"Eald Enta Geweorc"

The ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral, founded AD 1158

In preparation for my semester in lovely Scotland, I'm using this blog as a way of letting anyone who's interested in on what I'm up to while I'm abroad.  That way I don't have to worry about emailing the standard group, updating the rest one-on-one, and in between cluttering up everyone's Facebook feeds with those terribly underwhelming and/or vexing abroad updates...

"Amy is sitting on her arse in front of a computer... IN SCOTLAND!!!1!"

"Amy can't hear you over the sound of her being in Europe, bitches!"

So, I'll try to be good and post with some regularity.  I'll have public links to my Facebook albums on the right hand side, and plenty of snark and gloating in the posts, I'm sure, and the profound wisdom that comes from spending a few months in a...developed, English-speaking country.  Right.  Perhaps profundity is out, but I do promise to expend expansive amounts of text fangirling over old shit.

Because oh! how I love old shit.  Ruined stone buildings all covered over in your standard slow-growing plant materials, dead men, dead languages that give me absolutely no real life skills but still risk making me overqualified to work a cash register someday, delightfully overwrought and criminally under-read literature...

Take for example a very lovely bit of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the anonymous "Wanderer,"* whence comes the title of this blog...

"Yþde swa þisne eardgeard | ælda scyppend
oþþæt burgwara | breahtma lease
eald enta geweorc | idlu stodon."

"Thus the Creator of Men laid waste to this world,

Till he was free from the cries of its inhabitants;

The ancient work of the giants stood idle."**

Admittedly a little bleaker in context than perhaps I intend to suggest!  Nevertheless, I remain unrepentant.  Part of the appeal of old things is that delightful (or not) melancholy they arouse, for one.  If there wasn't some beauty to it, we'd have to do without a great deal of truly lovely lit...

"Alas, poor Yorick!" (Shakespeare)
"Où sont les neiges d'antan?" (Villon)
"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" (Heller)
"Ubi sunt qui ante nos / In mundo fuere?" (Anon)
"Hwǣr cwōm mearg? hwǣr cwōm mago?" (the very same "Wanderer")
"Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?" (Tolkien)***
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" (Shelley)****

And so on and so on ad nauseum, of course.  Where was I going with this?  Oy, I love poetry.

Right.  Secondly, my Old English professor last semester, the illustrious and undeniably badass Dr. Thomas Hall, mentioned that in the context of the poem, "eald enta geweorc" is probably a reference to the old Roman ruins scattered about Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans in the 5th century.  Early and Sub-Roman Britain being one of my historical fascinations, I'll probably try to see some of those.  Ergo, great relevance!

And lastly, the phrase reminds me of another quote, out of the Metalogicon of John of Salisbury:

"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that
we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness
of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised
up by their giant size."

Quite different in tone, of course, but an important aspect to my appreciation of history and related pursuits nonetheless.  In short... use "medieval" as a pejorative adjective in my hearing, and I guarantee I will froth and rage and then settle down and give you a fairly peaceable explanation as to why you're a miserable cretin who deserves death.  Our forebears had their particular weaknesses, but to disregard their particular genius because of that is just... ignorant.  There is much to be learned from all these dead chaps.

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to get serious, or long.  To make up for it, I'll just end this suddenly and gracelessly.

Notes:

* Might I interest you in an audio recording of the text in the original?  No?  You people suck.

** My English translations are...suspect, but should get the job done.

*** This bit, out of The Two Towers, seems inspired by the "Wanderer" (the line listed just above it), which is entirely understandable given that Tolkien was a philologist and very big on Old English literature.  Notice also that the word for giants in Old English is "ent"... :-O!

**** Now, I'd like to say I won't include as much random English major-y stuff in future posts, but "you know I can't make that promise, Dr. Lecter."