Beowulf - A new treasure.

[Janne]

Beowulf is an excellent story.
A Swede saves the backside of a Dane.

(Nerdy me: all movies got the environment totally wrong, which irritates me hugely.)

 

[Wayland]

It's a thing of beauty anyroad!

We were there on Saturday and admired your pitch but you were deep in explaining something about it so didn't like to disturb you.

It's possibly too early to ask but have you a book bag designed for it or a box or perhaps both?

For those of you perhaps not so much into the period here's a couple of links about book bags so you know what I'm waffling about

http://www.palaeographia.org/glm/glm.htm?art=clarke

http://www.europa.org.au/index.php/articles/21-bags

When I've some leather i'd like to make one to use as a general purpose satchel.

ATB

Tom

I haven't made one yet but it is on my list to do.

I'll probably get some embroidery from Debs for it as well.

 

[sunndog]

Alex uses the term "Hand finished".

The base text is printed but many of the letters and all the illuminations are hand painted.

He is capable of hand writing the entire document but unfortunately I am not capable of affording that.

I chose the word manuscript ( perhaps inaccurately ) because I still feel it most closely represents what he has produced.

The strict definition does not quite fit but I'm not sure how better to describe it.

Yeah the price of hand writing a book like is what crossed my mind lol

Beautiful thing though for sure

 

[Tengu]

Oh, so that explains that.

Beowulf is christ...And there was me thinking the book is all Old Testament.

There are Classical references too, like in the Prose Edda.

But of course this is powerful magic, isnt it? Being able to read and write, with worlds like `Grammar` and `Spelling`...

JRRT is Gandalf, of course.

 

[Janne]

There is a very strong truth in the Sagas. Archeology has confirmed several of them.

What always fascinated me about the Beowulf 'saga' was that it was created in Britain, but it happened in (todays) Denmark, and the hero was from (todays) Sweden ( Gotaland).
I have read it was a trick they used to make something more believable as it could not be checked for truth and accurancy.

'In a country far, far away....'

 

[Billy-o]

Though I have read a bunch of those Norse sagas for entertainment, I have never really done much of the historical contextual reading, so this might be nonsense ... but I had thought that the viking expansion included Greenland and Iceland and the Orkneys and bits of northern England. So, people from other places would be likely to pop up variously here and there .. like Romans did.

In my mind's eye, I always had Beowulf set more or less in Robin Hood's Bay

 

[Janne]

Yes. The western Norse ( Denmark, Norway, west coast of Sweden) went to the British Isles ( trade, tourism) , Orkneys ( settlement) , Iceland ( settlement after disagreement with one Norwegian king), Greenland ( because they were stupid ) and Northern America ( Blown off course or just to have a look)
They also went into the Med through Gibraltar.

The eastern Norse ( Sweden and Denmark) went east, founded the Rus country ( Novgorod as centre) and ventured down towards todays Turkey. Possibly/probably all around the Black Sea.
Trade, Tourism, job seeking.

The Beouwulf movies ( all) and the series Vikings depict Denmark and sounthern Norway as having serious mountains and Fjords. Wrong.
In the series Vikings ( series 1 or 2?) Old Uppsala is totally wrongly shown.

There were no Scandinavian countries in the beginning as you know, just small kingdoms/Chiefdoms. Towards the late 800' they consolidated into larger units.

That is why Iceland was populated. A guy did not wanted to be controlled by a king. Harald Harfager (Hardraga). was the king.
The thinking is that the first Norse on Iceland were groups led by a Norwegian, plus a group led by a Swede. Short stay only.

I think the concensus today is that Irish or Scottish monks lived there first. I do not think there is any supporting archeology though.

 

[Wayland]

The veracity of the saga sources has long been a matter of debate. For the most part they are written down centuries after the events they describe but they come from cultures with a strong verbal tradition.

The prevalent historical opinion is that we should trust the broad framework more than the fine details of the story. I don't think that is unfair.

Having worked with many modern storytellers they are generally very faithful to the main arc of the story but frequently adapt the language and pace of the story to their own style of presentation.

This means that the story changes slightly with each teller but the details change most.

With modern stories, the sources are often preserved in written sources so to some degree there is a limit on how far the basic story changes from that original.

In a situation where a story is moving from teller to teller down through time the discipline of those tellers is always an unknown factor.

Even written sources can vary. I have read at least three different "translations" of Beowulf with each author bringing something different to the presentation.

My favourite, for example, is by Seamus Heaney in 1999 and is probably one of the most loose of those translations, but he brings a poets sensibility to the job and produces something that lands on the ear with the sort of metre and rhythm that echoes the way the original may have been heard and understood in the great halls a thousand years ago. I have an audio version, read by Heaney himself, that I listen to regularly on long journeys.

I tend to think of the sagas in the same way I would consider a historical novel. Usually we can trust, to some extent, that the author will have researched the main events of the story but the dialogue and smaller details are of course totally made up. This doesn't stop such novels being a great way of learning about history as it is for many people, but it should always be remembered that it is filtered and adapted by the author for the purpose of the story.

This of course gets adapted and filtered even further when such a novel is brought to the screen as the logistics of how and where it will be filmed are often more influential on the outcome than the plot and story itself. By the time things reach our screens they very rarely bear much resemblance to the cultures, places or even the events they try to represent.

Sadly, for many people, such screen presentations might be the closest they get to learning anything about history at all and they are inaccurate at best, horrendously misleading at worst.

 

[Wayland]

Took a day out to do other stuff yesterday but today I completed the right hand margin and bordered the intaglios to help marry them in to the plate more.

 

[Janne]

The Futhark text, what does it say?
( left border)


I wonder how many books have been done like this the last century?

Can not be many!

 

[Wayland]

Top and bottom margins filled with square knotwork. Spine inscribed with Anglo Saxon runes:

Beowulf / I am called

Alex Summers / wrote me

Gary Waidson / had me made

As Wayland / he wrought me​

I'm sure it cannot be the only one but I've not seen any others.

This particular one will be unique. Alex may print other copies but only this one will have the gold lettering. I shall certainly never make another cover like this.

 

[Billy-o]

Thanks for the mention of the Heaney Beowulf I got the book ages ago, but just found the spoken version on YouTube

Thing is with these kinds of long stories with long histories is that they are historically true, it is just you have to know what you are listening for and, whilst they might be literally true, often no one is smart enough to understand entirely what is meant. It is poetry, after all, and open to thought.

I think of them a bit like jazz standards. There is a kind of common structure, but different interpretations by different interpreters, and sometimes one interpreter will include some phrase or texture from another interpreter as an homage or a joke or as something that means that it should be regarded now as a part of the common structure because it adds or reveals something important. It all represents a kind of truth about something. It just means sorting that kind of significance out for yourself. It is all legitimately various. Maybe not everyone will agree with what you find, and that's fine.

 

[Janne]

Thank you Wayland, for the clarification!
I misunderstood the 'spine' bit.

Wife collects books, has a collection ranging from before Gutenberg to early 1800', and she has not seen such a beautiful example done in the last couple of centuries on any auction the last decade.

 

[Wayland]

Debs and I collect books but for their content rather than as artefacts.

We stopped counting long ago but we could open a bookshop with what we have now.

This is something different. A few years back I made a Viking style chest or Kista. It was carved with scenes from the story of Wayland. It started out as a way to teach myself to work with wood but it ended up becoming something that will have a life far beyond mine. I get something of the same sense from this.

I guess I'm reaching an age when I'm starting to wonder what I will leave when I am gone. I have no kids, just a niece and a nephew that don't know me very well. Maybe objects like this will make someone wonder, if only briefly about the person that made them.

Knowing my luck, probably not...

 

[Janne]

Do not say that!

Make a short letter about yourself and place secured inside the chest, a letter inside your wonderful book.
It is extremely unusual to know anything about the person who created the (antigue/vintage) object.

She collects books to read as they were written. Mainly English books.
Books are changed by the publishers for the time, and many extremely interesting books have been totally forgotten.

 

[Wayland]

That was part of the reason for the inscription on the cover. At least the names of Alex and myself will stay firmly attached to the book.

The chest I'm not sure whether to carve my name on the base or attach a plate of some kind.

If I carve it, I'll probably use AS runes as they have more of our alphabet to work with. The lack of a W in the Elder or Younger Futharks is a bit of a pain with my surname.

Of course, that surname is one of the reasons the Wayland moniker stuck so well.

 

[Tengu]

Yes, as an archaeologist I often wonder about artefacts. Also why they are where they are.

Some years back I found a Japanese carpenters line marker at the car boot. One of those carved ones with the string going through an ink well. How did it get here? Its hardly the sort of thing anyone would bring back from Japan...

...A Japanese chippy come here to work?

Anyhow, on story telling.


I was sorting through `The West Country Magazine` a long defunct periodical from the late 40s...found a tale marked `The Pack of Cards`

Its the story of a poor soldier arrested for having a pack of cards in church. He defends himself by explaining the symbolic meaning of the cards, 4 suits for the 4 apostles, etc, its a delightfully clever story.

But I remember it as being the subject of an old country and western song I heard on the radio many years ago, -cant recall details, -the presenter said it was a request, and one he had had difficulty in tracking down.

(Anyone recognise this? Whose song is it?)

In the song version the tale took place in the American Civil war, -and in the printed version it was the English Civil war....

 

[oldtimer]

I would be very interested to see those.

Neither my photography nor my computer skills do them justice. Fortunately I know you will have a vivid imagination!

 

[Janne]

That was part of the reason for the inscription on the cover. At least the names of Alex and myself will stay firmly attached to the book.

The chest I'm not sure whether to carve my name on the base or attach a plate of some kind.

If I carve it, I'll probably use AS runes as they have more of our alphabet to work with. The lack of a W in the Elder or Younger Futharks is a bit of a pain with my surname.

Of course, that surname is one of the reasons the Wayland moniker stuck so well.

Many objects have the names of the maker. I thought more a very short story, about your life up to the msking of the object.

Insert the paper in the book. For the trunk, fold the paper, cover with a suitable sized brass plate, a screw in each corner.

Wife also collects pocket watches with verge movements ( made before approx 1720). Some pw nerd made some incredible research about 100 years ago about makers of those watches.
With that book you can still make some exciting watch finds.

 

[Wayland]

Neither my photography nor my computer skills do them justice. Fortunately I know you will have a vivid imagination!

They are wonderful. It's a shame they were never published.