Hwæt! Beowulf & Brave

“Read me, blogger.”

Yesterday’s mad lib was correctly guessed by Mell C., Kat, & Darth Hubby as Beowulf: 

“Lo! The tale-spinners in days gone by

and the authors who inspired them had temerity and eloquence.

We have heard of those scribes’ heroic narratives.”

Mell C. also included her own nautical version of the Anglo-Saxon Mad Lib:

“Ahoy! The waves of sorrow in days gone by

and the sailors who braved them had swagger and savvy.

We have heard of those sailors' heroic happenings.”

I swoon at the piratical alliteration! 

The original opening lines of Beowulf in Old English are:

“Hwæt! We Gardena || in gear-dagum,

þeodcyninga, || þrym gefrunon,

hu ða æþelingas || ellen fremedon.”

Okay, so I need to take a moment to whisper sweet nothings to my favoritest of interjections: Hwæt!

This sultry minx of a word is the predecessor to the modern english ‘what.’ Unlike our ‘what,’ however, the Old English ‘hwæt’ was so much more than an interrogative pronoun. It was the way a storyteller began his tale, and these were good ol’ Anglo-Saxon bards, mind you, so ‘hwæt’ could be translated as: “Sit down. Shut your gob. And listen to my tale of wondrous wonderment! Ya dig?”

Or something like that.

‘Hwæt!’ can be translated as ‘Listen!’ or Seamus Heaney’s understated ‘So.’ Where the Greek storytellers began their epic poems with an invocation of the muses, the Anglo-Saxon poets simply demanded your attention. Kind of explains the difference between the ancient Greeks and the Anglo-Saxons, right? Regardless of how we translate it into modern english today, the next time you need to get someone’s attention, I humbly suggest you use ‘Hwæt!’ 

Why? Because when you say it, you sound like you’re smacking someone. Hwæt!

After those swoony declarations of love to hwæt, I shall not stray far from our Beowulf beginnings. Tonight, I saw Pixar’s latest, “Brave.” Short version? I really enjoyed it.

First, it’s Pixar. The animation was staggeringly gorgeous. I could have just stared at the screen and been awed by the beauty of the animation, forget the story. But I did enjoy the story. Because like all Pixar films, it was about relationships. 

“Brave” was a simple story that lacked a lot of the complexity and nuance we’ve come to expect from Pixar. And for those of us with a healthy upbringing of fantasy, it was a story we know well. It didn’t break any new ground. But it was a fun, sweet story. 

I cared about the Merida and Elinor’s relationship, and I appreciated that it was a story about a mother-daughter relationship and coming-of-age for Merida as a teenage hero who is very confident in who she is and what she wants. Go, Merida. Go, Elinor.

06.26.12 Progress:

1. Blogged about Anglo-Saxon stuff
2. I’m over 100 pages into A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. LOVING it. It’s so, so good.
3. Yoga’d
4. No drafting but thousands and thousands of words in plotting, and I started building my story bible.

06.26.12 Mad Lib:

[VERB] me, [PERSON]