Beowulf: The Epic in Performance - Benjamin Bagby, voice and medieval harp 

I first heard this performed in Old English in just such a location..... West stow anglo saxon village...1987

@@AncientAbsWisdom That’s pretty cool.

Your description is exquisite! That’s the feeling I want, to listen to a bard of old times.

Ancientabswisdom. Ooh cool! Apparently they’re making a Beowulf inspired trail there.

I've heard that people work more now than they did in the middle ages, and I think it's probably true. Maybe we don't all work as hard, but labor used to be seasonal and now it's continuous, with no laxity allowed by winter or night. Perhaps we need performances like this even more today.

Same story with poets and bards memorising iliad.

that's literally his job as a Scōp

This is how they did it back then. And people would add to it or take thinks away. The Beowulf text we have is the Christian version, as any lines praising the Germanic gods is replaced with the Christian god.

​@@elyastoohey6621 there's no evidence the Christian elements weren't present in the original.

@@Fry09294 Depends when it was first sung. The original oral tradition was likely pagan. But by the time it was first written down the angles and saxons were firmly Christian.

@@astrophilsydenham8319 You know what he means. The sub-Roman period. Known as “dark” because of the dearth of literature from the period. Beowulf itself was only discovered among the collection in Cotton’s library in the 16th century.

I disagree. I think this is way off the mark. He's narrating it like it's prose. Beowulf is a *poem* . It should have a heartbeat and the alliterative words should be stressed in each line. This is a poor interpretation tainted by our modern understanding of what storytelling should sound like.

Don't pretend you know how poetry contemporary to Beowulf's author(s) was performed lol nobody does!

@@DrJohnWatson8 actually we do know. And our source? A passage from Beowulf. After Beowulf has killed Grendel and restored (temporary) peace to Heorot, one of king Hrothgar's Thanes recites a poem as part of the celebrations. We are told that he "improvised a new poem linked in true metre." In other words, it was rhythmically structured, and there was a true, or right, way of structuring the rhythm of a poem, and a wrong way. The correct way was to do so using alliteration within each line. The poems therefore literally tell you which words need to be stressed by which words alliterate. These stresses create a rhythm that runs steadily through the poem. My problem with this dude is that he seems to be paying no heed to these alliterative stresses, and is instead letting his own sense of the narrative dictate where the stresses fall, as if he's reading a child a bedtime story!

@@DrJohnWatson8 and yes, as the original commenter pointed out, a lyre would have been used, but most likely to keep rhythm, not to add the occasional melodic embellishment every now and them.

Clearly it's doable but a shorter poem may be more achievable. Old Norse I find easier to pronounce than old English. Havamal would be cool do this with.

Im a skald for a viking reenactment group doesn't even need a punchline

​@@Hrothgar_Scop oh I been learning Old Norse poems as well and they are easier if only by virtue of being much shorter 😂 Even so Beowulf is on the list of grand ideas that most likely won't ever happen ahaha

If it ended at 1066 it would have been beautifully ironic

Mate, spoilers.

@@elyastoohey6621 😅

Thanks for the timestamp!

Beautiful

YUP! YUP!

I'm so jealous

Likewise…amazing performance at U of Oregon back in the day.

I saw him perform this in New York in 2017. Absolutely magical.

@@daveemerson6549 completely spellbinding. He makes you understand how a scop could have kept a whole hall of people entertained for a long night

not sure. after a point, how he does the performance entertains more than the actual content itself.

We don't need the subtitles, it's English after all 🤭

its really crazy how he knows all of this by heart.

Agreed.

I agree completely. I wish music was still like this. this is absolutely beautiful.

Then, join our Old English Whatsapp group to use the language on a daily basis.

Привет!!! Я же пока только слушаю этот древний поэтический язык, и уже получаю удовольствие, я из города Электросталь.)))

@@Fernsehenpfanger Почти сосед! Приятно увидеть земляков - я слушаю это прекрасное выступление из Железнодорожного

@@НастяХомастя Супер, мне тоже очень приятно!

I guess this was their equivalent of going to the cinema, so this to them would be like watching Lord of the Rings

One "Hwæt!" And everyone was silenced

Minecraft on this moon creeper

I heard that too

A big part of that is the poetry. It is intentionally alliterative.

I personally think the way that they spoke normally sounds a lot more beautiful, from what I’ve seen people say they sounded like, it was a very soft accent that was quite and beautiful just like it’s Anglo Frisian roots but softer

I knew you would lurk here at some point.

He is here.

LoL, I always find you on videos I'm interested in

I know I'm kinda off topic but do anyone know of a good website to watch newly released movies online ?

@Atlas Stanley thank you, signed up and it seems like a nice service =) I really appreciate it!!

What does the Temple of Dendur have to do with Anglo-Saxon culture?

@@jrb4935 What venue in New York City would you have preferred? This site offered brilliant acoustics as well as adequate space for the audience.

@@AndreaRKent Well something vaguely Anglo-Saxon would be nice. Ancient Egypt has nothing to do with Beowulf.

@@jrb4935 kindly suggest a true Anglo-Saxon venue for musical performances in Manhattan. I can’t think of one.

@@AndreaRKent Well they could have done it somewhere that wasn't fucking Ancient Egyptian, at least.

Hwaet, indeed it was, totally agree! 😊

All men are god cynnings

@@Glassandcandy Ealle menn synd gode cyningas!

@@jadenrickards7987eallinga riht, freond min!

bōcstafas = letters swēte = nice

@WAEVOICE swēte

@lambdatau118ful Old English isn't modern English any more than Latin is modern French, Portuguese, or Italian.

@lambdatau118ful I'm curious, where are you that you learned old English in grade school?

@lambdatau118ful, Yeah... That sounds more like private or religious schooling rather than public schooling. I'm nearly 50 and from California so there could be serious differences between our educate systems, seeing as U.S. education isn't really standardized in any way. I got lucky by having well educated parents who encouraged and inspired a love of learning in me. I always want to know more about the world around me.

@lambdatau118ful I still haven't read Canterbury Tales, I read an English translation of Beowulf when I was 10-12 yrs old, unfortunately it was written in the late 1800s or maybe early 1900s and the language was still difficult for me. I remember having to look up a lot of words...lol. I think about how cool it would have been to have the internet available like it is today when I was a kid... I'd know so much more today.

@lambdatau118ful I am 71 from Columbus, Ohio, no old English.

How did it go?

@@aav56 Very nice venue! Also did Sir Gawain & The Green Knight there early 2022.

true

You can thank the Normans

@@Lotrfan99 Nah, there was a ton of beautiful english literature and songs after the normans. Latin and french are beautiful languages. The problem is our language is becoming more and more about practicality and less about beauty; our literature more focused on the mundane and less on the sublime. What else can be expected from society that has traded culture for consumerism?

@@bobthabuilda1525 "Latin and french are beautiful languages" subjective, I might agree on the latin part but French sounds like rubbish.

@@NH-ge4vz Virtually everything is subjective. Every woman ive dated has certainly appreciate my (admittedly limited) knowledge of French, so I think I'm gonna side with them on this 😂

@@bobthabuilda1525 And at the same time a lot of people despise French.

You can get a dvd on his website that has full subtitles. Bagbybeowulf.com

Grab the Heaney bilingual edition. Original English to follow and modern English to translate.

Well it's all online, why not just read along with it from a website.

13:47 the thanes weep

from notes above: "Singer/harpist/performer Benjamin Bagby brought his one-man performance to our stage last January, evoking an entire ancient world with just voice and six-string harp. The sold-out production left the audience enthralled" At 96th Street YMCA in NYC 2020.

I am hoping for that too !!!

🤞🏻

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns. There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. This terror of the hall-troops had come far. A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on as his powers waxed and his worth was proved. In the end each clan on the outlying coasts io beyond the whale-road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. Afterwards a boy-child was born to Shield, a cub in the yard, a comfort sent by God to that nation. He knew what they had tholed, the long times and troubles they'd come through without a leader; so the Lord of Life, the glorious Almighty, made this man renowned. Shield had fathered a famous son: Beow's name was known through the north. And a young prince must be prudent like that, giving freely while his father lives so that afterwards in age when fighting starts steadfast companions will stand by him and hold the line. Behaviour that's admired is the path to power among people everywhere. Shield was still thriving when his time came and he crossed over into the Lord's keeping. His warrior band did what he bade them when he laid down the law among the Danes: they shouldered him out to the sea's flood, the chief they revered who had long ruled them. A ring-whorled prow rode in the harbour, ice-clad, outbound, a craft for a prince. They stretched their beloved lord in his boat, laid out by the mast, amidships, the great ring-giver. Far-fetched treasures were piled upon him, and precious gear. I never heard before of a ship so well furbished with battle tackle, bladed weapons and coats of mail. The massed treasure was loaded on top of him: it would travel far on out into the ocean's sway. They decked his body no less bountifully with offerings than those first ones did who cast him away when he was a child and launched him alone out over the waves. And they set a gold standard up high above his head and let him drift to wind and tide, bewailing him and mourning their loss. No man can tell, no wise man in hall or weathered veteran knows for certain who salvaged that load.

No evidence that there was an oral poem prior. The evidence points to a singular author who drew on the oral styles.

@@DMWayne-ke7fl Presumably it was based on stories told since the mid-6th century. Unlikely to have been an original work of fiction. It's thought by some scholars to have originated in East Anglia, and the ruling house (Raedwald who was buried at Sutton Hoo was only separated by Beowulf's uncle Hygelac by a generation or two) had close ties to southern Sweden, where Beowulf's tribe lived.

Little evidence for that origin story you've spun there Stefan. As other repliers have noted, the poem is thought by most scholars to have been composed in England, in a deliberately archaic style meant to connote the 5/6th century continental origins of the Germanic people dwelling in England later on.

@@robertjordan355 Well put!

Oh hell yes. I don't even game but I would buy it for that.

Not to be a party pooper but Beowulf was written well after paganism was all but wiped out by christianity. Notice all the references to God in the poem

Charlemagne had done his damage to paganism hundreds of years before Beowulf was written

@@batteredskullsummit9854 ... Yhea? I thought that was half of the point of the story. The kings sins are responsible for birth of Grendel, a litteral demon to pleasure his house. I'm not sure how else someone could interpret the story.

My point is while it would be awesome because Beowulf is awesome, it wouldn't make sense time period wise. Valhalla definitely takes place about 200 to 300 years before Beowulf was written and Beowulf is not a pagan poem but a christian one. Imagine a Spartan warrior singing about Roman gods 300 years in the future when Sparta is conquered by the SPQR

It's at about 22:32 They changed the key of it.

@@regismartel8772 thank you bro you are a helper

@@banditbykko8798 I got that from an earlier performance of his than this!