313
The Old English epic ‘Beowulf’ tells how Scyld, beloved King of the Danes, was committed to the ocean at his death — just as he had been at his birth.
The poem Beowulf opens with the death of Scyld, King of the Danes. Scyld had not been born to the crown: the Danes had found him lying in a boat, a helpless infant bedded upon wheat-sheaves. Yet he had risen to govern the people like a beloved father, and when he died in great age his mourning subjects, knowing his mind, with reverence cast Scyld adrift once more upon the retreating tide.
Posted December 6 2021
314
The exasperated women of Athens challenge the men of the City to decide whether women are a blessing or a curse.
In the Spring of 410 BC, The Women at the Thesmophoria by Aristophanes was produced in Athens at the literary festival named the City Dionysia. The play imagined how Aristophanes’s notoriously misogynist fellow-playwright Euripides might get on at the autumn Thesmophoria, a religious celebration exclusively for women — and the Chorus of Women certainly found his attitude towards them baffling.
Posted December 3 2021
315
Charmed by their attentions to her daughter Kate, Mrs Nickleby rewards Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck with a reminiscence about her favourite home remedy for colds.
Last night Mrs Nickleby and her daughter Kate, fifteen, were entertained at the home of her brother-in-law Ralph. Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht were charming, and this morning Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck have been commissioned to invite mother and daughter to the theatre. Poor Mrs Nickleby has no inkling of the deal Ralph and Sir Mulberry have struck concerning Kate, and it does not involve marriage.
Posted December 1 2021
316
When the plague once again visited Northumbria, Bishop Cuthbert of Lindisfarne left his island retreat and brought comfort and healing to the suffering.
In 664, a particularly nasty epidemic of plague struck the British Isles and lasted for over twenty years. It nearly killed monk Cuthbert, who was never completely well for the rest of his days. Shortly after he was consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne in 685, the plague broke out again. Undaunted, Cuthbert left his beloved island retreat to tour the villages of the mainland, bringing comfort to the sick and bereaved.
Posted November 30 2021
317
After the monastery of St Paul in Jarrow was devasted by an epidemic, the Abbot had only a boy in his early teens to rely on.
At the age of seven, St Bede was sent to the recently-opened monastery of St Paul at Jarrow to complete his education under Abbot Ceolfrid (a great man who sadly died in 716 on a journey to Rome to present a magnificent copy of the Bible to the Pope). The events in this touching reminiscence took place during an outbreak of the plague in 686, when Bede was about thirteen.
Posted November 29 2021
318
Like the legendary phoenix, the Christian must spend his life making a nest fit for his rebirth in fire.
In The Phoenix, the author (possibly Cynewulf, certainly an admirer of his work) mused on the legend of the firebird that dies in its nest, and is reborn in fire. A godly man builds himself a nest out of his repentance and his love and charity with all men; in life the nest protects him from spiritual enemies, and in death the nest is consumed in fire so that the man may be reborn in a mansion of glory.
Posted November 24 2021