Wulf & Eadwacer - Old English song c. 9th c. - Brian Kay, Anglo Saxon Lyre & Voice
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Wulf & Eadwacer is an Old English, or Anglo Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 9th c. It is a very strange and mysterious text which has been the source of much scholarly debate about its interpretation. I've done my best with the translation for the purposes of this video, but there are many ways to interpret and translate the text, and some of the words have double, and even triple meanings throughout the song. This wordplay is, for the most part, lost when translated into modern English. If this intrigues you, I urge you to research this poem, as it is a fruitful piece of literature and may even be a riddle. If it is, no-one has come forth with a solution to it.
www.BrianKayMusic.com
Brian Kay is a modern-day troubadour. He is the first Artistic Leadership Fellow of Apollo's Fire and in 2019, he won a GRAMMY® Award for his work on their Songs of Orpheus recording. He has performed throughout the world at venues such as the National Concert Hall of Dublin, Belfast Castle (Ireland), Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center. His live radio appearances include NPR, Baltimore's WYPR, Baltimore's 98ROCK, Boston's WGBH, and Cleveland's WCLV. He has recorded with record labels Avie and Sono Luminus and has appeared on more than 10 album releases. He is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, traditional and historical music specialist, poet, painter, and avid proponent of meditation.
Beautiful. I am so proud to be English. This great isle of beauty and mystery.
He is not English. Look at him. Check him out
@@leonmartin5933 the song and instrument are though mate
I am an 80 year old ( claxton) from East Anglia, now living in the US. I have found genetic and genealogy links to perhaps the wulfings of East Anglia and Sutton Hoo. This is really exciting to discover the language and music of my ancestors. Thank you
Wulf is the woman’s lover. He can’t be with her (forbidden love/ different tribes or just away at war). Eadwacer is their child (wretched whelp), and she is sad that wulf is seperated from him, because they aren’t “joined” (married). It’s a
Lament from a broken hearted woman.
Absolutely amazing! Please make more Old English songs.
As an American i wish we could understand where we came from. I thank you for making this video even for a moment. I wish I could know where my ancestors came from so I can understand even for a moment. What their music sounded like. Thank you so much and my god almighty bless you and keep you. RAndom RUclipsr.
Many European Americans are of mainly English and German descent, it depends on where you live but that is generally the case. If your last name is farmer, you likely have English heritage, so you would descend from the people who spoke the language this song is composed in, as do I. Either way, you are American, as am I, this country is our heritage because at some point our ancestors decided to come here, my ancestors came over in 1620 on the mayflower.
Very impressed with your playing of the lyre, singing and pronunciation of Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Such a shame 'Bill The Basher' came in 1066 with his Normans and influenced our language so much. Harold Godwinson Cyning is hæleð.
If that wouldn't have happened we wouldn't appreciate the language like we do today :)
@@Ilostmyschmungus If it didn't happen we wouldn't have to look bad at what was a better language knowing that it is pretty much a dying language only kept alive by a miniscule amount of avid linguists
@@joshusky581 I'm going to start learning the language. I found out most of my DNA comes from the wessex region of England going all the way back to the saxons. I think its only right to learn my ancestors language plus it will make it easier to learn old norse.
@@Chevymonster203 That's so cool! Really hope you go for it :)
A voice that rings through from days of yore, summoning pictures of green meadows, rocky castles in foggy hills and fire-lit halls. This is beautiful and I´m deeply grateful for your work. Keep going, friend :)
Beautiful and haunting. I feel my Anglo Saxon ancestors.
my 5mo nephew is strangely enthralled by this video, lmao. i played it for him as a lullaby, but he just stared captivated at the screen
Breathtaking! I imagine the wolf as a warrior that a woman is pining after and knows they will never be together, as he lives his life full of danger elsewhere. Just my firsts thoughts.
Erik and Aethelflaed from season 2 of The Last Kingdom ♥️
@@manchestertart5614 King Aelfred’s(Alfred) father was named Aethelwulf which in old English means noble wolf.
@@selflessone3880 Ælfred Rex? That was dethroned by the Norse?
I love your old English songs !
also very cool haircut :P
The lyre has SUCH a hauntingly beautiful voice
Just sitting here crying from beauty. As one does. Thank you for the tears!
How beautiful. Goosebumps.
Wish we could bring back our language.
Brilliant !!!
! Hū wundorlīċ sang
.Iċ hine lufie miċele
Wel-ġedōn 👏
I need a while album of Old English poetry set to music like this. 🖤🎶 Working on some electronic versions myself! Keep it up!!!
WOW! Brian you hit it out of the ballpark again!!!!
Really nice to see you back making such beautiful songs.
This is beautiful. Thank you. A beautiful rendition of a very interesting poem.
Lovely mixture of picking and block strumming on the lyre, though the addition of the frame drum really helps the strumming parts. I learned a lot watching this. You are an inspiration sir.
We are Alfred's men, we are sons of his England.
Foreigners to the ancient 🇬🇧Britons. No different really to the people who came from the Caribbean or Asian part of the Empire. Germans🇩🇪 really aren’t you? There’s always the French 🇫🇷 who also took the old lands of southern 🇬🇧 Britain but still foreign.
@@grandsonofsamnifdy4266 And the Ancient Britons you refer to, are foreigners to those that made stonehenge, you can see them and their pottery travel across the continent.
@@jack1428 foreign to you Jackie lass. I’m considering the people to be Britons where I assume you are talking land with borders ?
@@grandsonofsamnifdy4266
There were many waves of White population moving to this Island. Yes Cheddar man was white, he was genetically very different to those that made Stonehenge, who were also different to those
between the Iron age and Bronze age others came from the dominant European culture of the time, that was referred to as Celtic, which went from Galata in central modern day Turkey to Mediolanum in modern North Italy through Gaul and to this Island.
However these people far from homogenous, The Silures of modern day Wales for Example according To Caesar fighting them at the time, looked like Iberian tribes different to other Britons of the time.
The Belgae Invaded, and the Atrebates, taking swathes of land, when one of those kingdoms was threatened by a tribe from the East of the Island, they asked Rome for help.
Then obviously, there was the Roman invasion- but that appears to of left little genetic impact, but Huge cultural impact.
The population after the fall and departure of Rome for a while at least appeared to want to keep and maintain traditions the religion and relations with what became of rome, you can see a lot of trade with Eastern Rome the "Byzantine" Empire.
However those Britons considered themselves (rightly) different to those north of Hadrian's wall(the picts) and between them, and themselves there was fighting and raiding. Breaking up into smaller kingdoms.
The Britons started importing masses of Saxon mercenaries ( a similar tactic to late Roman and afterwards Byzantine armies which interestingly shows the Romanesque mindset ).
Eventually more and more came including Jutes, and Angles. They started to settle and dominate, there were fights which seem to of been won by the newcomers at that time and the Saxon kingdoms started up, genetic analysis shows the genetic impact more significant than Roman, but not replacing the population, the next generations there were Britons with both Saxon and pre saxon blood, and eventually speaking English.
At some point at a similar time, The Scotii a Gaelic speaking tribe/tribal confederation crossed the sea and invaded the Pictish lands north of Hadrian's wall, and in a similar manner took control. Those were men not from this Island, but modern day Ireland- who had not been Romanised and spoke languages different to the Britons who spoke most similar to modern Welsh. Hence the later name Scot land, and the linguistic difference between scotland and wales.
Ofcourse then you had Scandanavian raiding and settling everywhere, significantly Dublin, Northern coasts of modern day Scotland (it would seem this helped the prevalnce of red hair in what is called Scotland) and the Orknies, and eventually The Danelaw. There are a lot of words from Norse that entered the languages. However again despite the turmoils this caused and centuries of raiding and fighting, by the time of Hastings there seemed to be a lot more integration between them. Godwinson himself was half Danish, and the bodyguard of his army were Housecarls-from the Danish style.
Also the Normans were not French, they spoke French, and come from Modern day France, hence your confusion, but they also were descended from Norse raiders who settled there and over time picked up the language. The kingdom of the Franks, who would become modern day france was a smaller but significant kingdom at that time(think charlemagne). Again, the Genetic impact of the Norman invasion of this Island, is miniscule, it is again the import of an upper class ruling over the peasantry. After taking England, William moved his Norman army into Wales who had been assisting the Remnants of Harold Godwinsons family. Similarly The Scottish king at the time Married The sister of the legitimate heir of England Edgar Æthling and briefly assisted his cause, until the Normans threatened to invade.
This kind of history happens all over Europe, also luckily being an Island makes invasion, lingusitic, cultural and genetic change harder.
Anyway, although the languages are different, the English people have blood going back as far as any in Briton, as again, The saxons mixed with the then Britons, the language took over. To compare us to experimentally imported to Sub-saharan and South Asian recent arrivals from the other corners of the planet is spiteful.
@@jack1428 sorry , say that again.
Please keep going! We love your Style.
One of my favourite EVER poems brought to stunning life, thank you
This is just amazing 😍😍 the music, the vocals, the visuals... Just, wow
This is so powerful. Thank you for your gift.
Just beautiful. Love your music sir. Absolutely beautiful.
Very good!
Great!
Thank you!
tunning ? wonderful piece of art tou've made '
Breathtaking.
These videos would be a million times more useful if they showed OE next to Modern for comparative learning... I would watch these a million times more.
Ēala ēarendel. Engla beorhtast,ofer middengeard monnum sended.👍
Wow this is quite Anglo-Saxon.
Impressive, lad.
Sounds like an Anglo Saxon girl in love with a viking man...forbidden love. Beautiful! Great performance
I am absolutely enchanted by this work, as well as your overall oeuvre!
I was wondering, if you could elaborate a bit on a subject of music here? How was it preserved, in which manuscript and notation technique, and to which extend are we (modern people) artistically fantasising around basic musical interpretation details like exact rhythmical patterns, texture and ornamentation, etc? I believe, if this is more of an historically oriented reconstruction, the source must have lied somewhere in the folk music field, where scientists were able to trace down inheritance to the 9th century and make an educated guess about all those vital stylistic attributes mentioned...
Many thanks for everything you do!
Wow. I should get a lyre...
Tuning: F Major Hexatonic (FGABbCD)
Sua sua sua! Legend there was no way I was figuring this out haha
God help the world when we are gone.
It would be cool to have double subtitles, linguists will be really greateful)
If you mean to catch the double and sometimes triple meanings of words and phrases, I thought about it. The editing program I use doesn’t have that option though, I’m sorry to say. Thanks for the comment!
@@briankayofficial3237 I mean showing original subs above the translated ones)
@@briankayofficial3237 Thanks for the answer))
How close the melody and the way of singing could be to the authentic Ænglisc music performed along with the Old Saxon lyre ?
Very close, folk is a direct descendant and probably quite representative (though no historian can claim anything but a small link, it's a good basis - the Welsh have preserved many texts older than this one orally)
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Hehe amazing 😉 better than I could ever do my teacher wants to know if this is danish where learning bout Anglo-Saxons
Press on the up side down triangle, in the top right, to read about the song. 🙏
my knee is vibrating i think it likes it
Can we buy an album of all these together please?
Enthralling!
Warner BF Icelandic is pretty close
Leodum is minum swylce him mon lac gife;
willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð.
Ungelic is us.
Wulf is on iege, ic on oþerre.
Fæst is þæt eglond, fenne biworpen.
Sindon wælreowe weras þær on ige;
willað hy hine aþecgan, gif he on þreat cymeð.
Ungelice is us.
Wulfes ic mines widlastum wenum dogode;
þonne hit wæs renig weder ond ic reotugu sæt,
þonne mec se beaducafa bogum bilegde,
wæs me wyn to þon, wæs me hwæþre eac lað.
Wulf, min Wulf, wena me þine
seoce gedydon, þine seldcymas,
murnende mod, nales meteliste.
Gehyrest þu, Eadwacer? Uncerne earne hwelp
bireð Wulf to wuda.
þæt mon eaþe tosliteð þætte næfre gesomnad wæs,
uncer giedd geador.
Is this Old English, Middle English, or Welsh?
(clearly it's not Gaelic, Celtic, or Pict)
@@-jank-willson It's 9th-century Old English in the West Saxon dialect. It was written around the time of the Danelaw where Old East Norse was often spoken alongside the dialects of Old English. Although the region where this dialect was spoken (Wessex, Southern England) wasn't part of the Danelaw, there appears to be some Norse influence from the word 'meteliste', although that might be a cognate and not a borrowing.
@@sparrow2931 Thx!
I’m guessing you used some kind of translator for this
Unless you speak old English??
Does anyone know where I can find a verbal app for how to speak old English? I’m using the Old English app on iPhone but non of it is verbal.
👏🏻👍🏻
As I listen to this, wth Wolf clan in my own ancestor's totems, it feel as if a woman should be sining this as a lament for the loss of her family and clan. ...
Saxon music better than music today
is he singing in Olde Eglish ?
sweet jog
comm 42 refreshing
Could the speaker be a bow?
I like to think of the wolf as representative of a Viking /Dane warrior. A woman is singing of her love for him. Maybe she is a Saxon and it is a forbidden affair.
You should and must use natural skins on percussion instuments . Cant be like this- You used synthetic 'skın' darbuka on the oldest compiete song video. That I can not understand. Otherwise, thanks for the content and good musicianship :))
Wulf - wolf? What is Eadwacer?
Both are either names, jokes, or literal wovles
Eadwacer is the woman, it isn't her name though, it is what she is doing in the song, looking out at the island he is on. The word means "land watcher".
I wonder if you are scottish
is Kay from
MacAdoh
MacCoy
McCoy
MacKay
McKay
MacKie
McKie
MacKey
McKey
MacGee
McGee
neaning son of Aodh
an old god name for fire
That’s Irish
He does not look English to me.
Performance......gayest interpretation ever
nah.... the gay Anglo Saxons would prob have been sacrificed to the gods and laid out in a bog lol
This is written from a woman's perspective
Gay people write all the best music and create all the best art in this world. We wouldn't have shit if it weren't for gays.
Sarah Owens you know that is an absurd statement.
@@christineshields3653 Michaelangelo, da vinci, Elton john, freddie mercury, socrates, Tennessee Williams, Oscar wilde, tchaikovsky, TS elliot, the men who invented ballet, bowie, morissey, Virginia woolf, Alexander the great, gay Prussian general that helped win the American revolution...to name a few.
@@SP-mf9sh that prussion was a woman
I doubt they sang this song like Justin Bieber.. one dislike is from me
I imagine they sang in many different ways depending on the mood of the song, much like we do today
@@Landyman87 i would but i can't sing, just like this guy..
@@Landyman87 ok thx for concern, kiss your gay boyfriend while listening to this castrati shit
@@Landyman87 He's jealous.
@@Landyman87 he should apload how it should be sang, not played, because the playing is correct
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