Michael Wood - In search of Beowulf

Listen, there is a poem that speaks with the voice of England's past like a flame beyond the language of the living. It is more than a thousand years old and still speaks to us. His name is Baywolf. I'm going in

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of the roots of this great. poem and the barbaric splendor of the world it describes is not fantasy this shows what a golden reality it was it is a world caught between the pagan and the Christian it is a landscape inhabited by monsters if you see the red eyes of this monster Source Alik burning eyes you understand, it is the story of a wolf hero who faces a dragon in his mysterious apprenticeship the dragon came furious spat death Fire War Flash burns in the distance his language has seduced a Nobel Prize winning poet it is wonderful to remember the weight of words for the first time Once on television we are allowed to examine the original manuscript of Priceless, that's great, don't you think?

Beay Wolf and Anglo sax and poetry are at the root of the great tree of English language and literature that has spread throughout the world. of the planet in my opinion, is our nation's greatest gift to the world. Beay Wolf is a work of the Anglo-Saxons, the Germanic tribes who arrived on our shores in the 5th century, so my journey in

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of Beay Wolf begins on the east coast of England, where these tribes first settled in the Middle Ages, the Anglo-Saxons were impoverished pagan immigrants who came to Britain at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire as economic immigrants in search of new life, new lands, they sailed to these esters, the star, deepened the Orwell and created their little ones. kingdoms, they were a minority, they had little influence on our DNA, our DNA, as Britain is generally much older, but they had a profound effect on our society and our culture and especially our language and therefore on our thinking about language.

The English we speak today descends from their speech, our most used words are theirs, green, red, hand, body, words that describe key concepts, mother, father, friend, love, hate, forgiveness, life, death, God , core words that still define our beliefs, our emotions, and our relationships as human beings now. Although bwolf is the first great work of English literature, it is not set in Britain, but in Denmark, with a bit of Sweden, and in that sense it is a post-migration story: you think of the Irish or the Italians in United States and in the tenacity and affection with which they cling to the memories of their European home the Anglo-Saxons were so for centuries they clung to the myth of their coming take the famous 10th century poem The Battle of Brun sithan angle in saaka up BEC by Brad briu since the Angles and Saxons rose upon the broad waves because they sought Britain to take the land.

Part of poetry's appeal to Anglo-Saxons lay in the power of those ancient stories, and although many centuries separate us from the original audience, poetry like baywolf can still be compelling like so many great Holly

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advents. Baywolf is the evergreen story of the hero's quest. The hero who fights monsters saves people from him and finds himself. Now the best way to experience being a wolf is to see it spoken live and I've come to Kent to see it represented in a fantastic large-scale recreation of an Anglo-Saxon Royal Hall. It has been built here in Wickhurst by members of a royal and gorum historical re-enactment society who were all hooked on the Anglo-Saxons and their world.

Hi, Kim. It's great to see you again, fantastic, absolutely fabulous, isn't it great? Lumy, look at this. What is it about the Anglo-Saxon era that is so attractive? What's not to love when when you get to use this kind of thing, right? Great, yes, today the group has come to hear a performance of Baywolf by actor Julian Glover for the past 30 years, between roles in Star Wars and Harry Potter, he has been doing a solo performance of the poem to get in the mood for your audience. preparing a Saxon feast, the poem begins not with the bay wolf himself, but with a flashback of another mythical hero, waving the shield, a magical child washed up on the shores of Denmark, wait here, listen, we have heard of the blossoming of the Throne from Denmark, wasn't it? who found that in childhood he lacked clothing, but lived and prospered grew in strength and stature under the heavens that was good, could he be a good king to be a good king?

Is a key idea in the poem, now one of Shield's descendants, the Danish king Rothar builds. a great golden hall called herat, but in the darkness outside lurks a malevolent spirit grindel the name of the demon Grim Infamous stalker of the Master Wasteland of Moore and the Marsh Fortress you found in herro the Nobles after a revelry slept after dinner, mad with rage, they quickly beat this creature ril gloomy and greedy Wild and ruthless he grabbed 30 warriors and went home excess Lustful with the loot Loaded with the dead when dawn broke and with the light of dawn Grindle's indignation was openly seen before the Anglo-Saxon audience Grindle's rampage was not just a random act of Terror attacking Meade Hall, it was attacking society as a whole because the rituals that united their society were enacted here, making the hall a center not only of social order but also of moral order and when the monster comes in the night. and begins to tear the king's followers limb from limb, it's time for the wolf bear hero, he was the main force for all men who walked the Earth at that time, a big heart framed, this Prince chose his men from the flower of his people, the fiercest among them that can be found. 14 The expert wolf bear led them to the beach Fringe beach.

Wolf is a young man at this point, leaving his native Sweden and sailing with his gang to Denmark with the mission to boldly go and rid the Roar Hall of his demonic evil. Invade now, far back in time, the story originated in oral tales, so how was the poem transmitted to us over a distance of over a thousand years and how did it become a literary classic? Discover I Have a Quote in the British? Library: The poem survived purely by chance in a single manuscript. It is usually kept in the Treasure Room of the library or in a secure vault deep underground.

Some would say it is our nation's most treasured literary relic. Now the story of the bay wolf dates back to the end of the 5th century and was reworked. and tweaked by the BS as BS do at some point it was written and finally took the form we have around the year 1000. This is a huge thrill for me, to say the least. I first studied Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in the Old British language. Library when I was a student I never worked on the Bearwolf manuscript, you just weren't allowed to, it was too fragile and it had never been filmed before, so this is a pretty exciting moment.

The Baywolf manuscript was one of many medieval books in a private library. than the cotton collection that was devastated by a fire in the 18th century Fantastic look God, now look at this this is amazing, isn't it? What immediately becomes evident is the fire of 1731, isn't that exactly the case in 1731? The manuscripts were housed in Ashburnham House. in London Faithfully named Ash Burnham and the fire broke out in the house and many of them manuscripts were damaged, some unfortunately were destroyed entirely uh Reports say that fragments of manuscripts were seen floating in the wind like butterflies and V yes, I remember having worked on one of These years ago, when I was a student and the very burnt of the vellum, the sheepskin just wrinkled like that, didn't it?

They are incredibly fragile, very dull, in the 19th century, the damaged Baywolf manuscript was found. keeping it in its original form as part of a collection of stories written by the same two Anglo-Saxon scribes. I mean, the build has all kinds of other stuff, doesn't it? I mean, actually, you're turning it into monster pictures. It is not like this? Yes, here we have a great photo of a Tex known as the wonders of the East. Yes, at the top we have a headless man with his face and his chest. Yes, we have two dragons that are 150 tons long and we have two camels.

Call them comedy camels, but they are actually meant to represent elephants. The artist m from Camels is interesting, aren't these strange dragons and monsters? You can see the connection with Bolf. Well, exactly the Scribe is the same as part of a Bolf poem itself, so although this one in particular. the text has no relation to the pent, it does mean that the scribes were really interested in the monsters themselves, it's a small wonder, then, that a story of creatures like grindle finds a place in this medieval monster tune, let's leave time at the beginning of the manuscript bill here we go what are the opening words listen listen listen we G that's the beginning of the story that's great isn't it? here is the passage where bwolf and his 14 Companions spend the night in Hrothgar's Hall knowing that grindle will return come shenga slipping through the Shadows came the Walker in the night the Warriors slept all but one and this man kept a vigil without blinking he waited with his suppressed heart swelling with rage against his enemy from the mist of the morand Fells wine grindel stalking Mur under Miss leam grel gongan he moved through the darkness he saw with perfect clarity the golden panel Hall and drinking place of the men the door gave way with a touch of his hands inflamed rage doubled salary tore the jaws of the hall rushing forward angrily advancing from his eyes he shot a light in a beautiful form of fire he saw in the hall the host of Young Warriors and in his heart he exalted To the horrible monster all his hopes were turned into a gluttonous meal.

As a first step he laid his greedy hands on a sleeping soldier and tore him savagely. His bony joints collided with a huge gobit that sucked out his veins and soon had eaten the entire man down to his fingers and feet and then moved forward and caught up with Cizar. The wolfbear warrior reached for him with his fist full of resentment, but the man quicker to stop stood up. on his arm and quickly grabbed that disgusting hand, hateful to every one, was the breath of the other tear in the giant flesh frame that showed itself, then the shoulder muscles separated, a snap of tendons, the bone locks burst, the The demon's arm was torn from his side and Grindle flew away. sick to death to his sad lair where he knew that the end of his life was in sight, wolf bear had cleansed terot, saved everyone from the chase and as a sign to everyone, the hero hung his hand, arm and tore from the shoulder all limb, all grindle grip.

Beneath the Raised Ceiling and thus ends the first part of the poem for us, the basic narrative arc in Baywolf is quite familiar, but surrounding the manuscript itself there is still a real mystery that we do not know when or where the poem was initially composed and performed. . and we don't know where the successive oral stories were finally captured in this written version, but within the poem there are clues to its origin, so, firstly, we must find out where the original oral poem and its poet may have come from. Heading to one of the first Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in East Anglia, this is the town of Woodbridge on the River Debon in Suffk, like most places around here its roots lie over a thousand years ago in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Around us there are signs for the Anglo-Saxon past, downstream is Kingston el tun or Farm of the Kings of the Eastern Angles and upstream is the Ford of Woer the Wolf one of its 6th Century Kings and on the other bank is the site of the largest archaeological discovery ever made in the British Isles and of course this is the return of FK-born hero Satan, bay wolf expert Dr Sam Newton, like myself, are fascinated by Sutton's story , who is a place with ancient legends of royal tombs and hidden gold. I have so many stories of treasures buried in this corner of Suffk.

Sure, people would imagine all kinds of treasures buried there, but in this particular case, astrologer Elizabeth verse, Dr. John D, is said to have dug here and then, um, the great lady. who owned the land here in the 1930s, old Edith, pretty, um, she certainly was a lady interested in the Legends and we know that she was involved in the Woodbridge spiritualist congregation across the river here and, about the Based on all that, he became convinced that there was gold in its hills and that is what, of course, led to talking about dreams come true. Edith Pretty's dreams centered on several mysterious mounds scattered around the area known as Sutton, which meant fiancee in Anglo-Saxon.

In 1938, she eventually approached local archaeologist Basil. Brown to investigate when I came I met Mrs. Perdy and walked up the mountain and told her which one she would like to dig and she said what about that one in May 1939. Brown started digging helped by the local gamekeeper and the gardener from Mrs. Pretty who was driving. In a trench at the east end of the mound they traced rows of ship rivets still in position andThey soon discovered the ghost of a large ship with an intact burial chamber. An Anglo-Saxon ship burial had been found and it lay beneath the exact spot. where Mrs.

Pretty had told Brown to dig, look, you can see the post that marks the view of the bow of the ship, oh yeah, and the stern right out there, so this is the length of the ship here exactly, the KE line is something like 90 It's a huge boat even by today's standards on the river, yes, yes, yes, and this beautiful boat, what a way to go and of course it brings with it the notion that death It is nothing more than an embarkation point on a journey that you know must mean. So much for them, hence the effort to bring this enormous ship of six and six tons at least when it is light to here and, of course, this is where Baywolf comes in, because the opening movement of the poem culminates with a magnificent account of a ship real. funeral a ship with a ringed neck at Haven and there they deposited their Lord and Master Giver of rolled gold in the waste of the ship in Majesty by the Mast a mound of treasures from distant countries was brought on board her and it is said that No ship was never more bravely equipped with the weapons of a warrior.

Swords with an accent of war and bulletproof vests on high that they raised and fixed a golden Signum that they gave to the flood, they let the seas take it away and around it the ancestral treasures, yes, and that is in the poem, is it? not on bwolf? them, the people, the people. Fantastic treasures, uh, the crown jewels, if you like, no trace of The Dead King's body was ever found, but the extraordinary treasures buried with it caused a sensation. It rewrote English history almost yes, because this opened a lost chapter of English history, a golden age no less, but it had an extraordinary impact on the Bay Wolf 2 studio well, it's not fantasy, this shows what a golden reality it was.

Yes, I mean the poet, the poet describes these types of talismanic artifacts, they are almost endowed with a kind of magical power, aren't they gifts between kings? and his warrior heroes and you think it's just a poet talking and then under this mound are the most magnificent find was a ceremonial helmet when this literally fabulous piece was reconstructed which revealed closer connections to the bay wolf poem, look at this amazing face, Michael. Fantastic, isn't it? You see the heads of the children there with fangs B exactly located as in the description B on Oran clay, the sha in the form of a hole above the cheeks protected the lives of the war-minded warriors who in other words, what for us it's an inanimate metal decoration, to them it's an animated protective agent, it seems like no helmet without a ball helmet would be considered safe, so $64,000 Question Hum, whose helmet was it?

Good question in the present. evidence, the inevitable conclusion is a king called Radal, not just king of East Anglia, one of the first overlords of Britain, and it is in the family tree of Redal and the East Anglian kings that we find the next clue that may connect to poet baywolf with this. In one corner of England, the name of a royal family named after their eponymous hero, woer, means Little Wolf, waing, wolf and of course wolves are quite big in the world of bwolf, once again we can identify the Danish queen, weow, as an East Anglo. dynastic ancestor and the name of one of her sons, namely Rothman, appears in the upper inches of the East Angan royal pedig, okay, and as a royal name you don't get it in any other ancient source.

Wow, this then suggests that the author of B. Wolf knew the pedigree of the East Anglian royal family very well. Well, it's great, isn't it? It's a pretty inevitable conclusion. I might suggest that B Wolf at some point went through a period of songwriting here in East Anga and if so, where was it most appropriate? we are simply crossing the parish boundary to rename the known Royal Authority of East England site. This is in ancient speech, a real city, none other than Kingston. I think these links that Sam holds are persuasive and exciting here in what you feel.

You can almost touch the world of the bay wolf poet, the area next to the later medieval St Gregory's Church in Rendlesham is the most likely site for the Royal Hall, where the kings of East England might have listened to their court poets, So when we talk about a royal palace residence in the 7th century, we're talking about all the service industries that are here too, right? I mean the metal workers, the craftsmanship, perhaps the people who made the jewelry in his, who and, of course, the most central of all, the great Golden Hall. the gathering focus for royal audiences, a large barn-like structure, nothing less than a northern Camelot, this great ideal that would become a reality and in it the poets entertain the king and his warriors by telling absolutely tales without celebration. complete without the poets telling Stess the entertainment and we can imagine that well, almost in this place, I mean, within this immediate area, yes, absolutely all the indications are here.

Now it occurred to him that he would order the construction of a huge Mead Hall. house bigger than men on Earth had ever heard of and he shared the gifts that God had Ed in his apartment with people young and old there was harp music sweet minstral song perfect that spoke of the remote first creation of the race of the man in The poem's possible origin in Eastern England is hinted not only at the Sutton he hoards and the king's family tree, but is also suggested by the landscape itself. The haunting F of the poem can still be found here in Suffk on a frosty morning.

I can easily imagine the ogres emerging from the mist, but there's a 7th century twist. The kings here were Christians and in those days the F was the scene of spiritual wars. A holy missionary, Saint Botel, founded his monastery in these swamps, from here he would leave. and fight the demons of Fen with prayer, just as pagan heroes like wolfbear fought to rid the Kingdom of Hrothgar of monstrous swamp dwellers like grindle, their weapons were different, but saint and hero inhabit the same landscape , do not forget Anglo-Saxon England, the England of being a wolf. It was a wild and unpopulated land, there were no real towns, the forests were full of wolves and the farms and isolated settlements, the solitary monasteries like the one that stood on that icon promoter there, were small centers of human life in the middle of a vast untamed nature, their world. mental was surrounded by monsters and the Invisible to them was palpable and everything was threatened to burst beyond the threshold into the real and in the story of bwolf after the murder of grindle the next eruption of the demonic catholic watery depths of the mirr was early from Medieval Mind and perhaps to us even more threatening because she was Grindle's mother.

Grindle's mother now proposed a black-hearted glutton in a Roth who brought the visit of Revenge for her son. She descended upon Herot and fate rode on her wheel when Grindle's mother found her. among those men, she grabbed a man quickly, the king's good friend Ashera grabbed him to her and went to the swamp. In horror stories, Grindle's mother may be fearsome, but she still feels the bond of a mother with her son and with the poet, that is even a source of imaginative sympathy, it makes her more than just a terrifying monster, It is a perverse mirror for humanity and the poet strengthens that connection. for his audience by giving his demons a biblical origin in the poem Grindle and his relatives are described as the seed of Cain, who is the son of Adam in the Bible, who committed the primordial crime of killing a brother for which he and their descendants would be thrown out. out forever exiled fed to wander always fed to fight his battle against humanity and goodness and in the poem grindle is described as ala victor the old enemy and even better demon maninis does not need translation is the demon of humanity those ideas and images come all? the way to Shakespeare and his contemporaries and in the landscape today his traces can still be found here in East Anglia the name grand is still applied to the marshy wells and watercourses today they call them G grindel and the idea of ​​a grindel as The monster Fen as an enemy of Christianity has also endured here.

I have come to the medieval church of Bbor to meet a local folklore expert, Peter Jennings, take a look at this cathedral of the marshes, there were never more than 100 houses in BLB and yet in this great fantastic place, for Of course, there was a monastery in the 8th century Wolf Bear era, so what is the legend of this place? So P, well, the story goes that on August 4, 1577, huge thunderclaps and, of course, the storm. It's when you hope he's won and the World Hunt for him comes down with his devil dog, black shook, shook, this is an old Anglo-Saxon word, actually Peter, isn't it?

It means monster in Anglo-Saxon, yes, from Shar suar, yes, so he is a devil dog, yes, black. and Shaggy are like burning eyes, this is very interesting, it's like grle with the light, the horrible light of your eyes, yeah, yeah, don't like the sound of singing all these Christian things like Bott, demons on the fence, yeah , exactly and A black tremor goes down and down the hallway, a man and a boy stand in its way and die because the belief is that if you look into those burning eyes like pain you are dead, if not, within 12 months people will die. get out of the way. and of course, every little charge through this is a little.

I really have to show you that you're going to love this, so I'm black, it's going to this door. The north door. Now the north door belongs to the devil in the church. as far as St Le's popular law is concerned and this is where their claw marks found their way to that door and have been there for a long time so the East Anglian tourism board twice really got to work here, yeah, I think it's fantastic. Whether you want it or not, as you like, the times when bogies like black tremble were fading into folklore, but the Anglo-Saxons believed in the reality of supernatural forces that could only be defeated by magic, whether by the cross of the holy exorcist or by the sword of the hero in the poem when bwolf chases grindle's mother to her lair it is a magic sword that pierces him then he saw between the armor on the wall a giant sword from times past this wonder was so enormous that no man could bear it in battle, it plays well, it was a Giant's Forge that had molded it so well that the gayat champion, now trembling with war rage, caught it by the rich hilt and, without caring for his life, He brandished his circles and brought it down with fury, the receiver was full and biting. in the neck, the blade pierced the spine, the sword was bloody, he rejoiced at the feat of the Anglo-Saxons.

Weapons like the Beay Wolf had supernatural power and the very process of forging them must have seemed like some kind of spell. Hector Cole is one of the few people today who knows how to forge weapons like the Anglo-Saxons did. It is a magical process. It is not like this? You can see why ancient societies thought Smith was somehow a magician. Oh, absolutely, he goes back to the early days of iron. working when iron was a gift from the gods because it literally came from the heavens in meteors and man has captured it and can work it and he is using the Earth, he is using fire, he is using wind, he is using water, he is using all the elements and then their ability to create these magical pieces of work and they saw the process from a shapeless chunk of what looks like rock, yes, to beautiful, deadly, extraordinary art.

If it's a secret, isn't it a mystery? When creating his sword, the blacksmith would first make several separate rods and then twist, weld and hammer them to flatten them and it was the twisting of the rods that gave each Anglo-Saxon sword its individual personality, creating intricate patterns on the beaten blade. . Look at that, can you see the pattern on it? There are strange poisoned branches. AR, in God, it's just cool, it's like waves exactly like the Anglo-Saxon says, the way they are swords, it's waving, yeah, you see something in the world of it, don't you? When you look at these patterns, oh yes, then H denner's son gave Bearwolf a gold banner as a gift of victory, an embroidered banner, also a coat of mail and a helmet and a raised sword that was both a precious object and a token of honor, so the poem The World and Its Honored Heroes were pagan and yet PO himself was Christian;

After all, even monsters are seen in biblical terms as relatives of C and that cultural tension between the pagan and the Christian is at the very heart of the poem, but what does that say? Tell us about Baywolf and his audience to find out. I am traveling northeast, to what was once the ancient Kingdom of Northern Umbria in early Anglo-Saxon times. The area around Newcastle was the intellectual powerhouse of Christian England. This trip is kind of a pilgrimage for me, if that doesn't sound too cheesy, whenever I'm in the northeast I always try to make thetrip to a small old mining and shipbuilding town on the southern shore of the time, it is because it was there in the At the beginning of the 8th century, the monk Beid of northern Umbria, who was a man of Sunland, wrote his famous book .

He called it the ecclesiastical history of the English nation. It's kind of the defining text of the Anglo-Saxon era, but I also think it sheds a fascinating light. in the context of baywolf and wrote it in jaro, it's hard to imagine, right? But this is one of the most resonant landscapes in British history. It is a typical Anglo-Saxon monastic site, a bit like Hion in Suffer in a promise between two rivers. just look at the river flowing to the sea at Tinmouth and just below us the River Dawn, now a blackened industrial stream, a sad sight indeed and behind me where is the petrol storage terminal and the barren rows of cars Nissan, there was a huge tide pool. slake comes from a good old English word, slan, to fill, as if to quench your thirst.

Looking at the slake today you might think the Bead landscape is gone forever, but the remains of his monastery are still here, this is one of the birthplaces of the English. There you have it, this is what survives from the Anglo-Saxon monastery of Jro built in 681, this is where Bead spent his entire life from the age of seven. There is a wonderful story of him at the age of 14 as the only survivor along with the Abbot of a terrible plague outbreak yet he managed to maintain services and this is where in his old age he wrote the great book about it.

The central idea of ​​the narrative is conversion, as Beid tells it, the conversion of the pagan English was quite simple, great kings. They would see the Divine Light and convert and their nobles and people would simply follow it, but in reality the conflict between Christianity and paganism went on for a long time and was never conclusively won and in the cultural battles and spiritual wars of the 8th century, poetry was key. medium and it was discussed just look at this this is a letter from a Northumbrian clergyman and he is talking about what was happening at the monks' festivals within the monasteries and the popularity of poems like baywolf see leganto in Sak Al conviviola word of God must be read in the communal festivals of the monks, not in the pagan poems, in the pagan songs quidel chisto, what does it have to do with Christ ingel, a hero mentioned in baywolf, it almost sounds as if it were an attack on baywolf himself, no and here The house of Christ is narrow and cannot include both the works of the church fathers and the poems of pagan poets, but, as so often in history, the old customs are tenacious, they never disappear from the overnight and the Ancient poetry, the same voice of the early English found a new theme.

We have come to this remote corner of Dum in Scotland, in what was the kingdom of North Thria in Anglo-Saxon times, to find one of the most interesting monuments of that era. in the church here in Ruffell and has a great story to tell in a later era of spiritual wars, the Protestant Reformation, this monument was considered idolatrous in the 17th century, it was vandalized by zealous Presbyterians and the pieces were thrown into a well, but later it was still reassembled it is a large stone cross from baywolf's time here it is this is the day of the cross it is not so fantastic it is an anglo-saxon preaching cross almost 18 feet high when it was made you have to imagine bright colors Reds and purples yellow whites blame the halos over Christ and the saints and over them texts and images from Christian history are great, right?

This is Mary Magdalene washing Christ's feet and drying them with her hair, come and take a look around. the side is surprisingly well preserved given that it was SM vandalized, isn't it now? Look at this wonderful image here of Christ standing on the heads of what can only be called monsters. It's an illusion for the Psalms, the triumph over the devil through the trampling of serpents, dragons, basilisks and lions, very pale wolf, well, isn't it? Here is the most fantastic element of this incredible Monument that you see running to the side on the two slightly worn strips, but you can see that they are runes.

They are the writing of the ancient Germanic peoples, the runes quote a poem that, after baywolf, is one of the best works of Anglo-Saxon literature, it is called the dream of the rude and shows how ancient pagan themes in poetry were carried over to enrich the Christian imagination and even to help conversion the poem takes the form of a dream Vision the poet is the dreamer he has the vision in the middle of the night and it is an incredibly archaic idea it is like the ancient Chans or spiritual mediums who are sent to the gods to obtain their secret knowledge and bring it back for the benefit of humanity is an idea that is thousands of years older than Christianity the poet's vision is the cross of Christ listen he says I will tell the best of dreams that I had at midnight when everyone sleeps I dreamed I saw a wonderful tree rising in the sky above me bathed in light the brightest of rays and then the most beautiful of trees spoke these words a long time ago I still remember it I stood on the edge of the forest when They came to overthrow me, strong enemies took me and put me on a hill and then the young hero Christ, firm and unbreakable, stripped himself naked.

Brave in the eyes of everyone, willing to save humanity and I trembled when the hero hugged me and I was pierced. with Dark Nails all creation cried lamenting the death of the King Christ has now become the Germanic hero Victorious even in his defeat and the tree assumes the Person of a loyal member of the war band He could have killed them all the tree says those Fus el The same word as in baywolf but the tree out of loyalty to the Lord must become the instrument of his death by equating the Pagan Tree of Life with the cross of Christ.

The Christian poet created something uniquely English that could reconcile people to the new religion, so there is a fabulous blurring of theological boundaries, if I can put it that way, between the pagan and the Christian, in the dream of the rude , you have Christ as the leader of the war band, talking trees, and cosmic magic, just like in Baywolf, you have saint. God the creator of the world and the sins of the seed of Cain and perhaps that will help us understand how the poem actually worked for an Anglo-Saxon audience. It has been said that Christianity in Baywolf is only a veneer, but in its vivid depiction of the pagan past, the poem honored the ancestors and allowed the old world to live on in the new - after all, for them the pagan thought as if the Christian future were still a gift from God.

The minstrel told how long ago the Lord formed the Earth exalting the Lord established the Sun and the Moon as lamps to illuminate the inhabitants of the earth they charged the acres of the world in the jewel work of the branches and leaves, giving life to every type of creature that crawls and moves, and so we reach the final act of the poem in a few lines, the the poet jumps 50 years baywolf is the king of his people the gats but now he is an old man 50 winters that he ruled became grays in the guardianship of the earth until one began a horde that protected the Dragon to exercise his power in the dark night he protected a horde of gold in an imposing stone mound men did not know its entrance, but one day a slave who He was fleeing from the fog and broke through when he saw the dragon there.

He was struck by great terror, but he still stole from there a cup of solid gold. his treasure horde rapes the enraged Dragon and lays waste to B Wolf's Kingdom, even the Royal Hall is destroyed before the dragon retreats to its lair and it is the Dragon's Lair that is the scene of Beay Wolf's final battle. . The Anglo-Saxons had a vivid sense of living. in an ancient landscape with long prehistoric mounds and menhirs around it, the great CES Stone for its poets was the work of giants, the wonderful work of the stones of the walls and the ancient gravediggers of the Stone Age were pagan burial places where ancestral treasures were stored and stored. guarded by dragons, this is one of them, it is still known as whand Smithy whand was the Anglo-Saxon divine blacksmith, the man who created magic swords and chain mail for the gods and even on a bright day under a cloud Fleck Sky still felt like a place of mystery to the Anglo-Saxon mind, these Standing Stones were like entry points to the underworld and local legends have haunted this long Oxfordshire barrow for many centuries.

It was said that if you left your shoes here with a silver coin in your hand, put them on for yourselves and this is the kind of place that the Anglo-Saxon public imagined as the place for Wolf's final fight, he is like the old gunslinger of a western movie who must face one last mortal enemy and of course he knows what will happen because as the poet says that although his fate is unknowable, it is still certain that the war-experienced king sat on the promontory spoke words of encouragement to the friends of his Heth but gloomy his spirit death anxious wandering he knew destiny was waiting to seek the horde of his soul he Wason wusan greatan soul his destiny floated almost unknowable but sure that reflective fatalistic quality I think is the key to baywolf in 1999 a new translation appeared that captured that field better than any other before incredibly bwolf topped the best sellers won book of the year captured the imagination of a new generation of readers and was written by the Nobel Prize winning poet Shamus Heene because heene even the dragon himself must act according to his destiny the way the dragon is described is as if he is full of sinuous energy he is the worm like them let's say in anglo-saxon that he himself has been attacked, he has been provoked and alone he has to follow his nature like dragons do, when they wake up, they circle around and burn villages, so there's no sense that he's an evil figure coming to do harm.

For Bolf, they are both caught in this web, they are meeting a destiny, finding their destiny, the poem is about tests in many ways, I mean, Bolf is tested three times and U, the first two are tests of Guerrero, but I feel like the third. it is in some ways more than a spiritual spiritual test of a different kind and that calls, I think, something in the reader is a feeling of having to live up to your best potential and not fail at something and beol is full of understanding facing the end. Now the old bay wolf enters the Dragon's Lair accompanied by Wigl, the only young warrior who has the courage to support his King.

The Dragon came furious, attacked once again. A terrifying flash pounced on our King, crushed on his neck in bitter pain. Wigl then ignored the blow to the head. below him he aimed and the fire quickly went out accordingly, then wolf bear recovering took his stabbing knife, heeded hard and cut the dragon in half, so that the audacity of him expelled the life. F Ellen re and the King saw the last triumph of their works in the world their wound. Burned and swelled Doom boiled in his chest He walked away thinking He sat on a ledge and examined the old Earth All the wigs took water and washed their good Lord He washed away the blood of battle He loosened his helmet Keats spoke about the writing of a poem and the setting and I think that is quite beautiful in beol, as the poem progresses the central character of beol himself develops, who appears as a young man.

A brave cowboy who comes to town to win glory and as he goes, the career seeds use something else that Kei said is an intelligence that is educated by the Sorrows of the world to become a soul and I think something like that It happens over the course of the poem and there is a beautiful transformation that occurs from Young Valor to Old Intuitive Sympathy and Virgil. with, say, Lum, the tears of things that Anglo-Saxon melancholy merges with, I think the whole European sense of tragedy and, uh, that's what I loved, we're almost at the end of the story, but before From that there is one last question: where could it be?

The poem was finally written in the late 10th century. The poem remember was originally composed in the Anglo-Saxon dialect, but in the form we have it in that handwritten manuscript, it went through a final version. a scribe who wrote in West Saxon and where it may have taken place the clues are found not in the bay wolf itself but in the other elements of the manuscript in London the book of monsters Alexander's letter to Aristotle with his fabulous Tales of Ant Lions and strange tribes across the sunset the wonders of the East with its history of people whose heads were on their chests now there is only one Anglo-Saxon monastery known to have possessed all the Latin sources for those stories and it is this Momsy on Wilshire in the borders of Wessix and Mercier, a place with a long tradition of vernacular and Latin poetry, much of which also has a healthy interest in dragons and if I had to place a small bet, I suppose it was here that the story reached its final point. on its long journey from the mouth of BS finally to the pen of The Scribe is amiracle that it has survived like all Anglo-Saxon poetry it is astonishing to think that the very root of our literary heritage has just broken through the faded ink the charred vellum the crumbling margins bring us the word horde and the poem itself ends in Flames with beay Wolf's body taken to a promontory by the sea in their Gat Kingdom the Gat race then raised a bright funeral P maale and war shields and helmets hung over it, they placed in the middle the body of their Chief and on top they kindled the largest funeral fire.

The roar of flames mixed with crying as the Red Heart of fire consumed the bone house. The sky swallowed the smoke. This was the manner of the mour of the gads, they said that he had shown, of all the kings of the world, the gentlest of men, the kindest, the kindest to his people, the most eager for fame, for what beay wolf lives and dies as a noble pagan ancestor should, but with virtue and immorality that his Christian descendants could admire, he was a good king, he was a good coing, who ruled wisely, wisdom had eth Cena and now, in the 21st century, with wars against terrorism and clashes of civilizations, the poem can still speak to us with its pagan humanism and its refinement. from his manners his generosity of spirit and it is in our voice that no matter how far away our ironic self-deprecating speech is quite harsh and it can be said that the poem will be remembered as long as there is poetry in these islands until the dragon coming soon tonight here on bbc4 Comedy while we joined the outdoor walking club