Karmic-Dragonfly

In the last class, Beowulf's name* finally shows up! He's been spoken of in the poem earlier, but not by name until now.  Below lines 340-343.

Him þa ellenrof andswarode,	Then the valiant one answered,
wlanc Wedera leod, word æfter spræc,	proud leader of the Geats, and spoke words after,
heard under helme: “We synt Higelaċes	tough-looking under his helmet: “We are Higelac’s
beodġeneatas; Beowulf is min nama.	table companions; Beowulf is my name.

Some examples from previous lines:

Higelac’s thane, a good (man) among the Geats

****

Never have I seen a greater earl on earth than (the) one of you,

I am glad that Jack Smith was called to testify because he got to put this into the open record.

"Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence," Smith testified. "We followed the facts and we followed the law.

Where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power."'
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/jack-smith-will-not-be-silenced?selection=5405292e-16dd-434d-b8e6-118bb78a2264&r=4knz0w&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

"But I'd also say that great powers, great powers can afford for now to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what's offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.

This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact."

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

Happy New Year to you and all you love! Here's to a better 2026! 🤲

Link to some photos from this past year --


It was good to see friends and family throughout the year -- some of the photos --

The Beowulf class starts first week of the new year. I have already gotten started reading, and of course there were some hard spots that I had to read over and over, looking up words, finally consulting an online translation to see if I was understanding correctly.

I'm at line 56 now, still in the prologue, and it's been pretty easy to read! Contrast this with a few years ago when I sat down with a copy of the text and a grammar, figuring I'd be able to wing it. I mean, I have studied several languages (Latin, Classical Greek, French, Portuguese, American Sign Language, (little bit of) German, and now Old English), so I figured I'd be able to pull it off. But It was EXHAUSTING, and I made very little headway!.

But now, the prologue was pretty easy reading!


I did have one issue during the funeral where I misread "heah ofer heafod, leton holm beran," as "heah ofer heafod, leton folm beran,".

Holm means sign or banner. Folm means hand. So instead of "high overhead, they placed a banner", I had this image of "high overhead, they let hands carry" -- and my image was that the the men were carrying the body over their heads, passing one to the other to get it to the ship. The actual grammar there does not support my translation, but it was what I read on my first pass!


Just received the book to be used in the next few classes -- it's kind of intimidating! Lots of small text -- a larger format would have been easier to read on my, ahem, well used eyes!

We are reading the first part of the Wanderer for next class. Such a cheerful poem /s 😬🙂‍↔️ The title of this post is one of the lines: "Wyn eal gedreas!" is "All joy has come to ruin!"

It's been a bit of a challenge to read during Thanksgiving week for lack of time, but I've gotten through it. Although not cheerful, I do like the poem -- it evokes a lot of images as you're reading. You can feel the misery in your bones when reading about his extreme loneliness and the cold out on the sea!

***
I am well stuffed after 3 separate Thanksgiving meals - 2 w/ friends and 1 w/ family. All were enjoyable!

Mom has more or less been fading ever since the emergency hospitalization last February, and I continued to see its progress yesterday. She's really lucky to have my sister and her husband (both registered nurses) to provide her care; she would be in a nursing home at this point without their support.

My sister and I walked the farm. This is the pond that used to be used for irrigation and some fishing. Now not a lot of use other than to support the ecosystem.


I enjoyed getting to visit my favorite trees; ones I knew & remembered from childhood. They are 2 Sweetgum trees, growing very close together.

A friend took me out to dinner the other night. It was nice time. I feel like I look like the Sphinx in Egypt in this photo 😆. I do like how the rafters take the eye back to the bar in the background --


Quiet night tonight. I'll be "trapped" at home by the Marathon and Half Marathon that encircles the city for most of tomorrow. The temp is supposed to be great -- high of 69F (20.5C) -- so I'm hoping to get out to the river trail as soon as the Marathon is over.

Of course, I was pleased with the election results yesterday. In a few weeks, Virginia will have a new Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. And about 17 House of Delegates seats were won by Dems which will mean the largest proportion of Dems in the HOD since the late 80s.

Also, Dems broke the 'super majority' in the Mississippi house. And Mamdani will be mayor of NYC!

I remember that I should celebrate the win, but also remember how much is broken, and how the noose is tightening.

The federal government is still shut down; longest in history. (The next longest was during the first term of the Orange Menace.) The US Dept of Transportation is curtailing airline flights because there are not enough traffic controllers (who wants to work when not being paid?).

Local restaurants are offering free meals to those who are furloughed / not being paid. Food Banks have geared up to help. Discounts being offered by some businesses. Virginia is using emergency funds to fund SNAP benefits (low income folks; used to be called 'Food Stamps'), but I believe that money will only go through November. Federal judge ordered Orange to distribute SNAP money, as the law for it provides. That order was refused.

ICE is still arresting citizen and non-citizen alike with no due process, and at least one person died recently after being injured by ICE.

The price of my personal health insurance has doubled for next year -- directly due to the Republican's "Big Beautiful Bill".

The House of Representatives has been closed since the beginning of October because: 1) The Speaker refuses to seat a duly elected representative (I think from Arizona?) who would be the 218th vote to get the Epstein files bill out of committee onto the floor for full vote. 2) The Speaker is most likely following Orange's instruction not to negotiate on the continuing financial resolution that would re-open the budget.

Yea, all in all, broken.

---

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.

---

My translation of the beginning of the speech by Byrhtnoð as he lay dying:

The harder should intention be, the more valiant the heart,
the greater the spirit, as our power diminishes.

BSSWebsite Translation / Line 312:

Resolution must be the stronger, heart the keener,
mind must be the greater, while our strength lessens.
https://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/History/Maldon/Maldon2.htm

Historical Event:

The Battle of Maldon took place on 10 or 11 August 991 AD near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Earl Byrhtnoth and his thegns led the English against a Viking invasion. The battle ended in an Anglo-Saxon defeat. After the battle Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury and the aldermen of the south-western provinces advised King Æthelred to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle. The result was a payment of Danegeld of 10,000 Roman pounds (3,300 kg) of silver (approx £1.8M at 2022 prices).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maldon

Text:

The original (partial) text was lost in a fire. A copy had already been made of what was available. This image of the copy is from
https://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/History/Maldon/Maldon-intro.html, and I added some underlines. It's difficult to see -- the online image was very small.