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Ahead of her new book What's So Great About the Great Books? coming out in April, Naomi Kanakia and I talked about literature from Herodotus to Tony Tulathimutte. We touched on Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon poetry, Scott Alexander, Shakespeare, William James, Helen deWitt, Marx and Engels, Walter Scott, Les Miserables, Jhootha Sach, the Mahabharata, and more. Naomi also talked about some of her working habits and the history and future of the Great Books movement. Naomi, of course, writes Woman of Letters here on Substack.TranscriptHenry Oliver: Today, I am talking with Naomi Kanakia. Naomi is a novelist, a literary critic, and most importantly she writes a Substack called Woman of Letters, and she has a new book coming out, What's So Great About the Great Books? Naomi, welcome.Naomi Kanakia: Thanks for having me on.Oliver: How is the internet changing the way that literature gets discussed and criticized, and what is that going to mean for the future of the Great Books?Kanakia: How is the internet changing it? I can really speak to only how it has changed it for me. I started off as a writer of young adult novels and science fiction, and there's these very active online fan cultures for those two things.I was reading the Great Books all through that time. I started in 2010 through today. In the 2010s, it really felt like there was not a lot of online discussion of classic literature. Maybe that was just me and I wasn't finding it, but it didn't necessarily feel like there was that community.I think because there are so many strong, public-facing institutions that discuss classic literature, like the NYRB, London Review of Books, a lot of journals, and universities, too. But now on Substack, there are a number of blogs—yours, mine, a number of other ones—that are devoted to classic literature. All of those have these commenters, a community of commenters. I also follow bloggers who have relatively small followings who are reading Tolstoy, reading Middlemarch, reading even much more esoteric things.I know that for me, becoming involved in this online culture has given me much more of an awareness that there are many people who are reading the classics on their own. I think that was always true, but now it does feel like it's more of a community.Oliver: We are recording this the day after the Washington Post book section has been removed. You don't see some sort of relationship between the way these literary institutions are changing online and the way the Great Books are going to be conceived of in the future? Because the Great Books came out of a an old-fashioned, saving-the-institutions kind of radical approach to university education. We're now moving into a world where all those old things seem to be going.Kanakia: Yes. I agree. The Great Books began in the University of Chicago and Columbia University. If you look into the history of the movement, it really was about university education and the idea that you would have a common core and all undergraduates would read these books. The idea that the Great Books were for the ordinary person was really an afterthought, at least for Mortimer Adler and those original Great Books guys. Now, the Great Books in the university have had a resurgence that we can discuss, but I do think there's a lot more life and vitality in the kind of public-facing humanities than there has been.I talked to Irina Dumitrescu, who writes for TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), LRB (The London Review of Books), a lot of these places, and she also said the same thing—that a lot of these journals are going into podcasts, and they're noticing a huge interest in the humanities and in the classics even at the same time as big institutions are really scaling back on those things. Humanities majors are dropping, classics majors are getting cut, book coverage at major periodicals is going down. It does seem like there are signals that are conflicting. I don't really know totally what to make of it. I do think there is some relation between those two things.Ted Gioia on Substack is always talking about how culture is stagnant, basically, and one of the symptoms of that is that “back list” really outsells “front list” for books. Even in 2010, 50 percent of the books that were sold were front-list titles, books that had been released in the last 18 months. Now it's something like only 35 percent of books or something like that are front-list titles. These could be completely wrong, but there's been a trend.I think the decrease in interest in front-list books is really what drives the loss of these book-review pages because they mostly review front-list books. So, I think that does imply that there's a lot of interest in old books. That's what our stagnant culture means.Oliver: Why do you think your own blog is popular with the rationalists?Kanakia: I don't know for certain. There was a story I wrote that was a joke. There are all these pop nonfiction books that aim to prove something that seems counterintuitive, so I wrote a parody of one of those where I aim to prove that reading is bad for you. This book has many scientific studies that show the more you read, the worse it is because it makes you very rigid.Scott Alexander, who is the archrationalist, really liked that, and he added me to his blog roll. Because of that, I got a thousand rationalist subscribers. I have found that rationalists at least somewhat interested in the classics. I think they are definitely interested in enduring sources of value. I've observed a fair amount of interest.Oliver: How much of a lay reader are you really? Because you read scholarship and critics and you can just quote John Gilroy in the middle of a piece or something.Kanakia: Yeah. That is a good question. I have definitely gotten more interested in secondary literature. In my book, I really talk about being a lay reader and personally having a nonacademic approach to literature. I do think that, over 15 years of being a lay reader, I have developed a lot of knowledge.I've also learned the kind of secondary literature that is really important. I think having historical context adds a lot and is invaluable. Right now I'm rereading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. When I first read it in 2010, I hardly knew anything about French history. I was even talking online with someone about how most people who read Les Miserables think it's set in the French Revolution. That's basically because Americans don't really know anything about French history.Everything makes just a lot more sense the more you know about the time because it was written for people in it. For people in 1860s France, who knew everything about their own recent history, that really adds a lot to it. I still don't tend to go that much into interpretive literature, literature that tries to do readings of the stories or tell me the meaning of the stories. I feel like I haven't really gotten that much out of that.Oliver: How long have you been learning Anglo-Saxon?Kanakia: I went through a big Anglo-Saxon phase. That was in 2010. It started because I started reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. There is a great app online called General Prologue created by one of your countrymen, Terry Richardson [NB it is Terry Jones], who loved Middle English. In this app, he recites the Middle English of the General Prologue. I started listening to this app, and I thought, I just really love the rhythms and the sounds of Middle English. And it's quite easy to learn. So then, I got really into that.And then I thought, but what about Anglo-Saxon? I'm very bad at languages. I studied Latin for seven years in middle school and high school. I never really got very far, but I thought, Anglo-Saxon has to be the easiest foreign language you can learn, right? So, I got into it.I cannot sight read Anglo-Saxon, but I really got into Anglo-Saxon poetry. I really liked the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Most people probably would not like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle because it's very repetitive, but that makes it great if you're a language learner because every entry is in this very repetitive structure. I just felt such a connection. I get in trouble when I say this kind of stuff, because I'm never quiet sure if it's 100 percent true. But it's certainly one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Europe. It's just so much older than most of the other medieval literature I've read. And it just was such a window into a different part of history I never knew about.Oliver: And you particularly like “The Dream of the Rood”?Kanakia: Yeah, “The Dream of the Rood” is my favorite Anglo-Saxon poem. “The Dream of the Rood” is a poem that is told from the point of view of Christ's cross. A man is having a dream. In this dream he encounters Christ's cross, and Christ's cross starts reciting to him basically the story of the crucifixion. At the end, the cross is buried. I don't know, it was just so haunting and powerful. Yeah, it was one of my favorites.Oliver: Why do you think Byron is a better poet than Alexander Pope?Kanakia: This is an argument I cannot get into. I think this is coming up because T. S. Eliot felt that Alexander Pope was a great poet because he really exemplified the spirit of the age. I don't know. I've tried to read Pope. It just doesn't do it for me. Whereas with Byron, I read Don Juan and found it entertaining. I enjoyed it. Then, his lyric poetry is just more entertaining to read. With Alexander Pope, I'm learning a lot about what kind of poetry people wrote in the 18th century, but the joy is not there.Oliver: Okay. Can we do a quick fire round where I say the name of a book and you just say what you think of it, whatever you think of it?Kanakia: Sure.Oliver: Okay. The Odyssey.Kanakia: The Odyssey. Oh, I love The Odyssey. It has a very strange structure, where it starts with Telemachus and then there's this flashback in the middle of it. It is much more readable than The Iliad; I'll say that.Oliver: Herodotus.Kanakia: Herodotus is wild. Going into Herodotus, I really thought it was about the Persian war, which it is, but it's mostly a general overview of everything that Herodotus knew, about anything. It's been a long time since I read it. I really appreciate the voice of Herodotus, how human it is, and the accumulation of facts. It was great.Oliver: I love the first half actually. The bit about the Persian war I'm less interested in, but the first half I think is fantastic. I particularly love the Egypt book.Kanakia: Oh yeah, the Egypt book is really good.Oliver: All those like giant beetles that are made of fire or whatever; I can't remember the details, but it's completely…Kanakia: The Greeks are also so fascinated by Egypt. They go down there like what is going on out there? Then, most of what we know about Egypt comes from this Hellenistic period, when the Greeks went to Egypt. Our Egyptian kings list comes from the Hellenistic period where some scholar decided to sort out what everybody was up to and put it all into order. That's why we have such an orderly story about Egypt. That's the story that the Greeks tried to tell themselves.Oliver: Marcus Aurelius.Kanakia: Marcus Aurelius. When I first read The Meditations, which I loved, obviously, I thought, “being the Roman emperor cannot be this hard.” It really was a black pill moment because I thought, “if the emperor of Rome is so unhappy, maybe human power really doesn't do it.”Knowing more about Marcus Aurelius, he did have quite a difficult life. He was at war for most of his—just stuck in the region in Germany for ages. He had various troubles, but yeah, it really was very stoic. It was, oh, I just have to do my duty. Very “heavy is the head that wears the crown” kind of stuff. I thought, “okay, I guess being Roman emperor is not so great.”Oliver: Omar Khayyam.Kanakia: Omar Khayyam. Okay, I've only read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, which I loved, but I cannot formulate a strong opinion right now.Oliver: As You Like It.Kanakia: No opinions.Oliver: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.Kanakia: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I do have an opinion about this, which is that they should make a redacted version of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I normally am not a big believer in abridgements because I feel like whatever is there is there. But, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, first of all, has a long portion before Boswell even meets Johnson. That portion drags; it's not that great. Then it has all these like letters that Johnson wrote, which also are not that great. What's really good is when Boswell just reports everything Johnson ever said, which is about half the book. You get a sense of Johnson's conversation and his personality, and that is very gripping. I've definitely thought that with a different presentation, this could still be popular. People would still read this.Oliver: The Communist Manifesto.Kanakia: The Communist Manifesto. It's very stirring. I love The Communist Manifesto. It has very haunting, powerful lines. I won't try to quote from it because I'll misquote them.Oliver: But it is remarkably well written.Kanakia: Oh yeah, it is a great work of literature.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: I read Capital [Das Kapital], which is not a great work of literature, and I would venture to say that it is not necessarily worth reading. It really feels like Marx's reputation is built on other political writings like The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and works like that, which really seem to have a lot more meat on the bone than Capital.Oliver: Pragmatism by William James.Kanakia: Pragmatism. I mean, I've mentioned that in my book. I love William James in general. I think William James was writing in this 19th-century environment where it seemed like some form of skepticism was the only rational solution. You couldn't have any source of value, and he really tried to cut through that with Pragmatism and was like, let's just believe the things that are good to believe. It is definitely at least useful to think, although someone else can always argue with you about what is useful to believe. But, as a personal guide for belief, I think it is still useful.Oliver: Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw.Kanakia: No strong opinions. It was a long time ago that I read Major Barbara.Oliver: Tell me what you like about James Fenimore Cooper.Kanakia: James Fenimore Cooper. Oh, this is great. I have basically a list of Great Books that I want to read, but four or five years ago, I thought, “what's in all the other books that I know the names of but that are not reputed, are not the kind of books you still read?”That was when I read Walter Scott, who I really love. And I just started reading all kinds of books that were kind of well known but have kind of fallen into literary disfavor. In almost every case, I felt like I got a lot out of these books. So, nowadays when I approach any realm of literature, I always look for those books.In 19th-century American literature, the biggest no-longer-read book is The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which was America's first bestseller. He was the first American novelist that had a high reputation in Europe. The Last of the Mohicans is kind of a historical romance, à la Walter Scott, but much more tightly written and much more tightly plotted.Cooper has written five novels, the Leatherstocking Tales, that are all centered around this very virtuous, rough-hewn frontiersman, Natty Bumppo. He has his best friend, Chingachgook, who is the last of the Mohicans. He's the last of his tribe. And the two of these guys are basically very sad and stoic. Chingachgook is distanced from his tribe. Chingachgook has a tribe of Native Americans that he hates—I want to say it's the Huron. He's always like, “they're the bad ones,” and he's always fighting them. Then, Natty Bumppo doesn't really love settled civilization. He's not precisely at war with it, but he does not like the settlers. They're kind of stuck in the middle. They have various adventures, and I just thought it was so haunting and powerful.I've been reading a lot of other 19th-century American literature, and virtually none of it treats Native Americans with this kind of respect. There's a lot of diversity in the Native American characters; there's really an attempt to show how their society works and the various ways that leadership and chiefship works among them. There's this very haunting moment in The Last of the Mohicans, where this aged chief, Tamenund, comes out and starts speaking. This is a chief who, in American mythology, was famous for being a friend to the white people. But, James Fenimore Cooper writing in the 1820s has Tamenund come out at 80 years old and say, “we have to fight; we have to fight the white people. That's our only option.” It was just such a powerful moment and such a powerful book.I was really, really enthused. I read all of these Leatherstocking Tales. It was also a very strange experience to read these books that are generally supposed to be very turgid and boring, and then I read them and was like, “I understand. I'm so transported.” I understand exactly why readers in the 1820s loved this.Oliver: Which Walter Scott books do you like?Kanakia: I love all the Walter Scott books I've read, but the one I liked best was Kenilworth. Have you ever read Kenilworth?Oliver: I don't know that one.Kanakia: Yeah, it's about Elizabeth I, who had a romantic relationship with one of her courtiers.Oliver: The Earl of Essex?Kanakia: Yeah. She really thought they were going to get married, but then it turned out he was secretly married. Basically, I guess the implication is that he killed his wife in order to marry Queen Elizabeth I. It's a novel all about him and that situation, and it just felt very tightly plotted. I really enjoyed it.Oliver: What did you think of Rejection?Kanakia: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte? Initially when I read this book, I enjoyed it, but I was like, “life cannot possibly be this sad.” It's five or six stories about these people who just have nothing going on. Their lives are so miserable, they can't find anyone to sleep with, and they're just doomed to be alone forever. I was like, “life can't be this bad.” But now thinking back over it, it is one of the most memorable books I've read in the last year. It really sticks with you. I feel like my opinion of this book has gone up a lot in retrospect.Oliver: How antisemitic is the House of Mirth?Kanakia: That is a hotly debated question, which I mentioned in my book. I think there has been a good case made that Edith Wharton, the author of House of Mirth, who was from an old New York family, was herself fairly antisemitic and did not personally like Jewish people. What she portrays in this book is that this old New York society also was highly suspicious of Jewish people and was organized to keep Jewish people out.In this book there is a rich Jewish man, Simon Rosedale, and there's a poor woman, Lily Bart. Lily Bart's main thing is whether she's going to marry the poor guy, Lawrence Selden, or the rich guy, Percy Gryce. She can't choose. She doesn't want to be poor, but she also is always bored by the rich guys. Meanwhile, through the whole book, there's Simon Rosedale, who's always like, “you should marry me.” He's the rich Jewish guy. He's like, “you should marry me. I will give you lots of money. You can do whatever you want.”Everybody else kind of just sees her as a woman and as a wife; he really sees her as an ally in his social climbing. That's his main motivation. The book is relatively clear that he has a kind of respect for her that nobody else does. Then, over the course of the book, she also gains a lot more respect for him. Basically, late in the book, she decides to marry him, but she has fallen a lot in the world. He's like, “that particular deal is not available anymore,” but he does offer her another deal that—although she finds it not to her taste—is still pretty good.He basically is like, “I'll give you some money, you'll figure out how to rehabilitate your reputation, and later down the line, we can figure something out.” So, I think with a great author like Edith Wharton, there's power in these portrayals. I felt it hard to come away from it feeling like the book is like a really antisemitic book.Oliver: Now, you note that the Great Books movement started out as something quite socially aspirational. Do you think it's still like that?Kanakia: I do think so. Yeah. For me, that's 100 percent what it was because I majored in econ. I always felt kind of inadequate as a writer against people who had majored in English. Then I started off as a science fiction writer, young adult writer, and I was like, “I'm going to read all these Great Books and then I'll have read the books that everybody else has read.” In my mind, that's also what it was—that there was some upper crust or literary society that was reading all these Great Books.That's really what did it. I do think there's still an element of aspiration to it because it's a club that you can join, that anyone can join. It's very straightforward to be a Great Books reader, and so I think there's still something there. I think because the Great Books movement has such a democratic quality to it, it actually doesn't get you to the top socially, which has always been the true, always been the case. But, that's okay. As long as you end up higher than where you started, that's fine.Oliver: What makes a book great?Kanakia: I talk about it this in the book, and I go through many different authors' conceptions of what makes a book great or what constitutes a classic. I don't know that anyone has come up with a really satisfying answer. The Horatian formulation from Horace—that a book is great or an author is great if it has lasted for a hundred years—is the one that seems to be the most accurate. Like, any book that's still being read a hundred years after it was written has a greatness.I do think that T. S. Eliott's formulation—that a civilization at its height produces certain literature and that literature partakes of the greatness of the civilization and summarizes the greatness of the civilization—does seem to have some kind of truth to it.But it's hard, right? Because the greatest French novel is In Search of Lost Time, but I don't know that anyone would say that the France in the 1920s was at its height. It's not a prescriptive thing, but it does seem like the way we read many of these Great Books, like Moby Dick, it feels like you're like communing with the entire society that produced it. So, maybe there's something there.Oliver: Now, you've used a list from Clifton Fadiman.Kanakia: Yes.Oliver: Rather than from Mortimer Adler or Harold Bloom or several others. Why this list?Kanakia: Well, the best reason is that it's actually the list I've just been using for the last 15 years. I went to a science fiction convention in 2009, Readercon, and at this science fiction convention was Michael Dirda, who was a Washington Post book critic. He had recently come out with his book, Classics for Pleasure, which I also bought and liked. But he said that the list he had always used was this Clifton Fadiman book. And so when I decided to start reading the Great Books, I went and got that book. I have perused many other lists over time, but that was always the list that seemed best to me.It seemed to have like the best mix. There's considerable variation amongst these lists, but there's also a lot of overlap. So any of these lists is going to have Dickens on it, and Tolstoy, and stuff like that. So really, you're just thinking about, “aside from Dickens and Tolstoy and George Eliot and Walt Whitman and all these people, who are the other 50 authors that you're going be reading?”The Mortimer Adler list is very heavy on philosophy. It has Plotinus on it. It has all these scientific works. I don't know, it didn't speak to me as much. Whereas, this Clifton Fadiman and John Major list has all these Eastern works on it. It has The Tale of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Story of the Stone, and that just spoke to me a little bit more.Oliver: What modern books will be on a future Great Books list, whether it's from someone alive or someone since the war.Kanakia: Have you ever heard of Robert Caro?Oliver: Sure.Kanakia: Yeah. I think his Lyndon Johnson books are great books. They have changed the field of biography. They're so complete, they seem to summarize an entire era, epoch. They're highly rated, but I feel like they're underrated as literature.What else? I was actually a little bit surprised in this Clifton Fadiman-John Major book, which came out in 1999, that there are not more African Americans in their list. Like, Invisible Man definitely seemed like a huge missed work. You know, it's hard. You would definitely want a book that has undergone enough critical evaluation that people are pretty certain that it is great. A lot of things that are more recent have not undergone that evaluation yet, but Invisible Man has, as have some works by Martin Luther King.Oliver: What about The Autobiography of Malcolm X?Kanakia: I would have to reread. I feel like it hasn't been evaluated much as a literary document.Oliver: Helen DeWitt?Kanakia: It's hard to say. It's so idiosyncratic, The Last Samurai, but it is certainly one of the best novels of the last 25 years.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: It is hard to say, because there's nothing else quite like it. But I would love if The Last Samurai was on a list like this; that would be amazing.Oliver: If someone wants to try the Great Books, but they think that those sort of classic 19th-century novels are too difficult—because they're long and the sentences are weird or whatever—what else should they do? Where else should they start?Kanakia: Well, it depends on what they're into, or it depends on their personality type. I think like there are people who like very, very difficult literature. There are people who are very into James Joyce and Proust. I think for some people the cost-benefit is better. If they're going to be pouring over some book for a long time, they would prefer if it was overtly difficult.If they're not like that, then I would say, there are many Great Books that are more accessible. Hemingway is a good one and Grapes of Wrath is wonderful. The 19th-century American books tend to be written in a very different register than the English books. If you read Moby Dick, it feels like it's written in a completely different language than Charles Dickens, even though they're writing essentially at the same time.Oliver: Is there too much Freud on the list that you've used?Kanakia: Maybe. I know that Interpretation of Dreams is on that list, which I've tried to read and have decided life is too short. I didn't really buy it, but I have read a fair amount of Freud. My impression of Freud was always that I would read Freud and somehow it would just seem completely fanciful or far out, like wouldn't ring true. But then when I started reading Freud, it was more the opposite. I was like, oh yeah, this seems very, very true.Like this battle between like the id and the ego and the super ego, and this feeling that like the psyche is at war with itself. Human beings really desire to be singular and exceptional, but then you're constantly under assault by the reality principle, which is that you're insignificant. That all seemed completely true. But then he tries to cure this somehow, which does not seem a curable problem. And he also situates the problem in some early sexual development, which also did not necessarily ring true. But no, I wouldn't say there's too much. Freud is a lot of fun. People should read Freud.Oliver: Which of the Great Books have you really not liked?Kanakia: I do get asked this quite a bit. I would say the Great Book that I really felt like—at least in translation—was not that rewarding in an unabridged version was Don Quixote. Because at least half the length of Don Quixote is these like interpolated novellas that are really long and tedious. I felt Don Quixote was a big slog. But maybe someday I'll go back and reread it and love it. Who knows?Oliver: Now you wrote that the question of biography is totally divorced from the question of what art is and how it operates. What do you think of George Orwell's supposition that if Shakespeare came back tomorrow, and we found out he used to rape children that we should—we would not say, you know, it's fine to carry on to doing that because he might write another King Lear.Kanakia: Well, if we discovered that Shakespeare was raping children, he should go to prison for that. No. It's totally divorced in both senses. You don't get any credit in the court of law because you are the writer of King Lear. If I murdered someone and then I was hauled in front of a judge and they were like, oh, Naomi's a genius, I wouldn't get off for murder. Nor should I get off for murder.So in terms of like whether we would punish Shakespeare for his crime of raping children, I don't think King Lear should count at all, but it's never used that way. It's never should someone go to prison or not for their crimes, because they're a genius. It's always used the other way, which is should we read King Lear knowing that the author raped children, but I also feel like that is immaterial. If you read King Lear, you're not enabling someone to rape children.Oliver: There's an almost endless amount of discussion these days about the Great Books and education and the value of the humanities, and what's the future of it all. What is your short opinion on that?Kanakia: My short opinion is that the Great Books at least are going to be fine. The Great Books will continue to be read, and they would even survive the university. All these books predate the university and they will survive the university. I feel like the university has stewarded literature in its own way for a while now and has made certain choices in that stewardship. I think if that stewardship was given up to more voluntary associations that had less financial support, then I think the choices would probably be very different. But I still think the greatest works would survive.Oliver: Now this is a quote from the book: “I am glad that reactionaries love the Great Books. They've invited a Trojan horse into their own camp.” Tell us what you mean by that.Kanakia: Let's say you believed in Christian theocracy, that you thought America should be organized on explicitly Christian principles. And because you believe in Christian theocracy, you organize a school that teaches the Great Books. Many of these schools that are Christian schools that have Great Books programs will also teach Nietzsche. They definitely put some kind of spin on Nietzsche. But they will teach anti-Christ, and that is a counterpoint to Christian morality and Christian theology. There are many things that you'll read in the Great Books that are corrosive to various kinds of certainties.If someone who I think is bad starts educating themselves in the Great Books, I don't think that the Great Books are going to make them worse from my perspective. So it's good.Oliver: How did reading the Mahabharata change you?Kanakia: Oh yeah, so the Mahabharata is a Hindu epic from, let's say, the first century AD. I'm Indian and most Indians are familiar with the basic outline of the Mahabharata story because it's told in various retellings, and there's a TV serial that my parents would rent from the Indian store growing up and we would watch it tape by tape. So I'm very familiar with it. Like there's never been a time I have not known this story.But I was also familiar with the idea that there is a written version in Sanskrit that's extremely long. It is 10 times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. This Mahabharata story is not that long. I've read a version of it that's about 800 pages long. So how could something that's 10 times this long be the same? A new unabridged translation came out 10 years ago. So I started reading it, and it basically contains the entire Sanskrit Vedic worldview in it.I had never been exposed to this very coherently laid-out version of what I would call Hindu cosmology and ethics. Hindus don't really get taught those things in a very organized way. The book is basically about dharma, the principle of rightness and how this principle of rightness orders the universe and how it basically results in everybody getting their just deserts in various ways. As I was reading the book, I was like, this seems very true that there is some cosmic rebalancing here, and that everything does turn out more or less the way it should, which is not something that I can defend on a rational level.But just reading the book, it just made me feel like, yes, that is true. There is justice, the universe is organized by justice. It took me about a year to read the whole thing. I started waking up at 5:00 a.m. and reading for an hour each morning, and it just was a really magical, profound experience that brought me a lot closer to my grandmother's religious beliefs.Oliver: Is it ever possible to persuade someone with arguments that they should read literature, or is it just something that they have to have an inclination toward and then follow someone's example? Because I feel like we have so many columns and op-eds and “books are good because of X reason, and it's very important because of Y reason.” And like, who cares? No one cares. If you are persuaded, you take all that very seriously and you argue about what exactly are the precise reasons we should say. And if you're not persuaded, you don't even know this is happening.And what really persuades you is like, oh, Naomi sounds pretty compelling about the Mahabharata. That sounds cool. I'll try that. It's much more of a temperamental, feelingsy kind of thing. Is it possible to argue people into thinking about this differently? Or should we just be doing what we do and setting an example and hoping that people will follow.Kanakia: As to whether it's possible or not, I do not know. But I do think these columns are too ambitious. A thousand-word column and the imagined audience for this column is somebody who doesn't read books at all, who doesn't care about literature at all. And then in a thousand-word column, you're going to persuade them to care about literature. This is no good. It's so unnecessary.Whereas there's a much broader range of people who love to read books, but have never picked up Moby Dick or have never picked up Middlemarch, or who like maybe loved Middlemarch, but never thought maybe I should then go on and read Jane Austen and George Eliot.I think trying to shift people from “I don't read books at all; reading books is not something I do,” to being a Great Books card-carrying lover of literature is a lot. I really aim for a much lower result than that, which is to whatever extent people are interested in literature, they should pursue that interest. And as the rationalists would say, there's a lot of alpha in that; there's a lot to be gained from converting people who are somewhat interested into people who are very interested.Oliver: If there was a more widespread practice of humanism in education and the general culture, would that make America into a more liberal country in any way?Kanakia: What do you mean by humanism?Oliver: You know, the old-fashioned liberal arts approach, the revival of the literary journal culture, the sort of depolitical approach to literature, the way things used to be, as it were.Kanakia: It couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt is my answer to that question.Oliver: Okay.Kanakia: What you're describing is basically the way I was educated. I went to Catholic school in DC at St. Anselm's Abbey School, in Northeast, DC, grade school. Highly recommend sending your little boys there. No complaints about the school. They talked about humanism all the time and all these civic virtues. I thought it was great. I don't know what people in other schools learn, but I really feel like it was a superior way of teaching.Now, you know, it was Catholic school, so a lot of people who graduated from my school are conservatives and don't really have the beliefs that I have, but that's okay.Oliver: Tell us about your reading habits.Kanakia: I read mostly ebooks. I really love ebooks because you can make the type bigger. I just read all the time. They vary. I don't wake up at 5:00 a.m. to read anymore. Sometimes if I feel like I'm not reading enough—because I write this blog, and the blog doesn't get written unless I'm reading. That's the engine, and so sometimes I set aside a day each week to read. But generally, the reading mostly takes care of itself.What I tend to get is very into a particular thing, and then I'll start reading more and more in that area. Recently, I was reading a lot of New Yorker stories. So I started reading more and more of these storywriters that have been published in the New Yorker and old anthologies of New Yorker stories. And then eventually I am done. I'm tired. It's time to move on.Oliver: But do you read several books at once? Do you make notes? Do you abandon books? How many hours a day do you read?Kanakia: Hours a day: Because my e-reader keeps these stats, I'd say 15 or 20 hours a week of reading. Nowadays because I write for the blog, I often think as I'm reading how I would frame a post about this. So I look for quotes, like what quote I would look at. I take different kinds of notes. I'll make more notes if I'm more confused by what is going on. Especially with nonfiction books, I'll try sometimes to make notes just to iron out what exactly I think is happening or what I think the argument is. But no, not much of a note taker.Oliver: What will you read next?Kanakia: What will I read next? Well, I've been thinking about getting back into Indian literature. Right now I'm reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. But there's an Indian novel called Jhootha Sach, which is a partition novel that is originally in Hindi. And it's also a thousand pages long, and is frequently compared to Les Miserables and War and Peace. So I'm thinking about tackling that finally.Oliver: Naomi Kanakia, thank you very much.Kanakia: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

The Anglo Saxons lived beneath skies they did not trust. To them, the heavens were alive capable of movement, intention, and warning. Night skies were darker than anything we experience today, and people watched them closely, not for wonder alone, but for survival. What appeared above was believed to speak, and sometimes to threaten.Their records contain unsettling descriptions that resist easy explanation. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle speaks of “fiery dragons flying in the air,” of strange lights that moved across the sky, and of glowing shapes that appeared before moments of catastrophe. In 793, just before the Viking attack on Lindisfarne, witnesses reported terrifying aerial phenomena flames, lights, and shapes in the heavens events described not as symbols but as things seen. The timing disturbed them deeply. The sky, it seemed, was watching.Other accounts describe crosses of light hovering in the air, radiant shields appearing above battlefields, and luminous objects that drifted, burned, or vanished without sound. These were not stars. They moved. They lingered. They returned. Medieval writers struggled to name them, reaching for the closest language they had: dragons, angels, heavenly armies, signs from God. But the descriptions themselves feel observational like people trying to make sense of something genuinely unfamiliar.The Anglo Saxons did not separate the natural from the supernatural. A strange light was not merely a phenomenon; it was an intrusion. Something crossing from one realm into another. Their older Germanic beliefs had spoken of otherworldly beings moving between skies and earth, while Christian theology reframed these encounters as divine or demonic. Yet in both systems, the experience remained the same: something unknown appeared, moved with purpose, and then was gone.Modern readers sometimes wonder whether these accounts hint at misunderstood natural events meteors, auroras, rare electrical phenomena. But some details are awkward for those explanations: the repeated sightings, the apparent maneuvering, the sense of presence, the way observers reacted with fear rather than awe. The texts give the impression that these were not passive lights but active signs, watching rather than simply passing through.What is most unsettling is not what the Anglo Saxons believed these things were, but how calmly they recorded them. They did not ask if such things existed only what they meant. The sky was not empty, and it was not safe. Whatever these lights and shapes truly were, they left a deep impression on a people who believed they were living at the edge of unseen worlds.Seen through a modern lens, these accounts raise an uncomfortable possibility: that encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena did not begin in the twentieth century, but have followed humanity for centuries changing names, forms, and meanings as cultures changed, yet always appearing just beyond understanding.

fWotD Episode 3088: Ulfcytel Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Saturday, 18 October 2025, is Ulfcytel.Ulfcytel (died 1016) was an early eleventh-century East Anglian military leader. He commanded East Anglian forces in a battle in 1004 against Danish Viking invaders led by Sweyn Forkbeard; although he lost, the Danes said that "they never met worse fighting in England than Ulfcytel dealt to them". He led a local English army to another defeat in the Battle of Ringmere in 1010 and died in 1016 in the Battle of Assandun. He exercised the powers of an ealdorman, the second highest rank in Anglo-Saxon England; to the puzzlement of historians, he was never formally given the title.Ulfcytel was a greatly respected English military leader during the reign of Æthelred the Unready (978–1013 and 1014–1016), in which ineffective opposition to Danish Viking invasions ended in the Danish conquest of England. Ulfcytel is highly praised in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Scandinavian skaldic poetry, and also by Anglo-Norman writers and modern historians. Scandinavian sources gave him the byname snilling, meaning "bold", and the court poet Sigvatr Þórðarson called East Anglia "Ulfkell's Land" after him. His origin and background are unknown, and the etymology of his name is Scandinavian. According to one source, he was married to a daughter of King Æthelred, although historians disagree whether the claim is credible.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:30 UTC on Saturday, 18 October 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Ulfcytel on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm neural Aria.

From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describing Edward the Martyr (975-78). 'Men murdered him, but God exalted him. In life he was an earthly king; after death he is now a heavenly saint. His earthly kinsmen would not avenge him, but his heavenly Father has greatly avenged him. The earthly killers would have destroyed his memory. Those who would not bow to his living body now humbly on their knees bow to his dead bones. How we may understand that the wisdom of men, their plans and counsel, are nothing against God's purpose.' Characters Edward the Martyr - King of England (975-78) Aethelred - brother of Edward and claimant Edgar - King of England (959-75), father of Edward and Aethelred Aethelflaed - first wife of Edgar, mother of Edward Wulfthryth - possible second wife of Edgar Aelfthryth - third wife of Edgar, mother of Aethelred Dunstan - Archbishop of Canterbury Aethelwold - Bishop of Winchester Oswald - Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of York Aethelwine - Alderman of East-Anglia Aelfhere - Ealdorman of Mercia Brihthelm - former Archbishop of Canterbury Kenneth II - King of Scotland Geoffrey Gaimar - chronicler Lantfred - chronicler and Winchester monk Byrthferth - chronicler Osbern of Canterbury - chronicler Music: Medieval Suspense by Alexander Nakarada (www.creatorchords.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ In Excelsis Deo

Mark Norman is an English folklore researcher, author, lecturer and host of The Folklore Podcast in Devon, England. We begin with comparative readings about spectral road dogs in Virginia and in England. Mark tells us a bit about his county, of ship scuttlers & Wistman's Wood. Looking for the oldest written account of ghostly black dogs in the United Kingdom, we hear of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a wild hunt of demonic hunters. From there we focus in on the lore: the Black Shuck event at Bungay & Blythburgh churches in 1577; black dog sightings as omens of death; and protective spirit dogs. We end on how landscape features become part of folklore, the future of folklore, and the winter tradition of Wassailing around the apple orchard. Check out Mark's folkloric books and his popular podcast, The Folklore Podcast. Painting discussed on podcast: "The Wild Hunt of Odin"Readings from Virginia Folk Legends edited by Thomas Barden and Black Dog Folklore by Mark Norman.  Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we have not only an account of Anglo-Saxon history but also an attempt at identity creation which served part of the mission to forge a new united English identity from the disparate collection of tribes and kingdoms that was the base of Anglo-Saxon society. Even taken with a hefty spoonful of salt, it is nevertheless one of the single most important texts produced from the Anglo-Saxon period and continues to inform the narrative of English history up to the present day. Credits –  Music: 'Wælheall' by Hrōðmund Wōdening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g&list=LL&index=5&ab_channel=Hr%C5%8D%C3%B0mundW%C5%8Ddening Social Media -  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anglosaxonengland Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anglo-Saxon-England-Podcast-110529958048053 Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglandAnglo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anglosaxonenglandpodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzyGUvYZCstptNQeWTwfQuA  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Shawn discusses the kingdom of Kent, the first of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England post-Roman Britain as told by Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". Shawn delves into the legendary figures of Kent's inception, focusing on the brothers Hengest and Horsa, whose lineage traces back to the All-Father, Odin. He discusses King Aethelberht of Kent, the pioneering Anglo-Saxon monarch to embrace Christianity, setting a precedent for future rulers. The discussion extends to King Ecbert of Wessex, whose familial ties to Kent through his father, King Ealmund, raise intriguing questions about the kingdom's sovereignty. Despite their direct descent from Cerdic of Wessex, Ecbert's actions indicate a desire to assert Wessex's dominance over Kent, leading to its subjugation under Wessex's rule.Errors:Shawn misstated the beginning of Ida of Northumbria's reign as 457 CE, intending to reference the year 547 CE.Shawn's wording regarding Penda of Mercia's conversion implied he was the last to convert, whereas he remained a staunch pagan until his death. The correction clarifies that he was the last pagan Anglo-Saxon king, with Mercia converting after his reign.In reference to the West-Saxon king, Shawn inadvertently used "Cadwalla" instead of "Ceadwal".Shawn apologizes for any confusion arising from discussing two separate individuals named Ecbert without clearly distinguishing between them.Ways to support us:If you have been enjoying our show, please write a 5 star review on itunes to help spread our podcast to a wider audience:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-two-ravens-a-norse-mythology-podcast/id1604263830Buy Shawn a Beer or Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/tworavenpodcastFollow us or leave a message on Instagram:Instagram: (@BetweenTwoRavens): https://www.instagram.com/betweentworavens/Check out David's writing: Prosoche Project (www.prosocheproject.com).Walled Garden (https://thewalledgarden.com/davidalexander)Our podcast is part of The Walled Garden Podcast Network. The Walled Garden is committed to the pursuit of Truth, Wisdom, Virtue, and the Divine, wherever it might be found. Visit thewalledgarden.com to learn more.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5910787/advertisement

fWotD Episode 2517: Felix of Burgundy Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.The featured article for Tuesday, 26 March 2024 is Felix of Burgundy.Felix of Burgundy (died 8 March 647 or 648), also known as Felix of Dunwich, was a saint and the first bishop of the kingdom of the East Angles. He is widely credited as the man who introduced Christianity to the kingdom. Almost all that is known about him comes from The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed by the English historian Bede in about 731, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Bede wrote that Felix freed "the whole of this kingdom from long-standing evil and unhappiness". Felix came from the Frankish kingdom of Burgundy, and may have been a priest at one of the monasteries in Francia founded by the Irish missionary Columbanus—he may have been Bishop of Châlons, before being forced to seek refuge elsewhere. Felix travelled from Burgundy to Canterbury before being sent by Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury to Sigeberht of East Anglia's kingdom in about 630 (travelling by sea to Babingley in Norfolk, according to local legend). Upon his arrival in East Anglia, Sigeberht gave him a see at Dommoc, possibly at Walton, Suffolk near Felixstowe, or Dunwich in Suffolk. According to Bede, Felix helped Sigeberht to establish a school in his kingdom "where boys could be taught letters". Felix died on 8 March 647 or 648, having been bishop for 17 years. His relics were translated from Dommoc to Soham Abbey and then to the abbey at Ramsey. After his death, he was venerated as a saint; several English churches are dedicated to him. Felix's feast date is 8 March.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:02 UTC on Tuesday, 26 March 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Felix of Burgundy on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Kajal Neural.

We've reached double digits! To celebrate, we're going to look ahead at the 159 people calling themselves Roman emperors. What was your fate likely to be? Sources for this episode: Bernard, J. (1693), Lives of the Roman Emperors from Suetonius to the Fall of the Empire. London: Flower de Luce. Bury, J. B. (1889), A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.) (Vol. II). London: Macmillan and Co. Bury, J. B. (1889), A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.) (Vol. II). London: Macmillan and Co. Bury, J. B. (1913), A History of the Roman Empire From its Foundation to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (27 B.C.- 180 A.D.). London: John Murray. Bury, J. B. (1958), History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian (Volume I). New York: Dover Publications Inc. Bury, J. B. (1958), History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian (Volume II). New York: Dover Publications Inc. Coughlan, S., BBC (2022), Queen's cause of death given as ‘old age' on death certificate (online) (Accessed 10/12/2023). Cussans, T. (2017), Kings & Queens of the British Isles. Marlborough: Times Books Ltd. The Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica (2023), Gallus (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). The Editors (2023), John VI Cantacuzenus (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). Finlay, G. (date unknown), History of the Byzantine Empire 717-1453. Quintessential Classics (eBook). Forester, T. (1853), The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon. London: Henry G. Bohn. Foss, C. (2005), Emperors named Constantine. Revue Numismatique 161: 93-102. Gibbon, E. (2015), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (All 6 Volumes). e-artnow (eBook). Giles, J. A. (1914), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London: G. Bell and Sons. Littlewood, I. (2002), The Rough Guide: History of France. London: Rough Guides Ltd. Machts, R., Hunold, A., Rock, M., Leu, C. and Haueisen, J. (2019), Simulation of Lightning Current Distributions in a realistic Human Head Model. 2019 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks. Marks, A. and Tingay, G. (date unknown), Romans. London: Usborne Publishing. Sarris, P. (2023), Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint. London: Basic Books Ltd. Ševcenko, I. (2011), Theophanis Continuati Liber V Vita Basilii Imperatoris. Berlin: De Gruyter. Snow, P. and Macmillan, A. (2022), Kings & Queens: The Real Lives of the English Monarchs. London: Welbeck. Suetonius (2007), The Twelve Caesars. London: The Penguin Group. Treadgold, W. (2001), A Concise History of Byzantium. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Turtledove, H. (1982), The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English translation of anni mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602 813), with introduction and notes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Venning, T. (ed.), A Chronology of the Roman Empire. London: Continuum. Venning, T. (ed.) (2006), A Chronology of the Byzantine Empire. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Author unknown, Kunst Historisches Museum Wien (2019-2020), Evil Emperors. Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Clodius Albinus (online) (Accessed 09/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Henri, Count of Chambord (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Napoleon II (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Pescennius Niger (online) (Accessed 09/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Prince Philippe, Count of Paris (online) (Accessed 04/12/2023). Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Year of the Five Emperors (online) (Accessed 09/12/2023).

ASTRONOMICAL TERMS Philo of Alexandria and the Saying “So Shall Your Seed Be” In commenting on Gen 15:5 in Who Is the Heir? 86–87, Philo states: When the Lord led him outside He said “Look up into heaven and count the stars, if thou canst count their sum. So shall be thy seed.” Well does the text say “so (ότως ἔσται)” not “so many (τοσοῦτον)” that is, “of equal number to the stars.” For He wishes to suggest not number merely, but a multitude of other things, such as tend to happiness perfect and complete. he “seed shall be (ότως οὖν ἔσται),” He says, as the ethereal sight spread out before him, celestial as that is, full of light unshadowed and pure as that is, for night is banished from heaven and darkness from ether. It shall be the very likeness of the stars. 7 7. All translations of Philo are taken from, Philo, trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker et al., LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929–87). MYTHOLOGY Fitzgerald means son of the spear ruler. The thunderbolt of Zeus is commonly depicted as a spear in Greek mythology. The spear is often symbolizes the power and authority of Zeus, who is the king of the gods and the god of thunder and lightning. While Zeus had many sons, the son he bore as a demigod was Heracles, in Roman mythology his name is Hercules. See article & podcast & movie TOPONYMY Cheshire's name was originally derived from an early name for Chester, and was first recorded as Legeceasterscir in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,[4]meaning "the shire of the city of legions" BIBLICAL NARRATIVE THEOLOGY The lofty world-mountain's fate is to be flattened into a plain (4:7a), then immediately adds the victorious announcement that the messiah-figure (Zerubbabel) will bring forth the capstone in completion of God's house of glory (4:7b). Satan's Esagila-Olympus will fall and the true Har-Magedon of the Lord's Anointed will lift up its head. The saints praise God as the One who lifts up their head-horn. “My horn is exalted in the Lord” (1 Sam. 2:1). “You, O Lord . . . are the lifter up of my head” (Ps. 3:3[4]). “You [O Lord] have lifted up my horn like that of the unicorn” (Ps. 92:10[11]). God is also praised as the one who exalts the horn of the Messiah. ”[The Lord] will give strength to his king; he will lift up the horn of his anointed” (1 Sam. 2:10; cf. Pss. 89:17,18[18,19]; 148:14). Psalm 110 celebrates this eschatological event. It is Messiah's head that is exalted in victory (v. 7b), whether we understand the subject of the action to be Yahweh, swearer of the oath (vv. 1,4) or Messiah himself, David's Lord (v. 1), recipient of the sworn appointment as priest-king forever. And either way it is the Lord who lifts up the head. This psalm displays the full pattern of the great reversal, for the Lord's striking down heads in his wrath against the nations (v. 6) is the precursor to the lifting up of his own head in glory (v. 7). Verses 9–10 extend the theme of reversal to the entire cosmos. God will keep his faithful ones but will cut off the wicked. No might can save man from God's justice. The Lord will judge “the ends of the earth” and “he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.” In Hannah's praise, God's redemptive reversals culminate in the exaltation of an anointed king (literally, “his messiah” [מְשִׁיחוֹ]). The capstone of God's work in bringing Hannah's personal reversal and Israel's national reversal is an eschatological reversal in which God's justice and salvation are poured out on the nations, and his Messiah is given royal victory. In summary, Hannah's hymn sets Samuel's readers on a trajectory in which God exalts the humble, humbles the exalted, proves his sovereignty, and establishes his anointed king. A5: Just like with Hercules...there here, now an eschatological rival so down with Mt. Olympus. The extending of the galactic crown, a dynasty now openly transmitted!

Hello and welcome to Medieval Murder, the podcast that brings all things gruesome and historical to the comfort of your own home or car or wherever it is you're listening from. My name is Hannah Purtymun and I'm here with my father Kevin Purtymun to discuss some of the most famous and infamous murders that took place in the Medieval and Early Modern periods.  Medieval Murder came to be, first as a blog, then as an instagram and now as a podcast after I finished my master's dissertation on homicide in early medieval England. The podcast will feature some of the most famous murders in medieval history, some mini-episode series on different types of medieval murders and interviews with historians and history enthusiasts alike.  So without further ado, today we will be discussing a medieval massacre that happened in Glastonbury in southwestern England. Unlike our normal format where we dive straight into the story, today I'd like to start with the primary source material surrounding this massacre. The primary source we'll be using today is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Heathenry, also known as Anglo-Saxon paganism or Anglo-Saxon polytheism, is a modern reconstructionist pagan religion that seeks to revive and reconstruct the pre-Christian spiritual beliefs and practices of the Anglo-Saxon people. This form of Heathenry is based on the historical records of the Anglo-Saxons, including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Beowulf, and other literary and archaeological sources. Its adherents seek to recreate the religious practices and beliefs of the Anglo-Saxons, including veneration of Germanic gods and goddesses such as Woden (Odin), Thunor (Thor), and Frige (Frigg), as well as ancestral veneration and other pagan customs and rituals. Anglo-Saxon Heathenry places a strong emphasis on community, ancestry, and the interconnectedness of all things. Many practitioners also embrace environmentalism and seek to live in harmony with the natural world. Like other forms of Heathenry, Anglo-Saxon Heathenry is a decentralized religion with no central authority or dogma. Its practitioners may differ in their beliefs and practices, and there is no one "correct" way to practice this faith. Wyrd is a concept from Old English and Norse mythology that refers to the idea of fate or destiny. It is often depicted as a complex and interconnected web of events and actions that shape an individual's life and determine their ultimate fate. In Germanic mythology, the Norns were the goddesses of fate who were responsible for weaving the threads of wyrd. They would spin and weave the threads of fate, and the length and strength of each thread would determine a person's life and destiny. The concept of wyrd is also closely related to the idea of the "threefold law" in many pagan traditions, which suggests that whatever energy a person puts out into the world will come back to them threefold. Today, the term wyrd is sometimes used in modern pagan and spiritual communities as a way to refer to the interconnectedness of all things and the idea that every action has consequences that ripple out through the web of existence.

Shawn discusses the life of Penda: Last Pagan King of Mercia, as told in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People". 7th Century England saw many of the Petty Kingdoms converting to Christianity. However, King Penda of Mercia (626-655ce) remained a staunch pagan up until his death. During his reign he ravanged Northumbria (killing 2 of its kings), invaded East-Anglia (killing 3 of theirs), and routed King Kenwal from his kingdom of Wessex due to a slight against his sister. As the Anglo-Saxon gods are similar to the Norse gods, I would say Penda has earned a place in Valhalla. Announcements: David is starting a mindfulness group. Learn about why mindfulness is the first step for any philosophical journey or process of self-transformation. Come practice mindfulness every Friday morning in April and May 2023. It is free for anyone to attend. Fridays 8:30am PST: https://thewalledgarden.com/theprosocheproject Want to invest in our scheme to start a Between Two Ravens Merch Store? Send us $20 and we'll send you some Between Two Ravens logo stickers. https://tworavenpodcast.wordpress.com/donation/ Ways to support us: If you have been enjoying our show, please write a 5 star review on itunes to help spread our podcast to a wider audience: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-two-ravens-a-norse-mythology-podcast/id1604263830 Follow us or leave a message on Twitter or Instagram: Twitter: (@TwoRavenPodcast): https://twitter.com/TwoRavenPodcast Instagram: (@BetweenTwoRavens): https://www.instagram.com/betweentworavens/ Check out David's writing:  Prosoche Project (www.prosocheproject.com).  Walled Garden (https://thewalledgarden.com/davidalexander) Our podcast is part of The Walled Garden Podcast Network. The Walled Garden is committed to the pursuit of Truth, Wisdom, Virtue, and the Divine, wherever it might be found.  Visit thewalledgarden.com to learn more about weekly meet-ups and the other Walled Garden contributors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Shawn discusses the figure of Cerdic, the supposed first king of Wessex as told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Cerdic and his son Cynric formed the kingdom in the year 519 ce. 400 years later, his house and descendants would form the Kingdom of England, a kingdom which still stands today in 2023 with King Charles III. The chronicle also contains 2 interesting notes. One in the year 495 ce which gives a preview of the list of Kings of Wessex/England from Cerdic to Edward the Martyr, who died in 978 ce (Kings they would be discussing later anyway on their respective years). The other being in 854 ce (the year of King Aethelwulf of Wessex's death), where it then gives a direct line of ancestors of Aethelwulf all the way do Adam from the Bible. Shawn also uses 2 different pronunciations of Cerdic's son "Cynric" because he is an idiot. Ways to support us: If you have been enjoying our show, please write a 5 star review on itunes to help spread our podcast to a wider audience: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-two-ravens-a-norse-mythology-podcast/id1604263830 Follow us or leave a message on Twitter or Instagram: Twitter: (@TwoRavenPodcast): https://twitter.com/TwoRavenPodcast Instagram: (@BetweenTwoRavens): https://www.instagram.com/betweentworavens/ Check out David's writing:  Prosoche Project (www.prosocheproject.com).  Walled Garden (https://thewalledgarden.com/davidalexander) Our podcast is part of The Walled Garden Podcast Network. The Walled Garden is committed to the pursuit of Truth, Wisdom, Virtue, and the Divine, wherever it might be found.  Visit thewalledgarden.com to learn more about weekly meet-ups and the other Walled Garden contributors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The period between Cynegil's baptism in 636 and the rise of Cædwalla in 685 is one in which the political history of the Gewisse becomes extremely complicated. This is because the political structure of the Gewisse that had developed by this time was one in which any male heir of Cerdic was entitled to claim the throne. Thus while the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is committed to presenting a unified dynasty linking King Alfred to Cerdic, it cannot totally hide the fact that the political situation among the Gewisse was extremely fraught, particularly on occasions when internal power politics spilled over into the realm of international relations. Credits –  Music: 'Wælheall' by Hrōðmund Wōdening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfdqIyqJ4g&list=LL&index=5&ab_channel=Hr%C5%8D%C3%B0mundW%C5%8Ddening Social Media -  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anglosaxonengland Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anglo-Saxon-England-Podcast-110529958048053 Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglandAnglo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anglosaxonenglandpodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzyGUvYZCstptNQeWTwfQuA  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode Shawn discusses Viking Age England from 787-878 CE in part 1 of the series as told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He briefly discusses the first centuries of Anglo-Saxon England in the lead up to the Viking Age. He then goes on to discuss the Viking Age itself along with the early raids, and the lead up to the arrival of the Great Heathen Army in 866. One by one the kingdoms fell, until the last Kingdom of Wessex, and its King Alfred defeated the pagan general Guthrum in a decisive battle.In the episode Shawn discusses the ambition of Alfred's Grandfather, King Ecbert, (the same dude from "Vikings" the tv show), who for a brief time in the early to mid 800s subjected the rest of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms to his rule.Between Two Ravens is a podcast about the psychological significance of Norse Mythology. Shawn is an amateur Norse Mythology expert. David is not a Jungian Analyst, but he reads a lot of books about Carl Jung's theories on the collective unconscious and individuation.Podcast Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1901373 Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwoRavenPodcast Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweentworavens/ Support the show

This week Beau and Carl chat about the life and times of Alfred The Great. As one of the most pivotal Anglo-Saxon monarchs, the life of Alfred is full of fascinating stories. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the accounts of Bishop Asser cast some light on the life of this paragon of kingly virtue. https://www.lotuseaters.com/premium-epochs-60-alfred-the-great-26-06-22

In this episode, Shawn discusses the Prologue of "The Prose Edda", and supposed historical family line of Odin, and their similarities with the fiction stories, "The Saga of the Volsungs", "The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok", but more interestingly, its similarities with the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" which is primarily a historical work.In looking at these family lineages, Shawn discusses his fascination with the questions of "When does Myth become Legend? And  when does Legend become Reality/History?" Also, what drives a person to want to log their own family histories to the point where they start making parts of it up? Shawn also briefly compares dark age writers, like Snorri Sturluson, to modern day ancestry.com enthusiasts and how maybe we as humans feel an internal need to connect to their own pasts and histories.If you are enjoying the show, please consider a donation to help keep the podcast ad-free.https://tworavenpodcast.wordpress.com/donation/ Podcast Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1901373 Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwoRavenPodcast Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweentworavens/ Between Two Ravens is a podcast about the psychological significance of Norse Mythology. Shawn is an amateur Norse Mythology expert. David is not a Jungian Analyst, but he reads a lot of books about Carl Jung's theories on the collective unconscious and individuation.Sources: The Prose Edda - Penguin Classics The Saga of the Volsungs - Jackson CrawfordThe Anglo- Saxon Chronicle Support the show

King Egbert (775 - 838) was my 37th great grandfather   Howie and I are watching the second season of Vikings and it is so cool to see my ancestors portrayed in this show.   King Egbert AKA Ecgberht, King of Wessex (775 - 838) was my 37th great grandfather   • Redburh Wessex (788 - 839) wife of King Egbert • Ethelwulf Wessex son of Redburh Wessex • Alfred LeGrand Roi D Angleterre son of Ethelwulf Wessex • Edward I England (871 - 924) son of Alfred LeGrand Roi D Angleterre • Eadgifu Edgifu Daughter of Edward the Elder daughter of Edward I England • Guillaume Aquitaine son of Eadgifu Edgifu Daughter of Edward the Elder • Adelaide Of Aquitaine ( - 1004) daughter of Guillaume Aquitaine • Robert Capet ( - 1031) son of Adelaide Of Aquitaine • Adela Capet (1003 - 1079) daughter of Robert Capet • Robert I De Flanders (1035 - 1093) son of Adela Capet • Robert Fleming (1065 - 1111) son of Robert I De Flanders • Freskin LeFleming (1107 - 1172) son of Robert Fleming • William Freskin DeMoray (1139 - 1204) son of Freskin LeFleming • William DeMoravia (1164 - 1195) son of William Freskin DeMoray • William Murray (1195 - ) son of William DeMoravia • Margaret Murray (1220 - 1250) daughter of William Murray • John DeMontgomerie (1244 - 1357) son of Margaret Murray • Alexander Montgomery (1305 - 1380) son of John DeMontgomerie • Montgomery (1334 - ) daughter of Alexander Montgomery • John Sempill (1360 - 1397) son of Montgomery • Robert Sempill (1421 - 1478) son of John Sempill • William Sempill (1420 - 1480) son of Robert Sempill • Thomas Semphill (1420 - 1488) son of William Sempill • Marion Semple (1460 - ) daughter of Thomas Semphill • Margaret Stewart (1490 - ) daughter of Marion Semple • Patrick Hannay (1530 - 1581) son of Margaret Stewart • Donald Hannah (1560 - 1620) son of Patrick Hannay • Alexander Hannah (1560 - 1612) son of Donald Hannah • Alexander Hanna (1600 - 1640) son of Alexander Hannah • Robert Hanna (1680 - 1749) son of Alexander Hanna • Robert Hanna (1695 - 1758) son of Robert Hanna • Thomas Hanna (1720 - 1764) son of Robert Hanna • John Hanna (1752 - 1832) son of Thomas Hanna • Thomas Hanna (1790 - 1855) son of John Hanna • Elizabeth Hanna (1821 - 1912) daughter of Thomas Hanna • Mary Elizabeth Steel (1852 - 1932) daughter of Elizabeth Hanna • Samuel Steel Fisher (1875 - 1950) son of Mary Elizabeth Steel • Sara Maude Fisher (1913 - 2000) daughter of Samuel Steel Fisher • Vernon Charles Stairs (1941 - ) son of Sara Maude Fisher • Carole Ann Stairs Baskin You are the daughter of Vernon Charles Stairs   Ecgberht (771/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, or Ecgbriht, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Ecgberht was forced into exile by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Ecgberht returned and took the throne.   Little is known of the first 20 years of Ecgberht's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain the independence of Wessex against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In 825 Ecgberht defeated Beornwulf of Mercia, ended Mercia's supremacy at the Battle of Ellandun, and proceeded to take control of the Mercian dependencies in southeastern England. In 829 he defeated Wiglaf of Mercia and drove him out of his kingdom, temporarily ruling Mercia directly. Later that year Ecgberht received the submission of the Northumbrian king at Dore. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle subsequently described Ecgberht as a bretwalda or 'wide-ruler' of Anglo-Saxon lands.   Ecgberht was unable to maintain this dominant position, and within a year Wiglaf regained the throne of Mercia. However, Wessex did retain control of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; these territories were given to Ecgberht's son Æthelwulf to rule as a subking under Ecgberht. When Ecgberht died in 839, Æthelwulf succeeded him; the southeastern kingdoms were finally absorbed into the kingdom of Wessex after Æthelwulf's death in 858.   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

In the year 937, Æthelstan, King of England, found himself under attack from a coalition of his enemies. In this episode, Michael and Kelly tell us about the Battle of Brunanburh, including where it was fought and the amazing poem about the battle preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Check out Michael's book Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England, which is available through Amazon.com You can support this podcast through Patreon - go to https://www.patreon.com/medievalists

Throughout history we see famous generals, kings, and even soldiers of fortune. But today we talk about infamous kings and the lesser known leaders that turned things around for their people. Due to the actions of their ancestors they were able to find ways to help the ones they loved and cared for through creating the Magna Carta. Today is a lesson on Leadership and its impact on people. As well as a lesson on the difference between a management mindset and a leadership mindset. Keep all of this in mind as you listen and I hope you all have a great day! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/josh-long0/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/josh-long0/support

Welcome back, in this episode Khalid will take you through a series of events that lead to massive upheaval and start a new chapter in the Viking age. He'll attempt to separate myth from legend and inform you about the terrifying force the Anglo Saxon Chronicle calls The Great Heathen Army.    Follow the host https://twitter.com/KhalidWinter Directed by Emily Ling Williams    

In today's episode, we're reading from Bede's History as well as Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to hear about how the Anglo-Saxons first came to live in Britain. Join us!

In the year of 1021, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle... For a full transcript, go to thebritishhistorypodcast.com

Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd,[b] Ælfrǣd,[c] 'Elf-counsel' or 'Wise-elf'; between 847 and 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to c.  886 and King of the Anglo-Saxons from c.  886 to 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. His father died when he was young and three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn. After acceding to the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, creating what was known as the Danelaw in the North of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England. Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin and improving the legal system, military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" during and after the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The only other king of England given this epithet is Cnut the Great. In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested. While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise. The Viking army withdrew from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year. Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend and Waterloo Bridge. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years the Danes occupied other parts of England. In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. He negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor. The Danes broke their word and after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon. Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878 the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the K --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehistoryexpress/support

In this very special Saga Brief, we are joined by Graham and Ali of Rex Factor for a discussion of the Battle of Brunanburh. This decisive battle pitted the Anglo-Saxons of Mercia and Wessex against the Scots, the Welsh, and the Vikings of the Danelaw and the Hiberno-Norse. It was the largest battle to be fought on English soil up to that time. Five kings and thousands of men lost their lives that day as King Athelstan of Wessex eliminated the threat to his growing kingdom and secured Anglo-Saxon control of Northumbria. The Battle of Brunanburh served as a rallying cry to the Anglo-Saxons who sought to reassert their claim over Britain and the establishment of a new national English identity. This episode opens with a reading of the poem found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 937.  After that, the conversation ranges from the tensions leading up to the battle, including a Welsh prophecy of victory, to the mystery of the battle's location, the little we know of the battle itself, and then to its aftermath and legacy. If you are looking for more information about the Battle of Brunanburh from the English and Scottish perspectives, you'll want to listen to Graham and Ali's coverage of King Athelstan from their English Monarchs series and King Constantine II from their Scottish Monarchs series. For those looking to dive deeper into the source material, we recommend Michael Livingston's wonderful book, The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook, where you can read all the sources from the Welsh prophecy of the Anglo-Saxons' defeat to the later, more imaginative histories we talk about.  Be sure to follow Graham and Ali as they review the royal consorts of the English monarchs. You can keep up to date with their latest adventures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can also see what we're up to by checking in with Saga Thing's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or send your comments to sagathingpodcast@gmail.com. Music Credits: Introduction – from Icelandic Folk Music: Tröllaslagur Battle of Brunanburh music - "Ivar's Revenge" by Danheim   Outro – Ólafur Liljurós

Most of these Anglo-Saxon Portraits are of named individuals, and Eadfrith, the scribe who wrote and ornamented the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospel in around 700, is no exception. But Richard Gameson's vivid and detailed account of Eadfrith is also a fascinating survey of the many unnamed scribes from the Anglo-Saxon period. A leading expert from the University of Durham on the history of the book, Richard Gameson's vivid Portrait of Eadfrith is punctuated by many extraordinary facts and figures: Eadfrith's total line-length, for example, in the Lindisfarne Gospels, was nearly two kilometres and necessitated the slaughter of some 130 calves! From the writing to the binding, ornamental covering and later copying, this account brings to life each of the essential processes in creating a book in Anglo-Saxon times. It concludes that while the ostentatious ornatmentation suggests that the Anglo-Saxons did judge a book by its cover, the legacy of the scribes goes far beyond this. For, as Richard Gameson states: "Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon history and literature relies almost entirely on the work of Anglo-Saxon scribes. Without scribes we would have no Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, no Beowulf, no copies of Bede's great Ecclesiastical History." Producer: Beaty Rubens.

In this episode, we tackle the life of Ragnar’s fiercest and most complex son, Ivar the Boneless. We begin with an investigation into Ivar’s birth and enigmatic nickname. From there we trace the path of his illustrious military career. Our journey will take us from Denmark to Ireland, where Ivar conquers Dublin and goes head to head with the High King of Ireland, Mael Sechnaill. From Dublin, we’ll follow Ivar to Anglo-Saxon England with the Great Heathen Army. There Ivar and company topple kingdom after kingdom with ruthless efficiency. Join us as we dive deep into the medieval chronicles, legends, and tales to uncover the stories behind Vikings’ most compelling character, Ivar the Boneless, King of the Vikings in Ireland and Britain. Previous Vikings Related Episode Links: Saga Thing 7: The Saga of Ragnar Loðbrok and His Sons Saga Brief 1: The Blood-Eagle Saga Brief 3: Krákumál Saga Brief 5: The Story of Rollo the Viking Saga Brief 11: The Lesser Ragnarssons Interested in learning more about Mael Sechnaill and the Irish side of the Viking invasions? Check out this episode of the Irish History Podcast – Vikings in 9th century Ireland. Select Bibliography for this Episode: Æthelweard. Chronicon Æthelweardi. Edited and Translated by Alistair Campbell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Translated by Michael Swanton. New York: Routledge, 1998. The Annals of Ulster. Edited and Translated by Pádraig Bambury and Stephen Beechinor. Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition. Cork: Ireland, 2000. Asser, John. Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. Edited and Translated by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge. New York: Penguin Books, 1983. Brink, Stefan and Neil Price. The Viking World. New York: Routledge, 2008. Clarke, Howard B. and Ruth Johnson. The Vikings in Ireland and Beyond: Before and After the Battle of Clontarf. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts Press, 2015. Crawford, B. E. Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1987. Downham, Clare. Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin, 2007. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. Edited and Translated by Joan Newlon Radner. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1978. Jones, Gwynn. A History of the Vikings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. McTurk, Rory. Studies in Ragnars Saga Loðbrokar and its Major Scandinavian Analogues. Medium Ævum Monographs. New Series XV. Exeter: Short Run Press,  1991. Saxo Grammaticus. The History of the Danes. Edited and Translated by Peter Fisher and H. R. Ellis Davidson. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996. Smyth, Alfred P. Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles, 850-880. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Stenton, Frank M. Anglo-Saxon England. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Valante, Mary A. The Vikings in Ireland: Settlement, Trade, and Urbanization. Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2008. Waggoner, Ben. The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok. New Haven, CT: 2009.   Episode Credits: Intro - VioDance cover of "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray with Hardanger Violin Closing Music - Logan Kendell's folk cover of "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray. To purchase a copy of the song, visit Logan Kendell's bandcamp page. Be sure to check out his other music while you're there. As a big fan of outlaws, I recommend his cover of "Not in Nottingham" from Disney's Robin Hood. 

I hope that after the last few episodes (and... For a full transcript, go to thebritishhistorypodcast.com

Join Chris and Luke in the bunker as they recount the battle of Hastings. The beer this episode is Fuller’s London Porter. Bunker rating: 4 bullets out of 5. http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/battlecasthastings/battlecasthastings.mp3 Download episode 2 here: download References: Bradbury, Jim. The Battle of Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Sturluson, Snorri. The Saga of King Harold Bloch, R. Howard.… Continue reading Episode 2: Hastings

On this episode, we look at one moment in history from three different sources -- the deaths of King Edgar and his short-reigned heir, Edward the Martyr. Sources featured: The Melrose Chronicle, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum. Stay tuned to the very end for the new riddle!

It's difficult to know how much to believe of the stories relayed in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle about the formation of the early kingdoms - do they simply reflect the history they wished they'd had? Plus, was Arthur a legend or reality?

Many scholars consider the Norman Conquest of England to be the most important event in the history of the English language. The man who directed that conquest was William of Normandy. In this episode, we examine William's rise from a young Duke to the eve of the Norman Conquest. It was a rise marked by a series of broken promises. Along the way, we will examine more features of Norman French which impacted English. And we will return to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to see how this history was documented in the Old English language which was soon to be wiped away. TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 66

The late 10th century and early 11th century was the Golden Age of Old English literature.  But much of the literature produced during that period was lost to history. Thankfully, a handful of book collectors realized the value of those old books and preserved an important part of the history of English. In this episode, we explore some of the important English texts from this period, including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Exeter Book.  We also examine the role of the bookworms and book collectors who preserved the literature of this period. TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 58

Medieval Death Trip returns with the first episode of 2015, in which we take year-end retrospectives to the extreme and sample all the year 14s for each century covered by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, followed by a look at the great Cottonian Library Fire of 1731.

After defeating the Danes, King Alfred set about reforming the educational system of Wessex. His reforms promoted English to an unprecedented level.  His reforms required the translation of many texts from Latin to English, and Alfred himself assisted with those translations. He also issued a new legal code and initiated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  One of Alfred's goals was the unification of the Anglo-Saxon people under Wessex leadership, so we explore the history of English words related to unity. TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 48

Dr. Robert Rice

It's difficult to know how much to believe of the stories relayed in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle about the formation of the early kingdoms - do they simply reflect the history they wished they'd had? Plus, was Arthur a legend or reality? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Reading from an entry in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by Stuart D Lee, University of Oxford. Recorded March 2007. Old English Reading I: 'Cynewulf and Cyneheard' in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Read by Stuart D. Lee. Extract taken from 'The Keys of Middle-earth: discovering medieval literature through the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien' by Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005).