations of some riddles into Modern English. I am in a country where there is no way I could get them except from the Internet. The riddles I need are number: 18, 63, 64, 67, 68, 73, 78, 87, 88, 92.
It would be wonderful to have those either here, by email or PM on Livejournal. Yours gratefully,
Melianna

lady_daereth @ 01:49 pm:

It seems that I have all but usurped this community with my OE riddle translation issues :) Fact is, I am not a researcher of the language system, so when dealing with texts I am constantly delving into dictionaries to avoid analyzing Crossley-Holland's translation instead of the actual original!

So here goes Riddle 84 'water':

wlite biþ geweorþad wuldornyttingum,

wynsum wuldorgimm wloncum getenge,

clængeorn bi ond cystig, cræfte eacen

I am interested in wloncum getenge. In the dictionary, wlanc- is 'stately' and 'getenge' is:

getenge [] adj w.d. near to, close to, pressing upon, resting on, oppressing; oppressing, burdensome

The official translation is:

her grace is enhanced by the great good she offers -
a gift refreshing for proud people,
she's pure and bountiful, boundless her excellence.

Where does 'a gift refreshing for proud people' come from??

Many thanks, Mel.