![]() ![]() Together these poems bring to life an ancient language and culture and reaffirm the connection between past and present.įinally, with a group of charms to bless a house, or to manage a swarm of bees, we enter a world of human desires, where both superstition and Saint Mary can cohabit happily. ![]() The elegiac speaker often ponders her or his past, wondering just how real the memories of an earlier life, now lost, might be. Williamson writes: The elegies are laments over the loss of a spouse, a child, a homeland, a dying culture. The Anglo-Saxon elegy called ‘Deor’ gives us a glimpse of the working world of the medieval tribal singer, recalling a pastiche of images from his mind’s songbook before singing about himself. In tonight’s concert, the solution (or one possible solution) to each riddle will be displayed after giving the listeners a moment to reflect and perhaps guess the answer. Some riddles contain both a plain and a bawdy solution. They explore the relationship between the riddler and the solver, between the metaphor maker and the world being poetically described. This is followed by the first of several spoken Anglo-Saxon riddles, about which the noted Anglo-Saxonist Craig Williamson writes : The riddles often describe, or are narrated from the point of view of, some creature or natural phenomenon (swan, moon, iceberg) and may be early environmental poems. Incantations for Valkyries and a wounded battle-steedīeginning with the famous Old High German ‘Merseburg Charms’, we plunge into a northern world which was still immersed in its pagan past: warrior-women, magic battle-steeds and the god Odin himself attest to the power of these images. The Old Icelandic Grottasöngr (‘The Mill-Song of Frodi’s Slave-Girls’) :Ĭharms, Riddles and Elegies of the Medieval Northlands (8th-11th centuries) Genzan unde Jordan keikan sament sozzen (‘The Strassburg Blood Charm’) Wyrm com snican (The Anglo-Saxon ‘Nine Herbs Charm’ against poisons) Tumbo saz in berke (‘The Strassburg Tumbo-Charm against bleeding’)Ĭhrist unde Johan giengon zuo der Jordan (‘The Jordan Nosebleed Charm’) The Anglo-Saxon elegy called ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’ :Ĭharms to stop bleeding and protect against poisons : Wenne, wenne, wen-chichenne (against a wen, boil or cyst) Her com in gangan in spider-wiht (against a fever) The elegy called ‘The Song of the Lone Survivor’ (from the Beowulf epic) :Īnglo-Saxon charms to cure a fever, to cure a boil or cyst : Hlude wæren hy, la, hlude (an Anglo-Saxon charm against a sharp pain) Gang uz, nesso (an Old High German charm against worms) The Anglo-Saxon elegy called ‘The Wife’s Lament’ :Ĭharms to cure worms, to cure a stabbing pain : Kirst, imbi ist hucze ! (The Old High German ‘Lorscher bee charm’) Wola, wiht, taz tu weist (The Old High German ‘Zurich house blessing’)įo ic under fot, funde ic hit (Anglo-Saxon charm ‘for a swarm of bees’) Incantations for Valkyries and a wounded battle-steedĬharms to bless a house, to manage a swarm of bees : This concert is generously supported by Elaine Adairġ. To view the concert programme, please click here. To view the texts & translations for this concert, please click here. The featured instruments will include 6-string Germanic harps, triangular harps, wooden flutes and a swan-bone flute. The world of the pagan medieval north, just turning to Christianity, will be explored, using the oldest sources known to us today. In addition to songs in English, there will be Old High German and Old Icelandic songs of conjuring, magic, and lament as well. Each of these songs is a glimpse into another time far from ours, and into the souls of poets, warriors, valkyries and seeresses, bards and philosophers, whose creations were the first to be written down in English and other Germanic languages. Their sources are varied: the Old English Beowulf epic, the Old Icelandic poetic Edda, and the few poems surviving in ancient songbooks such as The Exeter Book. These are songs of magic, healing, exile, of the uncertainty of fate, of a wandering poet/singer searching for a patron, funeral songs and celebrations of life-giving magic herbs. Summer Baroque Academy for Instrumentalistsįriday Janu| 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM) Christ Church Cathedral | Mapįor this intense new program, vocalist and harper Benjamin Bagby will be joined by his Sequentia colleagues Norbert Rodenkirchen, Hanna Marti and Stef Conner, for a program of riddles, charms and elegies of their medieval ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic tribes of the European Northlands.Green College Events – Cultures of Performance.Early Music Vancouver’s Emerging Artist Competition.EMV: Summer Festival – July 27 – Aug 5, 2023. ![]()
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