Tuesday 7 November 2017

Winter's Day

An oldie but goodie from The Clerk of Oxford, reminding us that November 7 was considered the first day of winter by the Anglo-Saxons.


Super-trad Calendar 

I am reminded of Anglo-Saxon class at the University of Toronto long ago, the pleasant melancholy of leaving the old Mediaeval Studies house after an hour or two of group translation of Beowulf. Across the street stretched the wooded Queen's Park in which wicked Grendel might have lurked, lonely and envious of the warmth and companionship of indoors. 

Currently I am reading C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew in Polish, writing down all the words I couldn't generate myself in conversation on cue cards.  I've budgeted a week per chapter, and such is the magic of the Narnia heptalogy, listening and reading to the same chapter over and over again is not at all dull.  

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