Beowulf: The Mysterious Fertility Cult Origin Of The Anglo-Saxon Legend | Beowulf | Absolute History
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 вер 2022
- Through animation, location footage, archive, and interviews, the Beowulf epic is examined in the light of the civilization that created it, the Anglo-Saxons. In this documentary, we investigate the Anglo-Saxons' religious beliefs, and their everyday life, and explore the suggestion that the poem may have roots in an even more ancient fertility cult.
📺 It's like Netflix for history... Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service and get 50% off using the code 'AbsoluteHistory' bit.ly/3vn5cSH
This channel is part of the History Hit Network. Any queries please contact: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com
#AbsoluteHistory
I once read an excerpt of "Beowulf" in Olde English to my second graders to show them how language changes over time. I never saw such wide eyes!
To be fair, the massive change isn't a natural evolution, but more the result of numerous invasions & conquests, dramatically changing everything.
This was one of the first books i got for my Son when he was younger . He loved it . I would read it to him when he was an infant and once old enough he read it . Best read for kids, this book, 1984 and Animal farm .
kuddos! are you american or english?
I know right? If I remember,."scyld" = " shield."
@@siz4sean caninga/kaninga (sp...it's been 55 years!)...King. If you've got the sounds/letters right, it's beautiful to hear. I wanted to take Olde English as a minor, but an entire program wasn't offered at my University and, alas! Sooner or later, you've got to start earning a living.
In HS we had to memorize part of the Canterbury tales. The AP had to do it in olde English. We did not. However, we got extra credit if we chose to do so. I was the only one in my class that chose tbis option. My teacher said I did better than most of his AP students! It is so fascinating how language has evolved
Me too but the only option to memorize was the opening
Canterbury Tales is in Middle English
Greetings from Ireland on the 11th of September 2022 @10.02pm.❤️🇮🇪❤️
Greetings from Finland exactly 2 minutes after 😁😂
Greetings from an American woman with some Irish ancestry...🇺🇸❤️🇮🇪
But it is definitely the 11th of September here in Scotland. Are you both in another dimension? (The date was changed to the correct one but I still find it funny)
@@lissaallan I have been to Scotland, and I love the Scottish people! Beautiful country! God Bless you all... 🙏🏻🏴
I tried to watch this documentary because I've never heard the legend or story of Beowolf. I found that the volume was too low and the narrator could have talked a little bit louder. I'm sorry but I can't really understand the story because of those things
Yeah, and the one channel dialog choice was a bit odd
It sounds like there is a cover in front of or over the microphone to stop hissing and feedback. And because of the person's voice, makes it sound muffled.
Y'all know this was made decades ago right? It's like the substitute teacher in school when your teacher is out, they take old VHS tape and play it. lol
Doesnt help to have it Mono and only coming from One speaker . Vol is fine for me but i have a good sound system, just totally shitty mix of audio... whomever did it should be Fired .
Pick up a copy of Seamus Heaney's fantastic translation into modern English. It's presented side-by-side with the original. Brilliant. Avoid the 2007 movie like plague. Even Tony Hopkins couldn't save it.
Brings back so many memories. My favourite high school English teacher read this to us. The old English, I mean. At least an excerpt. I think the introduction essentially. He himself was Dutch, and had been living in Canada for a very long time. But he could really get the pronunciation down. And he read it very theatrically. At the end of his reading, a bunch of 16 year old jaded high school kids, stood and gave him a standing ovation. The vast majority of us kids, including myself, had roots in parts of the world that were nowhere near Britain. My ancestors were from India and Afghanistan. But it didn’t matter! This was just freaking amazing!
@Julia Welch I love educators. Thank you for your service! Yes: the magic really is real.
I can't wait until so much time has passed that our own English sounds like gobbledy-gook, and has to be called "New English" to separate it from "Modern English". Suspect the differences will be wrapped around space travel/technology; it's already started.
Beowulf is Beornwulf who is also Ragnar who is actually Ecghberts son and Aethelwul’s brother. This is real, this is true.
I wrote a prequel to Beowulf called "Grendel's Aunt." 74 stanzas of metered, somewhat alliterative, loosely and internally rhymed poetry. One excerpt:
Now her nephew in question, nefarious Grendel,
the seed of her sister, descendant of Cain,
was a monster whose drool filled a marsh full of moule,
and whose breath spored infective murrain.
"Tell me, where can I find him? He sounds just the part!"
shouted Hymm, now excited to meet him.
So they trudged themselves down into bowels of miry
and boot-squished through through foul-smelling swamps of perspiry.
The fetidness beckoned of Grendel, that knave,
and they found him asleep in his cave...
You can hear the entire poem, narrated by James Kingdon, here: ua-cam.com/video/jVWmboeE1SI/v-deo.html
Lol I realized I had a hack for the audio badness. The music only comes through my right earbud and the left carries the normal audio track. Much better after that. Love the legend of Beowulf.
Omgggg thank you
@@justinea742 no problem. I'm glad it worked for you too
Jesus, and here i was starting to panic that new earbuds were at fault. Tnx for the save
more anglo saxon history please!! a forgotten age of the original englishmen
I agree, more Anglo Saxon information it's such a mystery. And weren't they from Germany, pushing the existing populations to the West? 😅 History is sticky.
Unfortunately that's just it. There's not much to give you, because there's not much left that we can know about.
Why is the music and sound so off?
man I think I would just delete this one and try again, the opening goes on for quite a while too
edit: I thought it would be better after the opening:(
Hello Lisa
How are you doing
There is music playing beneath the speaker's words that make this video almost impossible to listen to. Is there someway I can lower -- or eliminate -- the music coming through my computer. And I have twice shut off the volume to understand where the music is coming from.
Using headphones I can tell you the voice comes through the left channel and the music through the right. It's very disorientating
It's nearly unintelligible over the WAY too loud background music...
what? *fire noises*
Thats your mixer settings i.e. operator erroe
@@Daves_Not_Here_Man_76 I'm hearing impaired, I can mix out most, but garbage is garbage. Of course you're obviously the expert, so thanks for your comment!
The background music is too loud
The helmet is stunningly beautiful. That was an amazing, talented craftsman/men
Anyone else get ten minutes in while only wearing one ear bud wondering what the heck is going on?
It's said that they think they found the foundation of Beowulf house on the swedish island Gotland in the middle of the Baltic Sea.
I wish the sound quality was better.
so hard to hear the narration with music of equal loudness layered over it
Berserk is someone that wears a ”bear shirt (särk)” that is someone that can turn into a bear or fight like one. Maby Beowulf was a berserk, if the name hints at bear ( hunter of honey).
Naming bears directly occurs in many indo european languages. e.g. Russian "medved". Beowulf is described to fight like a bear too.
Greetings from Florida💕
the audio mix is painful. compressing it to mono might even be better
The recorder music adds nothing.
We read Beowulf if high school it was so cool
no wonder youre now wolf man
This was hard to listen to with headphones. The narrator was only speaking in my left ear and the rest was in my right. Really uncomfortable and frustrating.
The prologue is worth the price of admission
I keep trying to break into Beowulf, to see what all the hoopla is about, and I'm sorry but I can't. The language is impossible, even in modern translation. "He" is used for everyone, and there are no identifiers regarding the "He" being discussed. It's so frustrating, I think I need to just let it go.
Too bad the awful sound tract drowns out the narrative . : (
Anybody else had problems with the sound?
The audio of this documentary is really wrong, the background sounds are too prominent and the narrator nearly indistinguishable. Sorry.
Y'all complaining of not understanding just turn on the subtitle but the edit is quite bad loud music
hard to listen to with the background music
The audio is way over the top…
I'm having a flashback man
This narrator's accent has switched from Scottish to Nordic to scouse to Manchester to Welsh. What sort of accent is this?
Honestly, being an English teacher I'm so ashamed. I've never read it, nev listened to it and didn't assign it. My bad. I've got some catching up to do
Seen
Really bad audio
my right ear hurts thanks ffs
Too much echo...
The background noise is so loud on this it is hard to follow the narration. It is really irritating. I don’t think I want to listen to an entire hour of it, though I am interested in the subject.
15:52 a man clears his throat... whats with that?
The mixing of the audio in this film is horrid! Unbearable! Narrating hard in my left ear while music rolling along in my right. Shocking. You’re welcome for the comment but you won’t be getting more than 30 secs of listening from me.
I've got a bilingual book about Beowulf, in modern and old english.
The narrator should probably stop talking altogether. Never heard someone who whistles and spits with every second word. You'd need a face guard standing next to him to cover yourself for the spray. Cannot listen to him, what a shame
Better than Rings of Power.
Lol anything is better than that
Sounds so Dutch/German😝 And as a Norwegian I’m pretty aware that we all belong to the Germanic language family.
Read from a book and saying I do not know. Seems historical. Do a video like this again if you want to lose subscribers.
Terrible audio, not worth attempting to watch. Waste of time.
This documetary is overly credulous of medieval christian mythos, pushes the ridiculous notion of the inevitability of cultural assimilation and destruction, and presents disproven theories as fact. If you want a video with actual substance on Beowulf, go watch The Histocrats' video on the subject.
Very disappointed by this video, since this channel usually covers its subjects quite well.
You english call everything anglo-saxson.
The Engelans were just a small group and Saxsons were never called as a group before Charles the great (end of 8th century/beginning 9th century)
Forget Bede, he was ignored of the real history.
Start DNA and find out the frisians migrated first, your english language already shows this influence.
Old English and Old Frisian are the same. Even in Alfred the Great his time.
The frisians were already in England before the great migration. The fought for the Romans, traded from The Netherlands to England.
Also, in the Netherlands, the incomming eastern parties who took over the empty land, build there houses not with wattle en daubt.
And let's be real, all western germanics wore a saks, as a daily use. Only scandinavians wore knives.
True, when the Romans left Britain their Frisian federati didn't leave with them but stayed because the land was good. Indeed they traded with their country men in Frisia.
Kind of loony. My own theory is that it was a story created to celebrate Canute as King of England, perhaps something translated into Old English from some sort of Norse source, now lost.
The Lord of the Rings is NOT A TRILOGY!!!!!! A trilogy is three separate stand-alone stories unified by a common theme. The Lord of the Rings is ONE SINGLE STORY that in some cases was broken up into three sections. Geeze, if you're going to speak English, damned-well use it like you know what you're doing!