The Wanderer (Old English recitation)

[@Hail_Full_of_Grace]

this poem reaches across time and connects me to my ancestors , thankyou for such a beautiful and haunting rendition.

[@violavonschnitzel]

I'm really glad the poem spoke to you :)

[@nolenkennedy418]

6:24 is the start of section that J.R.R. Tolkien's Lament for the Rohirrim is based on.

[@audreydimmel6674]

Amazing! I have wanted to read The Wanderer for a while now, and to finally read it while hearing it read (so expressively!) in the original Anglo-Saxon was beautiful. I can tell the translation is super precise, too, as so many kennings were preserved. I wish I could say thanks in Anglo-Saxon, but I hope a nordic "Takk," will be close enough. 😉

[@violavonschnitzel]

Wow, thank you for this lovely comment! I'm so glad you enjoyed this, it was a lot of fun to make :) It was definitely my intention with the translation to preserve as many of the OE poetic elements as possible, though it definitely impacts on the sense-making of the modern English in places as a result. Modern poetry often requires the reader to decode for sense, though, so I don't feel too bad to have done it that way!

[@BenTaylor1953]

Beautifully done. This, and "The Dream of the Rood" are two of my favorites. Thank you for this.

[@NephilaClavata]

I just got a book of Old English poetry; it was amazing hearing the actual rhythm and sound of the language in this beautiful poem! Thank you!

[@michaelshull727]

Great recitation and music! Thank you for this.

[@violavonschnitzel]

Thank you for your kind comment! :)

[@05Rudey]

Amazing, harrowing, haunting, mesmerising.

[@tomjoyce9401]

Excellent pronunciation and articulation!

[@UTFR58]

Old english is so beautiful, i wish it was still spoken today

[@karinemelo5854]

I need to learn Old English!

[@craiglongan]

Fascinating!

[@thestraightroad305]

Just beautiful.

[@ithemexican2423]

6:25 horse and the rider

[@darinsmith9468]

In the OE, literally "young man / son"...it is implied that he would be the rider of the horse. The phrase "where the rider" is from Tolkien--but it is definitely hard to resist in modern English as it sound so poetic. In the OE, the existing word mago seems to flow the best juxtaposed to mearg ("steed").

[@drivers99]

It’s hard to listen closely to other languages’ specific sounds when music is added.

[@connorleonard4047]

@MacCallum Bennett its a song

[@LauraMorland]

@@connorleonard4047 Yes, but it was only accompanied by a 3-stringed instrument in the original days. I, too, wish the background music - as evocative as it is -- were "quieter."

[@glassarthouse]

This is a fucking great poem.

[@violavonschnitzel]

It really is!

[@mrchristian0457]

Agreed!

[@pseudokanada4806]

What is that beautiful illustration/symbol in the opening slide?

[@aethelstanking6036]

Wonderful

[@Totallyraed]

Well done I say!

[@munirwilliam1232]

!Wundorlīċ , Wel-ġedōn 👏❤❤.Iċ ðæt lufie

[@violavonschnitzel]

Iċ þancie þē!

[@BeeBop99925]

my prof started playing this in class and i thought my brain wasn't working for a min, anyway great poem

[@richardsanchez5444]

It's crazy how some words if you look at the translation, can see how they haven't changed too much. For example maerg is horse, nowadays you call a female horse mare. Coincidence or did it evolve to describe a particular horse?

[@Ted_Land]

Influence from Norman French

[@sefalr]

nice!!!

[@CelineTaylor105]

0:19 is when speaking begins

[@Jint55metalhead]

Here 'cwicra ' implies the sense of alive right?

[@violavonschnitzel]

Exactly :) It's cognate to the modern English word 'quick,' which has somewhat lost that meaning now except for in certain regions. I felt as though "none who quicken" was a suitable translation as it preserves more of the sound of the OE text. In general I've tried to use as many modern English cognates here as I can, even when it ends up slightly muddying the meaning for a modern reader, because I think that the poetic effect is quite interesting.

[@jameswoodard4304]

Wow! That's *very* Ecclesiastes.

[@mrchristian0457]

Oh, yeah, it actually really is! I didn't make the connection until you mentioned it but I would agree!

[@mehnazhossain4632]

I didn't understand read the translation, I like it.

[@royalwayne7244]

i had to look up a bunch of words. read it a couple times, then i understood it.

[@annachristinanotyet4678]

Scandinvaian accent?

[@violavonschnitzel]

I'm afraid not! I'm from New Zealand. The Old English language has a reasonable amount of lexical similarity with modern Icelandic due to the common (and fairly close, in linguistic terms) ancestor that OE and Old Norse have in the form of Proto-Germanic, as Icelandic preserves a lot of the forms found in ON that modern English has lost from OE. Perhaps this vestigial connection with a contemporary North Germanic language is what you're hearing as a Scandinavian accent of sorts :) (By the way, I'm not a linguist, just an enthusiast, so I can't tell you exactly how much vocabulary is similar between OE and modern Icelandic. But a friend of mine once gave me a book of Icelandic poetry and I found that having a background in OE vocabulary and grammar helped me to get the gist of about half of what was going on without needing to refer to a modern English translation. Obviously a huge amount of specific meaning was lost, however.)

[@LauraMorland]

@@violavonschnitzel Well put! (It's also worth noting that he's not following all the standard Old English pronunciation rules: half his "g" sounds are incorrect, and the "y" is supposed to be like a *ü* in German.)

[@violavonschnitzel]

@@LauraMorland Haha, there are plenty of mistakes, you're right! I think I have improved a little since this recording, which to be honest I just slapped together on my lunch break at work, but I haven't had much time to do more recordings since. I do have a reading of The Dream of the Rood standing by to be made into a video though :)

[@govherquliyeva5865]

1:05

[@NinjaBrickz]

the music is kinda creepy👻

[@hurinsbane]

I like it, but why this music?

[@violavonschnitzel]

Honestly? Pretty much because we partially made this video to test out the recording studio at the library where I work!

[@jrcrawford4]

I love it but the music IS a bit loud. If I spoke Old English as well as the narrator it probably wouldn't matter, but as it is the volume is a little distracting. Just a thought.

[@violavonschnitzel]

@@jrcrawford4 Thanks! I'll bear it in mind if I make more of these (as I hope to!) :)

[@jrcrawford4]

@@violavonschnitzel I'm subscribed and looking forward to them.

[@animasuzie]

The music is a tad too loud, but not inappropriate. These poems were all originally sung or recited by bards .

[@dougwright8270]

Take you

[@florianpierredumont4775]

After I read this aloud, I had summon JRR Tolkien spirit...

[@wickedalice06]

Who else came from easy peasy home schooling

[@Sadiee_Edmundss]

Mee🖐🖐

[@erickingsepp]

What's with the 10 seconds of wasted silence at the beginning? :-( Nice job with the recitation though.

[@RichardWaugaman]

I may be the only listener who would prefer hearing the words without the creepy music.

[@simianshakenspere7334]

solitude in the city of light and sin 1508197222342219

[@PutTheFriesInTheBag5]

This ain't English, what is this 😂

[@nicholassinnett2958]

It is English, if you go back a thousand years or more

[@PutTheFriesInTheBag5]

@@nicholassinnett2958 who spoke this type of English

[@notsorrywillneverbesorry]

@@PutTheFriesInTheBag5 the Anglo saxons the people who led to the creation of england

[@mrchristian0457]

@@PutTheFriesInTheBag5 The Anglo-Saxons. The Jutes may have spoken a language similar to that of Anglo-Saxon, but I don't quite remember. This language would have been spoken by the Germanic tribes who invaded modern-day England and would have been spoken up until the early---mid 1200s. After that, the language would have been so heavily influenced by French that we would end up getting Middle English. According to my professor, the people of that day would not have been able to read their historical records from less than 100 years before with how quickly the language changed during that time.

[@benmorris7276]

It's old English which was spoken in England from the 5th century to the late 11th century. English was a Germanic based language, after the English lost the battle of Hastings in 1066 to the Norman's, French became the language of the aristocracy around 1100 middle English started being spoken until about 1500. If the English had won the battle of Hastings the English language would have no French influence and thus would be much closer to old English or at least very similar to German and Dutch.

[@Vicentemorales2003]

ᛁᚾᛏᛖᚱᛖᛊᚨᚾᛏᛖ᛫ᛈᚨᚱᚨ᛫ᚨᛈᚱᛖᚾᛞᛖᚱ!!! ᚨᛞᛖᛗᚨᛊ᛫ᛞᛖ᛫ᛁᛜᛚᛖᛊ,᛫ᚨᛜᛚᛟᛊᚨᛃᛟᚾ...