Spiders in Early Medieval England

[@SkeletonBill]

This awakened a memory of reading The Hobbit as a child and having no idea why Bilbo was calling the spiders "attercop". It took 25 years but now I know!

[@TetrapodsOfLaniakea]

"Attercop, attercop, down you drop! You'll never catch me up your tree... "

[@AllotmentFox]

Is that why that word was familiar?

[@AmyThePuddytat]

And Shelob, the she-spider! And besides Tolkien, there’s the ordinary word ‘cobweb’, i.e. an attercop web.

[@Jackk225]

@@AllotmentFoxD&D also has a monster called “ettercap,” iirc in the old books it was like a troll with spider-related powers

[@williammobley9634]

I used the etymological origins of Tolkien's attercop poem in The Hobbitt for a linguistics paper in my Masters of English and Creative Writing program. It was fun.

[@joanaloneathome]

nobody but Simon could get me - an arachnophobe - to watch an over 20 min videos with close-up shots of spiders... yet here I am at the end of said video doing absolutely fine and definitely a bit more knowledgeable. great work, as always!:)

[@oravlaful]

i'm not an arachnophobe, but he's also the only one who could make me watch a video on spiders in medieval england

[@djinnxx7050]

There's a channel about the spiders in your house, a Canadian guy I think (maybe a yank, but the ones I like I pretend are Canadians. And Canadians i dislike are American, just because... ), and it's very informative and interesting and tolerable for arachnophobes. Can't remember the channel name, but just search "the spiders in your house" and if there's a little musical number and a bald fella in the video, you're probably in the right place.

[@joanaloneathome]

@@djinnxx7050 thanks for the suggestion! also same with the canadian/american thing lol but in all seriousness, there are nice americans it‘s just their country that‘s effed up (and canada is also not the best tbh)

[@piccalillipit9211]

I used to laugh at people who were scared of spiders. Then I moved to Bulgaria where we have 25cm long centipedes and I am scared at a level that I cant even put into words. Its a blinding white fear that paralyses me. I have been in genuine life-threatening danger many times in my life and never been anything like as scared as when I see one of these things.

[@hegedusuk]

What a brilliant video. I mean where else would I find a documentary about something so superficially 'dull' at first glance that is actually fascinating? Seriously very interesting video for the sort of people who find this sort of thing fascinating, such as me.

[@helenamcginty4920]

Dull? Spiders? They are fascinating.

[@milobem4458]

In Polish folklore the spiders are good creatures. A story my grandma told me: When the Holy Family was escaping from king Herod to Egypt, they hid in a cave for a night. Spiders quickly made a web across the entrance, which convinved the soldiers that no one could be hiding inside. If the spiders saved baby Jesus, they can't be bad.

[@rick7102]

Interestingly. the same story is told of Muhammad when he fled from Mecca to Medina with the Quraysh hunting him.

[@obscure.reference]

@@rick7102that is interesting, i wonder which came first

[@charlesgriswold5504]

also, Robert the Bruce was saved in that way@@obscure.reference

[@bugzyhardrada3168]

Neither. The same story or a similar is also told about David and the spider in the bible. These stories likely come from older oral stories and traditions such as the ancient Greeks and Egyptians and Assyrians and Akkadians and so on. One must keep in mind the sheer symbolic significance the spiders traditionally held. From the Americas to Africa to Europe To Asia To Oceania, Spiders were seen as symbols of wisdom, patience, destiny and fate. So due to their sheer symbolic importance it only makes sense that the constructors of the abrahamic theologies would include them in their work in similar or identical framing.

[@rick7102]

@@bugzyhardrada3168 Agreed. It’s an old folklore motif. Another iteration that comes to mind is Robert the Bruce hiding in a cave while on the run and being taught patience and perseverance by a spider building a web.

[@jared_bowden]

For those curious, the 'cob' in 'cobweb' is indeed related to the word Attercop (source: Online Etymology Dictionary) and means "spiderweb" ('cob' being a shortening of Attercop). Edit: 'cob' is also related to 'cup' as Attercop means 'poison-cup'. (Interestingly, 'Atter' and 'Adder' are unrelated).

[@TheDominionOfElites]

Thank you, I’ve always wondered about that

[@josephyearwood1179]

Talking of poison minds one of lastnames of known historic worthies like “Killigrew” (aka “Killibrew”) and “Cromwell” (poison the -common- well).

[@jc6087]

Its name is taken from the English dialect word attercop ("spider"), which came from Old English: attorcoppa ("poison-head"), from Old English: ator ("poison"), itself drawn from the Proto-Germanic *aitra- ("poisonous ulcer") and kopp- ("head")

[@jc6087]

​​@@josephyearwood1179That's not your real name, you're not British 😂

[@kevinthebespectacledpilgrim]

In Britain, traditional cob buildings particularly agricultural, tended not to be rendered or plastered. The rough finish encouraged web making spiders to live on the surface. On dewy sunny mornings, the surfaces can be covered by a silvery shimmer due to the amount of “cobwebs”.

[@HaukLanglo]

Atterkop is definitely a word introduced to England by the Vikings. In Norwegian we call spiders "edderkopp". Edder is a modern form of a word "either" which means to be toxic, acid or nasty in old Norse language. Kopp is the same as cup, another Norwegian word adopted by English. So Atterkop is actually Norwegian for "a cup of something nasty".

[@LewisKennedy1]

I'd assume that's why Britain's only venomous snake is called an "Adder" then?

[@HaukLanglo]

@@LewisKennedy1 Could very well be I guess. Or Adder and edder have an even older common origin in Latin. I realized after writing my comment, that England do not have Cup from Norwegian Kopp. We both have that one from the Latin cūpus. I'm no expert, but I think your adder theory is at least possible.

[@ole7146]

Edderkop in Danish too, and in the original context "kop" meant "swell/body" and most likely came from late latin "cuppa". In Danish Edder is also used in combined swearwords, for example "Eddermukme", which bassically translate to venomous-mold.

[@Malentor]

​@@ole7146i thought it would be from cap in Latin, meaning head. And the kop being cognate to modern German kopf. Not something to do with cups or containers?

[@ole7146]

@@Malentor that may be, but from what I could find about it, “late latin - cuppa” was mentioned as a possibly loanword to “Edderkop”, so basically a “venomous body”

[@PvtPuplovski]

Great video Simon! You're one of the main reasons I quit working full-time and have enrolled back in school, hopefully going for a Linguistics degree. Just wanted to let you know you inspire a lot of interest in this field, and I appreciate all your videos and the research you put into them. Thank you!

[@simonroper9218]

That's a really heartening thing to hear, thank you :) I hope you have success in your degree (and enjoy it)!

[@helenamcginty4920]

Good luck with the lunguistics. A friend just finished her open university degree last year. I learned along the way as she asked me to read through several of her assignments to check they made sense and correct her grammar.

[@singingsam40]

That's fantastic, enjoy!

[@haydenismondo]

“ridiculous” is the perfect adjective for describing how jumping spiders jump, 12/10 scriptwriting

[@CrowSkeleton]

Poor spithers...I think the fear of them is definitely a modern cultural thing: your early med. snakes, toads, hares and cats were likewise demonised by the monastic establishment, but I think it's unlikely folk ran away shrieking from those things, even if they crossed themselves or read omens in their presence. The term 'money spider' comes from the specifically pecunary good luck supposed to follow from having one gently drift onto you, even. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to make this and film some spiders, I appreciate both. Didn't know that conker folklore, either!

[@Badficwriter]

Reading old manuscripts, you'd think giant snails were destroying the countryside..

[@stefanostokatlidis4861]

I also believe that the average village people weren’t so afraid of them. Monastic scholars were in their own world, were literary sources often detached from reality carried more weight than actual experience. They may have also incentive to demonize peasants for their traditional religious practices. Alternatively, Germanic people may have deliberately demonized those animals, exactly because their perpetual enemies in Eastern Europe felt moure positively about them.

[@Eronoc13]

A lot of Modern beliefs about Medieval attitudes towards cats don't bear scrutiny very well. There's been some influential bad literature that makes _very_ broad assertions based on some pretty selected primary sources (see Donald Engels for a relevant example). There are Medieval texts prohibiting monastics from owning any pets _except_ for cats- because they were useful for catching rats, which was something everyone generally observed and recognized. Monastics had trouble with rats all the time, so monks and nuns _famously_ kept cats. We have Medieval manuscripts (written by churchmen, of course) with cat prints walking across the page, which implies that the monks' cats were so accepted that they were wandering around the scriptorium. There is no primary source for any kind of Medieval cat slaughter, or anything like that. It's like "everyone had bad water so they drank beer!" or "they all ate rotten meat!" or "they burned witches all the time!" A game of old-propaganda-tinged telephone that gets legitimized because people rarely read Medieval primary sources (of which there are more than from the Classical period, it's not that the sources don't exist), so even respected historians have often repeated what they heard from their schoolteachers, or read from their Early Modern (often propagandistic) sources. Academia has improved a lot on this front, but popular understanding will naturally take longer.

[@ocaollaidhe]

regarding conkers, I played the game when I was younger in the schoolyard (in Ireland, I'm 18) and I've heard the belief about conkers deterring spiders a few times too, though I've never done it myself

[@gladeseason3462]

Same about the spider deterrent (I’m Scottish). My mum put some of them in the corners in my room once and I think they’re still there lol

[@Yabushiga]

My dads 78 and he has conkers lined up on his window sills lol

[@d0nutwaffle]

After speaking about words used by other germanic languages "We have other Angles/angles we can look at this from" Damn near choked on my spit, very well done.

[@SuperDuperJo]

Fascinating video! I feel like it is worth mentioning that in the dialect malungsmål from western Dalarna, Sweden, the word for spider is “dzerg”, which is cognate with “dwarf” and standard Swedish “dvärg”. A similar word for spider is apparently found in other dialects of Dalarna as well. I guess it is possible that it somehow is a reference to the size of the animal. But I find it much more appealing that it rather reflects older Germanic folk beliefs, in accordance with what you mention in the video. Thanks for the great content!

[@t3rt3l]

7:11 Perhaps they were more likely to anticipate a spider bite to become infected in those days.

[@sarahsant6248]

Yes! Although many spider bites today are rarely harmful as far as venom goes, they CAN still get very infected, and most of the awful, stomach-turning photos of extremely bad spider bites you can find online is due mostly to infection and not the venom itself. I have a good example of this. I'm from the U.S. where hobo spiders (E. agrestis, formerly T. agrestis) were considered potentially medically significant, and MOST people in my area believe that hobo spiders are dangerously venomous, but the research does NOT show that PROPERLY IDENTIFIED E. agrestis bites are venomous enough to harm us. One potential explanation is that bug bites can frequently get infected because of the pathogens they carry, NOT because of venom, and the INFECTIONS can cause necrosis, which is the big fear people have with hobo spider bites. The CDC actually removed hobo spiders from their list of medically significant spiders. I also have some anecdotal data because in my lifetime I've picked up THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of these spiders, been bitten MANY times as a child, and never developed symptoms other than some pain, light swelling at the site, and itching. With that said, only experts can correctly identify E. agrestis because they look extremely similar to several other spider species here, but just with the sheer numbers of these kinds of spiders I've handled and been bitten by, statistically it's very likely I've been bitten multiple times by E. agrestis.

[@sarahsant6248]

Sorry, this comment got away from me bc spiders are my Favorite. But the point is -- yes, bug bites frequently get infected when they aren't cared for properly, and this includes spider bites. Infection is a real, dangerous risk from all animal bites, and I'm sure it was worse back then when they didn't have clean water and medical supplies as easily available.

[@just.cruzin.]

There's a big boy lives behind my fridge, I'd never harm him, and if he gets any bigger I'm gonna have to charge him rent😂😊.

[@owlfrog]

1:30 is the kind of audio you absolutely cannot fake and elevates the production value of this video 10x. please never change

[@joyousmonkey6085]

I seem to recall that "cobweb" has the element COB < COPPE = SPIDER, so the ATORCOPPE would be a poisonous spider. In Afrikaans the word for spider is SPINNEKOP, which would appear to be a tautology: SPINNE = spider, and KOP(PE) = spider.

[@dzanderallison]

this makes me wonder: in my hometown, we sometimes called the police "spiders" in the sense that one was never more than three feet away. did we start calling them "cops" in reference to this spidery quality of popping up unnoticed, or is it really a derivation of "copper" as i've seen suggested?

[@joyousmonkey6085]

@@dzanderallison What a fascinating analogy! I believe that the word cop(per) ultimately comes from the Latin capere, which means to seize hold of. So a cop(per) is therefore someone who catches other people.

[@dzanderallison]

@@joyousmonkey6085 then, does the -cop in aettercop also come, like 'hunta', from a word meaning 'catcher'? fascinating!

[@joyousmonkey6085]

@@dzanderallison I'm not 100% certain of the following, but: Old English COPIAN = to seize, grab. This appears to be related to the Latin CAPIRE, and the PIE root is *keh₂p- , also meaning to seize or grab. So it could be that ATORCOPPE meant POISONOUS-CATCHER.

[@HaukLanglo]

Atterkop is definitely a word introduced to England by the Vikings. In Norwegian we call spiders "edderkopp". Edder is a modern form of a word "either" which means to be toxic, acid or nasty in old Norse language. Kopp is the same as cup, another Norwegian word adopted by English. So Atterkop is actually Norwegian for "a cup of something nasty".

[@smegheadGOAT]

fantastic, I grew up in South Africa and was surprised when living in the UK that folks would swot away insects that walked in your skin, in SA most insects sting or bite and the worst thing to do would be to absent minded brush away a insect without checking if it was a stinger.

[@redere4777]

Always awesome to learn about wildlife. Would you consider doing a video about marine life in early medieval England? I recall there being a large gap in our marine life vocabulary from the time, so it may be nice looking at what we do have as well as terms in other medieval Germanic languages.

[@jc441-i3q]

They ate lampreys in the medieval age. They're a horrific looking water creature but maybe they taste nice? Who knows.

[@helenamcginty4920]

​@@jc441-i3q dont eat too many though like Henry 1 😂

[@helenamcginty4920]

I recently read sonewhere that a prehistoric people, might have been paleolithic not sure, didnt appear to have eaten fish despite living near water. Only remains of land animals found.

[@jc441-i3q]

Maybe because fish were more difficult to catch? Maybe nets were no invented yet and using a spear to catch them requires good aim and lots of practice.@@helenamcginty4920

[@ulfhedin8728]

Gongelwæfra has a Norwegian cognate. One of our words for spider is 'kongro' or in ON 'kangurváfa' which my dictionary tells me comes from "probably a Germanic root *kang 'spin' in the basic meaning of turning. The second part comes from weave". So the gongul part in the OE word could have another meaning than walking. Maybe it's a spinweaver rather than a walkweaver. Great video by the way.

[@se6369]

You can even spell it kongurvåva/kongurveva. And there are also different dialect variations with L instead of R just like in Gongelwæfra. Edit: Like (among others) kingel, kånglo, kongle and kingelmor(a), the last part of the last word rather looks like it has a different origin(?)

[@simonroper9218]

Thank you for this extra nuance! I wouldn't have known about that possibility :)

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Spider is 'koonker' in North Frisian, by the way.

[@haukur1]

Köngulóarvefur for spiderweb in Icelandic too

[@haukur1]

The Icelandic orðsifjabók says "kǫngur- < *kangura seems to mean net or something braided/interwoven" and says the g in gangelwǣfre has influence from ganga.

[@jared_bowden]

A quick summary of Cavell's dissertation mentioned at 16:53 (it's an interesting read): there's three different literary strains which spiders are portrayed in literature from old England: in Prechristian Latin writings, spiders tend to be described positively as industrious weavers; in Biblical and Christian writings, spiders are strongly associated with fragility, usually with a negative connotation; and in Old English writings that don't show a direct influence from these other two, spiders tend to be described as quite frightening, disgusting, and very dangerous creatures (even through they probably weren't) in a way that isn't too different from the "horror-movie" portrayal of them in modern Western culture. It doesn't go into what might cause these cultural portrayals.

[@Fairyfink]

i studied mediaeval languages and literature at university many years ago. Thank you for taking me back!

[@Literal_Ant]

Sorry if someone else has already explained this but at 8:30 that's actually a male and female pholcus spider (cellar spider/ daddy long legs) the one holding the dead spider is female and the other one is male. The male might also be slightly interested in the food but he's probably just there to try to mate. Also as an arachnology nerd this video was super cool to see :]

[@simonroper9218]

That is a fantastic insight! Thank you so much :)

[@RoninvdW]

Coppe also meant head or something round and that would make more sense imo, also since Dutch (especially in languages or dialects with remnants of older Dutch like Afrikaans) has the word spinnenkop or sometimes koppespin. We also have the word etterkop, literally translated means pus-head and means someone who bullies. But I have read it's not a cognate with attercop. Would make the most sense to me to call it a puss ball/head though. Since "etter" could also be referring to a white sticky puss which could look like spider silk. Anyways, these are just thoughts, I'm not an expert, just a Dutch fan who likes to learn more about the history of our languages. I really like your videos :)

[@habblebabble70]

19:20 I am not sure about the Orb Weavers in England, but American Orb weavers do have emboldened designs weaved vertically in their webs. When threatened, the spiders will shake their web quite dramatically so that the bold design of the web and the oscillating motion of the spider made it appear larger. In some cases, I can see someone observing a spider as "scaring" prey into their web, assuming that other Orb Weavers will exhibit the same behavior. I don't think that they do, to be honest, but I wanted to add that just as food-for-thought.

[@therealzilch]

When I was a child in California, I regularly caught big green garden spiders in my bare hands, and was never bitten. I've grown to be more skittish about them since then, for no good reason.

[@SepiaOfficinalis-up5rl]

I screeched in joy when I saw the title. This sorta thing is why I follow this channel

[@TetrapodsOfLaniakea]

When I lived in Kentucky I met several people who also believed a kind of tree fruit would keep spiders away, but it wasn't horse chestnuts (which also grow there); it was the Osage orange or "hedge apple." One in each corner of the cellar, they said.

[@stephgreen3070]

They still sell those in our local grocery store as anti-spider balls here in the upper Midwest.

[@TheJenschmied]

I grew up in Kentucky also, I would collect hedge apples with my great aunt to put in the basement to ward off spiders. I now live in Ohio, home of the OSU Buckeyes, the buckeye tree is in the same family as horse chestnuts.

[@JohnniDaFreakk]

I grew up in Kentucky, near Cincinnati, and I heard this all the time lmfao

[@zenosAnalytic]

DnD, unsurprisingly, is also doing some work to keep "attercop" alive by naming a type of arachno-humanoid monsters that. It's not a COMMONLY used monster by DMs, but it had some notable encounters in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2.

[@kiminnehalem8669]

Love spiders!!! Love language evolution!! PERFECT!! Thank you so much.

[@barbibleu]

I learned from my parents and grandparents growing up in Sweden, that a spider in your house means good luck, and that you should never ever kill one. Fascinating video.

[@Tomtom-b5e]

U wouldnt think of swedish spiders how the heck dont they freeze

[@KiraTesla]

Had a really bad day, this was a huge help. I love spiders. Ty!

[@christopherbonis]

Would Simon consider making a video like this-but about fungi and the relationship with medieval peoples? Why, for instance, are Anglo-cultures generally more mycophobic than others?

[@xanderyesilirmak956]

That's a good idea, I'd love that.

[@PatchCornAdams723]

As an amateur bedroom mycologisy enthusiast, I love this idea.

[@stefanostokatlidis4861]

If you notice, Germanic cultures were against fungi, reptiles, amphibians, spiders and more, whereas most of them had more positive associations in Slavic and Baltic cultures. Maybe they were trying to make cultural distinctions, something like Germanic kosher. After all, they were practically in constant war with so called Eastern Europe for so long.

[@josephyearwood1179]

@@stefanostokatlidis4861 Wonder if the Sorbs and Serbs have a thing for the WindINGsorsPENTS?

[@andrewcrampton3433]

Given how often OE inverts modern word order weave walker seems a really good name for a spider.

[@yandan7010]

Maybe alot of the fear was a concern over killing a spider accidently, therby bringing bad luck or such things. Fascinating video, thank you.

[@slevemcdichael4481]

interesting about the conkers thing. in india there's a similar belief about eggshells warding off house lizards, my family keeps them round little corners and edges

[@darraghchapman]

'Attercop', 'lob(be)' and 'cob' (also by extention 'spinne') used by Tolkien here: "Old fat spider spinning in a tree! Old fat spider can’t see me! Attercop! Attercop! Won't you stop, Stop your spinning and look for me? Old Tomnoddy, all big body, Old Tomnoddy can’t spy me! Attercop! Attercop! Down you drop! You'll never catch me up your tree! Lazy Lob and crazy Cob are weaving webs to wind me. I am far more sweet than other meat, but still they cannot find me! Here am I, naughty little fly; you are fat and lazy. You cannot trap me, though you try, in your cobwebs crazy." Interesting no spiders were found preserved in wetlands. I've spent plenty of time in bogs in Ireland, and spiders are one of the most numerous creatures present. Unsurprising considering the amount of flies that also live there.

[@josephyearwood1179]

Like the way u yower wording is spaced out/layed out.

[@barnabyhoworth1539]

2 native species, the Woodlice Spider and Diving Bell (water) spiders, are capable of giving a bite (maybe capable of a reaction?) and both of their habitats were much more abundant in the early medieval. Britains lost extensive wetlands would have been host to many more Water spiders and Our stone houses and walls, and timber and firewood were perfect for the Woodlice Spider. 2 species we used to have a closer relationship with maybe.

[@jacobparry177]

Welsh actually borrowed the word attercop in two forms. Adyrcopyn and Prycopyn. Prycopyn = Pryf (insect) + cop. /ˌprɨː ˈkɔpɨ̞n/ Adyrcopyn /adərˈkɔpɨ̞n/ The -yn signifies a diminutive or singular noun. Note that Y is a vowel in Welsh, as it is in the words: Party, Merry, Yggdrasil, Lately, &c

[@josephyearwood1179]

Wonder if “Pryf” is kinworded to the Greekborne English word “thrip”?

[@Nero_Karel]

I think "dwarf" referring to disease is also supported by the fact that German texts also seem to use a mythological image for sicknesses, namely that of worms/wyrms. Not sure, if there are any English examples of that transmitted, but Indian sources seem to apply the motief of Indra as serpent-slayer to healing charms as well, so it could be very old

[@progrockdocs]

I almost never made it past that ungodly horror at 03:45, but I'm glad I did. Classic Roper video. I especially liked the Cactus window shot. You should think about going on tour and doing live shows talking about this shit. I for one would buy a ticket.

[@EvidentlyFire]

Fascinating video. I think i just found my new favourite KZbin channel.

[@amandachapman4708]

Reminds me of the rhyme that begins "'Won't you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly... 19:12

[@JackSparrow-ww6rd]

I found out about the conkers thing when I started finding them all over the house. Turns out my arachnophobic little brother was to blame. I thought it was just his personal belief, never knew he was practicing an ancient tradition.

[@thorr18BEM]

Old fat spider spinning in a tree! Old fat spider can’t see me! Attercop! Attercop! Won’t you stop, Stop your spinning and look for me? Old Tomnoddy, all big body, Old Tomnoddy can’t spy me! Attercop! Attercop! Down you drop! You’ll never catch me up your tree!

[@thr3ddy]

As a Dutch person, I noticed a few words that don't seem to survive in English, but perhaps their cognates still survive in Dutch: - Gangel perhaps cognate with "gang" meaning hallway or passageway. Like orb weavers, there also are funnel weavers, which would weave passageways. - Koppe rather than "cup" perhaps cognate with "kop" meaning head, specifically that of an animal. In my region, the literal word "koppe" is used in the local dialect to speak of an animal's head. Atorcoppe could then translate to poisonhead. I'm not educated in this, but found the similarities interesting, nonetheless. I do really like your idea of there being no distinction between spiders and ticks. I came across an account of an early American settler a while ago who, after traveling through woodlands for some time, would report his stockings being infested with small biting spiders and then went on to describe removing a tick. Of course, now that I'd like to link it, I can't seem to find the source.

[@rosemarygardiner4085]

Gangelwefra would be a sick name for a metal band

[@allisonandrews4719]

Awesome. Videos keep getting better. I don’t think I had 25 minutes of class that interesting in my English PhD program 20 years ago. Amazing amazing amazing.

[@thelongmanmovieshack5606]

The thing about diseases from mite and small arachnids being called dwarfs makes me wonder if there’s a connection to the Welsh word for spider being Corryn meaning little dwarf

[@mmkvoe6342]

My brother is in Brazil and mentioned how he saw the huge spiders and their webs down there, and how the spider will sit in its web and then shake the web as a way to threaten and scare people or creatures that come by; my brother's musings include that catching sight of the spider itself is scary, and seeing the size of the webs, as they can be so big; but then there is an element of intimidation used by the spider, whether because the spider simply wants to intimidate or is some level of scared itself and tries to throw a perceived threat off thr track that it might be scared.

[@voiceofreason2674]

I love watching the jumping spider guard the window sill in my workshop, its his fruit fly hunting ground and other jumping spiders come challenge him for it and he chases them off.

[@lakrids-pibe]

Hello from Denmark. We have horse chestnuts all over the place. I'm not sure we have "propper" chestnut at all. I can't resist picking up a few conkers every autumn. They're just so shiny. A sign of the cycle of the seasons.

[@HotelPapa100]

Same about the "shinY". Unfortunately they quickly get dull.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

We have both horse chestnuts and sweet chestnuts in England but neither are native.

[@ElderNames]

European sweet chestnuts were nearly wiped out by east Asian chestnut blight 100 years ago. American chestnuts (different species) are only now starting to recover.

[@frankharr9466]

What's your word for them?

[@jc6087]

Horse chestnuts look different from sweet chestnut you can tell by the spines on the shell, sweet has many spikes like a brush, horse has fewer and the spikes are alot thicker. Horse chestnuts come from around the Balkans etc, sweet chestnut was brought to the UK by Romans, probably the same way they got to Denmark.

[@kevbee8325]

I saw a colourful Argiope bruennichi spider late this summer with the cool zigzag pattern at the bottom part of the web. I’m guessing it’s there to deter foxes or badgers from accidentally breaking the spider’s web (they’re often found in or near old trampled down ‘runs’). Edit: maybe even a distraction for prey to avoid and then get caught in the web. Interesting video, thank you!!

[@beverlykirby411]

Anansi, the spider, is one of the most popular animal tricksters from West African mythology. Tricksters are mischievous figures who often oppose the will of the gods, resulting in some kind of misfortune for humans.

[@Tomtom-b5e]

My primary school teacher read us anasi when i was about 4mabey 5

[@MV-dq5pe]

As someone who keeps tarantulas, I found this fascinating. Thank you.

[@amyesworldcatherinesminime7945]

Thanks so much to Simon for the video and community for additional information. Two of my current topics of interest in one place.

[@Alyss93]

Working on getting my garden set for winter here in Canada and coming across all my favourite spider friends settling in for winter too. Amazing creatures ❤

[@craniifer]

Excellent video! Spiders are my favorite animals and like many other nerds I love a lot of medieval stuff. This was a pleasant watch on a lazy day.

[@frenchfriar]

This was absolutely fascinating, thank you.

[@thetwitchywitchy]

the cellar spiders swooshing their legs at eachother looked so silly lol

[@kodyq9726]

Hell yeah, great video! Probably unrelated to the Old English possible connection between 'dwarves' and illness, but I was reminded that in Manx Gaelic, there is a term for 'fairies': mooinjer veggey (literally, 'little people' and I believe there are similar terms in other Gaelic languages though I don't know if the folklore is the same or similar), who are generally conceived as short, hat-wearing and pretty humanish creatures, more similar to current folklore ideas of dwarves than fairies. I had Manx class in primary school where we read some Manx folkore and I remember there was at least one example of a story in which mooinjer veggey caused illness in a human (a disrespectful farmer or something like that, and more frequently they caused illness to livestock and the like) and they also cured illness sometimes. There was definitely contact between English speakers and Manx speakers during the medieval period, so maybe it could be feasible that some folkloric cross-pollination occurred? Just some silly speculation based on half-remembered stuff from school :)

[@whatgoesaroundcomesaround920]

You'd be impressed by the garden spiders here -- as their name suggests, they build their webs in gardens between tall plants like maize or sunflower and also flower stalks like hollyhock, Joe Pye weed, phlox etc. They are related to the yellow-orange web builder shown in your video. Most amazing is their size: some as large as the hand of a 4-year-old child's hand. Playing hide and seek in the maize was always iffy because of these, which station themselves in the middle of their web, and will try to intimidate an enemy by leaping outward while holding on to the web, thus making the web behave like a big trampoline, the spider moving up and down in the center as much as a foot in each direction. Impressive -- and kinda scarey.

[@erinmac4750]

Wow! Where is it you live? Central or South America? Those guys seem large enough to be pets, or something. Make them goalies for your team! 💚🕷️⚽

[@jamesday1295]

How am i supposed to scroll past such a ridiculously niche piece of content.

[@Discotekh_Dynasty]

Thanks for another great video Simon! You’re keeping me entertained while work is quiet😊

[@gfdgdfgdfgdfggfdgdfgdfgdfg9709]

Fantastic video! Excellent historical analyzation presenting the ideas in a really understandable and enjoyable way! Love it!

[@martinestevez]

7:50 could there be a fourth option? Maybe people, jsut like today, were really afraid of spiders sometimes; irrationally so, and overreacted to ther bites. The same way alot of people overreact to msoquito bites, for example, even in regions where there are no endemic diseases.

[@dees3179]

Thank you for getting me out of bed on a Sunday when I have stuff to do Simon. I needed something to keep me company. Fascinating as always. Your curiosity is an endless delight.

[@LegalSC]

This might be the MOST niche thing that I've felt the need to IMMEDIATELY click.

[@erinmac4750]

Never clicked so fast! This was fascinating! Anything else a long these lines, dealing with creatures from the middle ages, their names, and lore, will be a must see for me. Spiders and I have an understanding. As a kid, I used to play with the Harvestmen and Daddy Long Legs, cellar spiders, and some grey ones I called window spiders. They don't bother me, so I'm usually the designated spider catcher. We've actually had a couple of spiders as pets at different times. One was a female house spider, who lived over a year, an interesting experience.

[@amyesworldcatherinesminime7945]

I have a 'pet' house spider (Eratigena sp.) the now. When her web spread from the windowsill to the toilet cistern I decided she needed a castle of her own. She has the security of her tower, I bring her food and water. I wonder if your grey 'window spiders' were Missing Sector Orb Weavers (Zygiella x-notata)

[@crowseed]

Fascinating thanks! Actually in UK there has recently been discovered a spider with hallucinogenic venom. I was bitten by one in the 1980s and it felt very different from every other spider bite I'd ever had. I was aware of the venom immediately, and when I began hallucinating I knew it was the spider venom. I hope you don't get Lyme disease but if you do, the best thing I've found are the two fungi Otzi the iceman was carrying (he had Lyme disease). Those fungi do of course have other uses that he would have been carrying them for as well. Thanks so much. I love your videos!

[@skycloud4802]

What species of spider bite you?

[@shanellemurrey9300]

I second this, what spider bit you?

[@mnossy11]

And what fungi was it?

[@mnossy11]

I just looked it up, it was Birch Polypore. And it doesn’t say anywhere that he had Lyme but he had a parasite.

[@pheart2381]

Birch polypore was also used to sharpen tools. It's other name is razorstrop fungus.

[@TheOneHoddToward]

Weavewalker is a lovely expression.

[@EasterWitch]

Oddly enough I clicked to see spiders, but I was surprised to learn a bit about medieval English as well. Great video!

[@MarshallPust]

I always love the time and obvious care you take in collecting your B roll simon! Fascinating analysis my friend

[@authormichellefranklin]

Wonderful! Love the specific video tailored to all the things I like ❤

[@jjackson4273]

This was a great video and so interesting. Thanks for making my Tuesday night more interesting!

[@fireglo450music]

This was utterly fascinating, very well done! Love a bit of linguistic study about everyday life

[@ekmad]

Excellent video. I do enjoy the ones about nature and animals in Old English. I definitely hate those big chunky house spiders, but quite like the spindly cellar spiders. The latter keep to themselves and are mostly inoffensive to my sensibilities.

[@Todesnuss]

"Semantic spider-space" is a lovely concept.

[@ellalamb3271]

As an Aussie, this is the first time I've heard the term 'cellar spider'. We call them daddy-long-legs. Watching the orb weaver clean the web was fascinating but I did have to cover the screen for some of the other spiders. 😳 Great video though!

[@ellalamb3271]

@@Ashley24306 Interesting. I don't think we have harvestmen here. I hadn't heard of them before this video either. Come to think of it, cellars are pretty rare here too, so would be weird as a name for a spider.

[@skycloud4802]

Daddy-long legs in the UK too. Although I think people tend to also call those crane flies daddy long legs as well so it can get confusing

[@EFCDKZ]

@@skycloud4802I can confirm I call crane flies daddy long legs. Never call cellar spiders it. Weird

[@laamonftiboren4236]

Spiders are probably my favourite group of animals, so this video was a joy to me as well as being a very interesting linguistic and sociological discussion! Thank you, Simon.

[@aetherograph]

I found this because of a tumblr post, and I'm so glad I did. I love spiders, and you have such a lovely voice, it was so interesting to learn all of this stuff while looking at some nice footage of 'sisters'. In Islam, spiders are seen as very good animals, as one saved The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) by spinning a web over the entrance to a cave where he and his friend were hiding. There are many versions of that story, and I was told one when I first was speaking to a Muslim friend who commented on my social name--I go by Spider, you see. I think it is pretty instinctive to startle at the way some Very Small Animals, including spiders, move--that jerky, fast movement is very startling!--and I think there is some epigenetics to the seventies study's theory about 'people jump at spiders and snakes bc we evolved where those animals can be lethal'. But I don't think it's, you know, *default* to be afraid of a Very Small Animal, once you learn it's not going to harm you. I think it's down to how you react to being startled by something you don't understand. Humans are prey animals, but we're also quite social and intelligent animals, and that means we're very curious about new things, and can also understand the idea that a Very Small Animal is Very Small, and unlikely to do you harm. You have to learn it can--or can't!--from other people. I learned from my family members as a child not to be scared of animals, because not even my grandmother panicked about any sort of animal, even ones she didn't like. They were always very calm and very, 'that's an Animal, not a Monster, and you can learn about Animals', and I picked up on that and learned that from them. So we do learn it very early on, maybe earlier than we remember. I think there's probably a lot in what you said about the word spidra maybe meaning 'arachnid' rather than spider specifically, and there being an early understanding of like, "some of these quite small creatures have eight legs, and sometimes the eight-leg ones cause problems." I wonder if they started to try and figure out how you could tell which ones were going to cause problems; monks and nuns were great at studying that kind of fiddly sort of thing, I wonder if any of them studied that, and if that's where the different remedies and words came from. I think there's something in that for sure. Medieval people were quite as smart and observant as we are today, and I personally think probably there *are* delineations we don't yet understand between these words 'spidra' and 'hunta' and 'attercop' and 'gangewifre' etc, just like there's a difference between a 'tick' and a 'spider' in modern english, and different attitudes about both (I love spiders, but I'm terrified of ticks). Maybe gangewifre means orb-weaver or web-weaver, and is a way to distinguish between webmakers and wolf or hunting spiders that don't weave webs. In any case, I loved this video and now I know a lot more about medieval symbolism to do with spiders, which will help a lot with my designs for a SCA device! XD Oh, and thank you also for having the words on screen--it helps with accessibility so much!

[@purpleluckxd371]

I found this video because of an Instragram post of a Tumblr post

[@oj9370]

I really enjoyed this one, my only criticism, I would have liked it to be longer;) Cheers Simon.

[@se6369]

11:19 Interesting. Hives, urticaria are normally called elveblest, alvgust, alvblåster or similar in Norwegian. "Elf wind".

[@reallyidrathernot.134]

Finally. Chilled out knowledge about a topic that I have absolutely no investment in, but can recognise as being knowledge.

[@macekreislahomes1690]

660 spices of spiders, each with a noticeably different personality, in England. No wonder my Ansisters avoided it by any means possible, and my family still does.

[@Theodisc]

Tolkien also famously modernised dweorg into ModE as dwerrow (if we had used this name moreso often in our history). There's even a video game called "Dwerrows" featuring dwarves after this modernisation.

[@PatchCornAdams723]

Interesting because I'm currently playing Baldurs Gate 3 and I've noticed the Dark Dwarves are called Dwemor or something. Basically the same as in the Elder Scrolls, and I was wondering why different IPs use this obscure word for dwarves. I guess it comes from actual middle English and Tolkien!

[@josephyearwood1179]

Would upcough good shilling for wordbooks with modernised (Old English and Middle English) words into Modern English.

[@Blueshirt38]

This exploration has been interesting. Thanks.

[@haukur1]

Really interesting to see ator and galdor there, we use cognates of these in modern Icelandic, eitur and galdur (poison/venom and spell/charm/magic).

[@davidjohnson9132]

When I was a kid if something bad happened to you after you had been cheeky or rude or something, my parents would say “see the faeries got you”

[@HistoricWrath]

What a great idea for a video topic! Now I wonder what Jackson Crawford has to say about old Norse spiders

[@peterlustig8021]

0:28 that was some serious contest! we baked them and so on to try and make them extra sturdy

[@terrycunningham8118]

As I recall, "attercop" was used by Bilbo to taunt and goad the spiders of Mirkwood, in The Hobbit.

[@geodkyt]

It's entirely possible that medieval English speakers mistakenly thought spiders were more venomous than they actually are. Even today, you run into quite a few people who are convinced fairly harmless spiders and other arachnids are deadly dangerous - such as the harvestman you briefly showed (often called a daddy longlegs in America) commonly being believed to be "one of the most venomous spiders in the world, only It's fangs are too short to oenetrate human skin". (Totally false, BTW, for any reader wondering. Not only aren't they spiders at all, and their venom quite mild to humans - generally less irritating than a mosquito or flea bite, but their fangs are quite long enough to inject a load of venomous if one bites you... and they're so non-aggressive that bites are rare. Frankly, I've never even spoken to someone who said they have been bitten by them, and every person who wasn't clinically arachnophobic as a kid played with them hundreds of times growing up.) Add in tales (including classic Greek myths) from areas where dangerous spiders are commonly found, and it's easy to envision medieval people being at least as misinformed of the hazards local spiders *actually* posed as modern people are. Heck, consider the modern meme of "Everything in Australia is a venomous." Sure, Australia has more than its fair share of strongly venomous creatures, but its not like they're an everyday occurrence to your typical person. But I know plenty of modern, educated people who are half convinced that a trip to Sydney or Melbourne would involve regular evasion of funnel-web spiders and bullet ants.

[@amicaaranearum]

This.

[@animegirlprincess]

Thank you so much. I honestly am scared of spiders but if there's a niche as fuck topic about spiders in medieval England then sign me up for this. I love you Simon! You did wonderfully with this video.

[@ItsASuckyName]

Very interesting video. Funny also because I live in the Netherlands, my father's parents are from Indonesia and my father (and I) are scared of spiders. But my mother, who is dutch is not, maybe that all plays a part in this ridiculous fear. In dutch spider is also "spin", I already thought the name had something to do with "to spin" or "spinning" as a spider wraps it's prey.

[@gtc239]

Hallo! As someone from Indonesia i fear not that your father's fear of spider is not without some merit lol, there are more kinds of spider here and some of them can get quite freaky especially in the rural environment where i'm living in.

[@pluvial-dude7348]

The way this guy articulates his message is pretty rad I like it

[@pitstixx4942]

this was so wonderful to watch !!!!! i absolutely LOOOVEEE spiders, I used to be a huge arachnophobe until i took time to educate myself more on them since spiders (some very venomous ones) are very common where i live and my cousin abandoned her pet tarantula at my house:””) i’m very fascinated by them now and i think they’re wonderful little hunters and architects, i even had a pet jumping spider after my tarantula passed from old age, thank you for this video !

[@LimeyRedneck]

Hope you're well too 🤠 Very stressful day and so was very happy to see a new upload as your videos are usually relaxing, as well as interesting - this one being no exception! I didn't know the spindly spiders were cellar spiders. They're the only kind I don't like, not sure why 💜

[@mofal1703]

Thanks a lot man this was a great video very enjoyable, good job!

[@sheilam4964]

Hope you are getting on alright, too. Thx for doing this and sharing. 👍👍👍👍👍

[@JHaven-lg7lj]

Wonderful footage!