An Easter poem

I would actually like to do this. I do enjoy longer poems too, like The Hunting of the Snark, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and The Lay of Leithian (a book long poem Tolkien did of one of his Silmarilian stories). I'll try read it over the holidays.

Thanks Cinnabar Wing, I'm not usually a poetry fan, but there are a few I like, apart from the Anglo-Saxon ones, which interest me more from an historical perspective about how they thought about the world.

I'm also a big fan of The Emporors Babe, by Bernadine Evaristo and Sekhment by Margaret Attwood..

Back from walking the kids and being made to scramble up muddy banks in the wood, so a sit down with a cuppa and reading it was just right. 

I'm not religious, so I hope I don't offend anyone, but know it all from school. I found it really interesting that the poem centers around the tree, the cross and it's part in the crucifixion story. The melding of the differing views of it, from the gilded and jewel bedecked to the simple bloodied base wood of the tree. The idea and symbolism of the tree itself was an interesting take on a story people have heard many times and gives space for different ways of thinking about it I think.

I don't know, but its an interesting area for research, if one can find sources to work from. 

Everyone listened to stories, not just children, in an oral tradition with a largely non literate population stories, songs and chants would of been they way a culture held itself together. Bards or Scops to the Anglo-Saxons held their common culture together and would also have introduced new stories as they heard them. They would also have been responsible for holding the geneology of a group, often being able to count back 10 or more generations and name each person.

I guess it would also change depending on who converted which A/S peoples, The Irish Church, from Iona, or The Catholic Church from Cantabury. The Irish Columban teachers were less urban and based around abbey's often double houses of both men and women or single sex houses. They tended to be much more itinerant and would preach at crosses that were set up as meeting points for local agricultural communities to come together. The Catholic Church was urban and revolved and seemingly more heirarchical.

It would seem that many hedged thier bets by worshiping the Christian God along side thier native Gods, if you think of the Sutton Hoo burial treasures, thought to have belonged to Raedwald (599-624 CE) you will see Christian baptism spoons etc alongside Thor's Hammer's, it was said that in his lifetime he had alters set up to both Christian and Pagan gods. So, I wonder how much Jesus was seen as just another God? 

I don't know, but its an interesting area for research, if one can find sources to work from. 

Everyone listened to stories, not just children, in an oral tradition with a largely non literate population stories, songs and chants would of been they way a culture held itself together. Bards or Scops to the Anglo-Saxons held their common culture together and would also have introduced new stories as they heard them. They would also have been responsible for holding the geneology of a group, often being able to count back 10 or more generations and name each person.

I guess it would also change depending on who converted which A/S peoples, The Irish Church, from Iona, or The Catholic Church from Cantabury. The Irish Columban teachers were less urban and based around abbey's often double houses of both men and women or single sex houses. They tended to be much more itinerant and would preach at crosses that were set up as meeting points for local agricultural communities to come together. The Catholic Church was urban and revolved and seemingly more heirarchical.

It would seem that many hedged thier bets by worshiping the Christian God along side thier native Gods, if you think of the Sutton Hoo burial treasures, thought to have belonged to Raedwald (599-624 CE) you will see Christian baptism spoons etc alongside Thor's Hammer's, it was said that in his lifetime he had alters set up to both Christian and Pagan gods. So, I wonder how much Jesus was seen as just another God?