Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, spoke:
"Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark."
A. Dan. points out that the church in question below is actually far more recent than the Vikings, and in fact dates from about 1870, although many Icelandic churches are far older. The site nevertheless remains powerfully evocative.
This is the baptismal font in þingvallakirkja, the church at þingvellir which is the place where the parliament was held in Iceland around the year 1000. The picture was taken on Good Friday 2004.
I was struck by this picture, which I found quite by accident, because it so neatly captures the moment when the Vikings embraced Christianity and acquired literacy — the moment when their most enduring monuments, the sagas, were recorded.
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
Heaney makes a fascinating point in the introduction. As an Irishman, he had always felt some resistance to translating an Anglo-Saxon poem into modern English; he did not feel that it sat well with his Celtic heritage. Heaney describes his epiphany regarding the interconnectedness of language as follows:
The place on the language map where the Usk and the uisce and the whiskey coincided was definitely a place where the spirit might find a loophole, an escape route from what John Montague has called "the partitioned intellect," away into some unpartitioned linguistic country, a region where one's language would not be a simple badge of ethnicity or a matter of cultural preference or official imposition, but an entry into further language. And I eventually came upon one of these loopholes in Beowulf itself.
For me the excitement of Heaney's translation is not just his acclaimed verse, but the continued interweaving of the strands of Irish myth and Norse folklore that I have been reading. One of the remarkable features of the Icelandic sagas is the amount of interaction that the Icelanders had with the British Isles, where they raided, traded, and pledged fealty to various English (and Irish) kings. Here, now, is an English poem recounting, in part, the adventures of the Geats, from England, and the Danes. The inspiration for this literary detour, and the point to which I mean ultimately to return, is the poetry of William Butler Yeats, so it fitting that I continue the journey under the guidance of another Irish poet.
It was a bad weekend for computers. I managed to fry both my processor and my floppy drive. The computer was shutting down intermittently for no apparent reason, so I suspected that the processor was overheating. (I had had problems previously with the heat sink that came with my AMD Athlon 2000.) I upgraded the heat sink, but I managed to install the it incorrectly (it was asymmetrical) and fried the chip. Arrrrrrrgh! Fortunately, I was able to buy a relatively inexpensive AMD Athlon 2400 as a replacement without having to upgrade the motherboard. I got everything hooked up, and it appeared to be working fine. Fine, that is, until smoke started pouring out of my floppy drive and the power cables began to melt. I cut the power before any more damage was done. The computer (minus floppy drive) is working fine for the moment. (Otherwise you would probably not be reading this. I guess I should look on the bright side; at least it was cheaper to repair than my car, I was able to do it myself, and everyone survived.
Peace Corps | Media | Press Releases
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 3, 2004 A group of new Peace Corps volunteers officially began their service on Thursday, May 20 in Morocco. The swearing-in of this second group marks the successful re-entry of the Peace Corps into Morocco.
I guess that they have been back since June, and I did not know it. I am glad they have returned.
Bush's 9/11 Farce (washingtonpost.com)
Almost three years after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 -- the biggest intelligence failure in U.S. history -- and after his own administration went to war for reasons that did not exist, the president has ordered his crack staff to see which of the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations can be implemented fast and without congressional approval. Bush, you will recall, opposed the creation of the commission in the first place.
Surely we would have been better off to focus the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda: "War on Terror" is catchier but has ultimately served to give the Bush administration a blank check to undertake whatever illegal or repressive actions it wished. Cohen now points out, again, what everyone suspected: the Bush administration has never been serious about domestic security.
Mouthful Gets Metro Passenger Handcuffs and Jail (washingtonpost.com)
Curry-Hagler turned around and followed Willett into the station. Moments after making a remark to the officer, Willett said, she was searched, handcuffed and arrested for chewing the last bite of her candy bar after she passed through the fare gates. She was released several hours later after paying a $10 fine, pending a hearing.
What on earth made this woman think she could flout the law against eating in the Metro in front of a transit cop, continue to break the law after being warned by the officer, mouth off to the officer, and keep on walking after she had been ordered to stop, and that there would be no consequences. Unfortunately, it appears that she has learned nothing from the experience.
Arab Americans Report Abuse (washingtonpost.com)
Fifteen percent of Arab Americans in the Detroit area said they have experienced harassment or intimidation since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a significant number wish other Americans understood them better, according to a University of Michigan report to be released today.
The real test of a civil society is how it treats its least popular members.
Francis Crick, DNA Scientist, Dies (washingtonpost.com)
Francis H.C. Crick, 88, co-discoverer of one of the most important scientific findings of the 20th century, the recognition of the "double-helix" structure of DNA as the blueprint to life, died Wednesday at the San Diego's Thornton Hospital. He had colon cancer.
The Correspondence of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI An essay from my favorite professor at the University of Chicago.
"The Wrath of the Northmen": The Vikings and their Memory Another article by von Nolcken, with a fascinating contemporary Arab account of a Viking burial ceremony.
Blondie, Fairuz, Paul Simon, Saut El Atlas, Isabelle Boulay. Write on!
MoorishGirl mentions that the latest issue of Tingis is out.
The Summer 2004 issue of Tingis, a quarterly magazine devoted to Morocco, is now available, with non-fiction by Anouar Majid, David Kuchta, Oumelbanine Zhiri, and others.
I like the magazine, so I am pleased to see it getting more exposure, and I am looking forward to receiving my summer issue.
In the meantime, I am trying out my new CD of Gnawa and Issawa music.
I caught Friday Night Jazz at Borders at 18th and L, N.W. tonight. The great thing was that the four person combo — trumpet, piano, bass, and drums — wasn't a regular group even though they sounded like one. They were just four musicians who get together a couple of times a year to play.
Charleston.Net: News from the Associated Press
The law has caught up with Bobby Fischer for having an expired passport. His detention by the Japanese authorities may be a way to show that they are cooperating with the United States in apprehending international lawbreakers before they have to make the difficult choice of whether to hand over deserter Charles Robert Jenkins. Jenkins is married to a Japanese woman, so turning him over to U.S. authorities for prosecution may not be a popular decision.
