Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year

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Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs and traditions linked to the different seasons. Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories and religious literature, Eleanor Parker investigates how Anglo-Saxons felt about the annual passing of the seasons and the profound relationship they saw between human life and the rhythms of nature. Many of the festivals we celebrate in Britain today have their roots in the Anglo-Saxon period, and this book traces their surprising history, as well as unearthing traditions now long forgotten. It celebrates some of the finest treasures of medieval literature and provides an imaginative connection to the Anglo-Saxon world.

'A lyrical journey through the Anglo-Saxon year...[this book] is a beautiful, charming, and evocative voyage into what, to many of us, seems a very distant past...Parker shows herself to be a master of her subject. Her knowledge is superb; her writing a form of poetry itself...No-one can come away from this book still believing the Anglo-Saxons to have lived through the 'Dark Ages.'' Get History

'In this wonderfully poetic journey through the Anglo-Saxon year, Parker offers a profound meditation on time and the world, nature and its seasons. Plunging the reader into the glorious cadences of Old English poetry with her supple translations, Parker brings to vivid life the terrors of winter, springs promise, the joyful warmth of summer , and the melancholy of autumn, powerfully connecting us with a rich and vital past that we have not quite lost.' Carolyne Larrington, professor of Medieval European literature, University of Oxford

'A fascinating, informative, and hauntingly authentic account of the Anglo-Saxon experience of time; Parker shows that understanding the early English calendar is a crucial point of access to Anglo-Saxon spirituality, learning, science, poetry, and much more besides.' Francis Young, author of Magic in Merlins Realm: A History of Occult Politics in Britain

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"A literary book of calendric history . . . Parker's Winters in the World is an education fit for the [scholar] and lay person who wishes to expand upon what it means to exist as humans in a world full of wyrd winters."-- "Front Porch Republic"
"Parker in her fascinating and authoritative new book Winters in the World . . . rejoices in two advantages. She has read and understood the original texts and she is superb in explaining them and the world from which they sprang."-- "Daily Telegraph"
"Winters in the World presents it readers with a guided tour through the Anglo-Saxon perception and measurement of time - a reckoning that was more closely linked to the rhythms of the natural world than our own today yet from which we still retain aspects of which we may not be aware."-- "The Well-Read Naturalist"

Author Bio

Eleanor Parker is Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford. She is a specialist in the literature of medieval England and Scandinavia, and her books include Dragon Lords: The History and Legends of Viking England (2018).