“at the hoar appledore”

All Hail!

This is going to be the first in a row of posts setting forth the wyrd (=history) of the English from the beginning until now.  Unlike many others,  this one will have a much greater fairness than is wont nowadays to be given, both for the work of the gods who wield all on Middle-Earth, or Midelerthe, and to those who believe in them withal.  We cannot look to any so-called yielded (=paid) wyrdwriter (=historian) to do this as they are all hamstrung by the laws of whatever body they belong into being godless; and to their overlooking of all the more unqueam (=unpleasant) truths that would strengthen belief.  I call to mind here the words of Robert Graves in his The White Goddess (first outlaid 1948, but mine is the 1986 edthrutching (=reprinting)) chap. 1, lf. 25:

“But, after all, what is a scholar?  One who may not break bounds under pain of expulsion from the academy of which he is a member?”

And also of Thomas Carlyle On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic In History (1841) lect. 5, lf. 256 :
  

“Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the disorganized condition of society: how ill many forces of society fulfil their work; how many powerful are seen working in a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all know. ”

But such is still the weak grasp of truefastness in our time.  And Carlyle hath this on “Universities” from the same work (lf. 262) which is worth the knowing:

“If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest School can do for us, is still but what the first School began doing,—teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.  ”

But what is the true end of all learning anyway?  Wealth?  Worldly standing?  Only unworthy men and women say such things.  “The Proverbs of Alfred” (Oxford, Jesus College handwrit 29, Part 2):

þus queþ Alured.
Wyþ-vte wysdome
is weole wel vnwurþ.

Thus quoth Alfred.
Without wisdom
is wealth well worthless.

A happy life?  But what true happiness can there be without wisdom?  And what wisdom is there without any knowledge of the gods?  And of the life (or lives) hereafter?

This said, the kind reader must forgive me if I start in an odd way as a friend hath sunderly  (=specially) asked me to write something about the dreadful fightlock (=battle) well known to all English men and women that once befell  on this day some nine hundred and fifty years ago.  For today is the minning day (=anniversary) of the so-called “Battle of Hastings”, but which is better said “at the hoar appledore”  “æt þære haran apuldran” (see the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” handwrit D, otherwise called Cotton Tiberius B.iv, under 1066), appledore being an old word for an apple tree still found in many English stow names.  The Chronicler writeth:

“Ðær wearð ofslægen Harold kyng, 7 Leofwine eorl his broðor, 7 Gyrð eorl his broðor, 7 fela godra manna, ...”.

 “There was slain Harold kyng, and Leofwine eorl his brother, and Gyrð eorl his brother, and many good men, ...”.

That something dreadful was about to happen was shown forth  by the long haired, maned or faxed star (=comet) that was seen for seven nights at the end of April that year: 

“Þa wearð geond eall Englaland swylc tacen on heofenum gesewen swylce nan man ær ne geseah. Sume men cwedon þæt hit cometa se steorra wære, þone sume men hatað þone fæxedon steorran, 7 he æteowde ærest on þone æfen Letania Maior viii. Kalendas Maias, 7 swa scan ealle þa seofon niht.”

 “Then was through all England such a token  in heaven seen such that no man ere saw.  Some men quoth that  the star was the cometa, that  some men hight the faxed star, and  he was seen first on the eve of the lesser Litany, eight days before the calends of May, and thus shone seven nights altogether.”

As to why the gods allowed the French to win the day I cannot say, maybe Harold was indeed forsworn.  Truly it will always be seen that the gods hate liars and forswearers.   But the gods often take a long anseen (=view) of things which maketh their ways so hard for us short-lived and short-sighted men on Midelerthe to know.  But then there is the tale that Harold outlived the fightlock as a one-eyed wanderer, thus Gerald of Wales :

“Chester ...  It is also asserted, that the remains of Harold are here deposited. He was the last of the Saxon kings in England, and as a punishment for his perjury, was defeated in the battle of Hastings, fought against the Normans. Having received many wounds, and lost his left eye by an arrow in that engagement, he is said to have escaped to these parts, where, in holy conversation, leading the life of an anchorite, and being a constant attendant at one of the churches of this city, he is believed to have terminated his days happily.”

And although we have other tales of death-bed acknowledgings (see Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar, Vita Haroldi), might not Harold be alive still; doomed to wander until the English win their land back?  Or hath this not already happened?   Isabella of France the mother of our king Edward III was the daughter of Philip IV of France and Isabella of Aragon.   Isabella of Aragon the daughter of James I of Aragon and Violanta of Hungary.  Violanta the  daughter of Andrew II of Hungary and Yolanta de Courtnay.   Andrew II the son of Béla III of Hungary and Agnes of Antioch. Béla III of Hungary the son of Géza II of Hungary and Euphrosyne of Kiev.  Euphrosyne of Kiev the daughter of  Mstislav I of Kiev and Ljubava Saviditsch. Mstislav being the eldest son of Vladimir II Monomakh by Gytha of Wessex.  And Gytha was the daughter more Danico of Harold Godwinsson and Editham cognomento Swanneshals!  So all our kings from Edward III onward have had the blood of Harold in their eddren (=veins).  Odd then that the kingship of Edward III saw the rise of the English tongue after its overlong nithering (=depression) by the French and the end of the un-English law of murdrum? 

Farewell.