Archaeology in the Attic

[helwen]

While I have 'miles to go before I rest' in regards to all the stuff in this house, I did make some progress, enough to decide I'd earned a break.

I found old history and science papers and info, humor pieces, newspaper clippings, a scroll assignment from when Harold von Auerbach was Tyger Clerk of the Signet, various wedding, birth, and holiday cards, old letters, etc. Some I've kept, some are being recycled. A few things I'll post here, on their way to the recycling bin.

Here's a couple now:

(1)
From Reader's Digest, sometime between 1989 to 1993:

White Elephant Sale. New York City's Mayor David N. Dinkins, when urged by Manhattan officials to buy some property thought to be an "extraordinary opportunity for the city," said: "If they're selling elephants two for a quarter, that's a great bargain. But only if you have a quarter -- and only if you need elephants."
-- Leonard Buder in New York Times

(2)
From the Ansax-L mailing list, 1995, written by David Ganz, I believe.

A poem inspired by someone looking for info on Aethelweard's Chronicle, when one of the respondents to the query mistyped and left the "d" of of A's name.

Aethelwear

Anglo-Saxonists can bear
Everything, in Aethelwear.
Is it Frantzen whom you fear?
You'll be safe in Aethelwear.
When your Dean, or DukeFish jeer
Raise your hood of Aethelwear.
Hats in search of hinds revere
Clinging, moulding Aethelwear.
Gnomic verses start to clear
Yea, e'en these, in Aethelwear.
Powdermilk is far too dear,
Wear Guy's Shoes, and Aethelwear.

Jacques Enterprises Inc.
Melancholy Baby Division

(3)
And then of couurse, there is the tale of Beocat....

Grendel's Dog, from Beocat, by the Old English epic's Unknown Author's Cat (Modern English verse translation by the Editor's Cat). Hey, brangwyne, you could probably put this in the next newsletter...


Brave Beocat,
brook kit of Eegthmeow,

Hearth-pet of Hrothgar
in whose high halls

He mauled without mercy
many fat mice,

Night did not find napping
nor snack-feasting.

The wary war-cat,
whiskered paw-wielder,

Bearer of the burnished neck-belt,
gold-braided collar-band,

Feller of fleas,
fatal, too, to ticks,

The work of wonder-smiths,
woven with witches' charms.

Sat on the throne-seat
his ears like sword-points

Upraised, sharp-tipped,
listening for peril-sounds,

When he heard from the moor-hill
howls of the hell-hound,

Gruesome hunger-grunts
of Grendel's Great Dane,

Deadly doom-mutt,
dread demon-dog.

Then boasted Beocat,
noble battle-kitten,

Bane of barrow-bunnies,
bold seeker of nest-booty,

"If hand of man unhasped
the heavy hall-door

And freed me to frolic forth
to fight the fang-bearing fiend,

I would lay the whelpling low
with lethal claw-blows;

Fur would fly
and the foe would taste death-food.

But resounding snooze-noise,
stern slumber-thunder,

Nose-music of men snoring
mead-hammered in the wine-hall,

Fills me with sorrow-feeling
for Fate does not see fit

To send some fingered folk
to lift the firm-fastened latch

That I might go grapple
with the grum ghoul-pooch."

Thus spake the mouse-shredder,
hunter of hall-pests,

Short-haired Hrodent-slayer,
greatest of the pussy-Geats.

Comments

[ellid.livejournal.com]

"Pussy-Geats" cracks me up, every time.