The reading comes slow. You speak the words aloud, softly to yourself, the sense comes, the rhythm comes, the story comes. Its like reading poetry, and just as rewarding. A shadow tongue - Anglo-Saxon words in a modern English form, accessible, yet strange and evocative. You are transported. After a few pages you understand the three or four key rules of the spelling, and you begin to pick up the vocab. (Theres a glossary, and google is close). What is revealed is a stark tale of survival, myth and despair in a broken land, a post-apocalyptic novel set in 1066. The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth. loc it is well cnawan there is those wolde be tellan lies and those with only them selfs in mynd. there is those now who specs of us and what we done but who cnawan triewe no man cnawan triewe but i and what i tell i will tell as i sceolde and all that will be telt will be all the triewth. triewth there is lytel of now in this half broc land our folc wepan and gretan and biddan help from their crist who locs on in stillness saen naht as they weeps. and no triewth will thu hiere from the hore who claims he is our cyng or from his biscops or those who wolde be his men by spillan anglisc guttas on anglisc ground and claiman anglisc land their own ah but we is broc now dreaned sad we is too small to feoht mor we has borne it too hard we secs now only to lif. and if there is any left who thincs to lif after his triewth or after the laws of the crist if there is any thincs him self abuf this through luf or through mildness of heorte then he will die with his wif and his cildren for all is broc now all is broc still i will stand and i will tell the triewth the triewth of what i done and for what i was feohtan and how i was brocen by those ficol hores what i stood and cwelled for. i has not forgot i has cept it for there is micel must be telt and words now is left my only waepens and none wolde sae i has efer been afeart to wield what waepens i has because of what is wispred it moste be saed what befell i was a socman of the blaec fenns a free man of the eald danelaugh where there was no ealdors too high for the folc to raec and if they wolde pull down. thu wolde not cnaw it to see me now my nebb blaec all is broc a lif in fenn and holt but i was a free man of angland a man of parts in my land i was born this way i is still a free man i is still a free man to them i ceose to cnaw it i is named buccmaster of holland these songs will be sung for a thousand years our fathers was freer than us our fathers fathers stalcced the wilde fenns now the fenns is bean tamed efry thing gets smaller. for every cilde born there is sum new law a man sceolde be free and alone on his land the world sceolde not cum in untill he ascs it. freodom sceolde there be in angland again lic there was in the eald daegs in the first daegs of the anglisc freodom in angland
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:10:20 +0000
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