The Fun of Middle English

I'm going to do something a little different and not about the story but about Middle English. I much prefer the sound of Middle English to modern English. Don't take this to mean I can speak it (I am awful at speaking modern English and that's my native tongue) nor should I lie and say it is easy to read. I like my standardized spelling, dammit! But it's so much more rhapsodic. As I read it aloud as practice to myself and for my shame haven't improved my diction but I have noticed some things…

I am speaking in some weird Scottish/Irish mix since Mitchell-Buck read it aloud in that way. And something else weird is appearing in my pronunciation. About a year ago I helped my girlfriend with her German flashcards and let a friend practice his Norwegian by speaking it to me and because of that experience I'm noticing a pattern of spelling reminiscent to those languages even if there are no formal rules to spelling in Middle English. Heck, you might’ve even read the same word spelled different times each time! This definitely makes the reading hard but maybe I find it appealing in the same way I find a puzzle appealing…

Anyway, Germanic roots! So it feels like I’m speaking German or Norwegian but I actually know what I’m saying. I’m even tempted to pronounce “w” as “v.” I’ve also read Old English which really does seem like Norwegian to me but with more letters (especially since Thorn is such a fun letter).

O Futhark, my old Norse friend…

Now that’s old Nordic runes. Looks a lot like English, huh? That’s what I thought, too. Good thing the language I took in high school and college is Latin! Six years! Still have no idea how to translate… But it does provide insight to English! Namely, we use the Latin alphabet which was modified from Greek which was modified from Phoenician (which oddly isn’t spelled phonetically?). The words are still misspelled but they are pronounced more similarly to their Latin roots. For example, “auctoritee” from the first line of the prologue is supposed to be authority but looks more like “auctoritas,” the same exact meaning but pronounced differently. It’s things like that I find more interesting; that in about 2500 years not a lot about language has changed but those little differences make the past difficult to understand and life hell for college English students.

-Brian Edwards

Meleagent the Evil-Doer!

I have to love this guy because he is the essence of our modern villain. Shows up to a party, steals a queen, then tries killing the hero in the end? Perfect character trope in the making! You can almost imagine Meleagent’s armor is black and red whereas Lancelot’s is blue and silver. The best Darth Vader ever did was kidnap his own princess daughter and try killing his son (and no, Tarkin was the one to destroy Alderaan so Vader can’t even put that on his resumé). Nevertheless, child abuse is evil, too, but far less classy than party crashing.

Plus, I like pretending his name is secretly an old French pun for "evil-doer." See, the stem "mal," means evil, and "agent" is someone who does something.

Like many hated villains, he has an older, wiser advisor. And like the most evil of those villains, that advisor is his dad. Even he wants Meleagent to chill before he gets his ass handed to his angsty self by our knight in shining armor. Our evil-doer is starting to seem less like Vader and more like whiny Anakin.

George Lucas is the real villain.

So like civilized nobles the hero and villain decide to resolve their conflict by murdering each other! Standard procedure, villain loses his arm gets punched in face. Yet it’s not very gratifying. And that bugged me! He’s evil but we don’t get the full impact of hating him like Lancelot hates him. It's because we don't get a good reason to hate him because we only see him as an actual actor nearing the end. That’s way too late to start a compelling relationship between character and audience.

Still, Meleagent lives up to his villain status in the end by basically yelling, “I’ll get you for this!” Too bad he can't keep his head to deliver said revenge. He would’ve won if he were better armed.

Me laughing at my own dumb puns.

An Upgrade from Beowulf!

These lais were pretty fun to read, especially considering I read Norse Eddas and Sagas and Roman Lays. So instead of reading about the awful things men do to men, I can read about the awful things men do to women and women to women! And wolf-men to men and women. Yikes. At least before I was reading the old time-y version of 300...

Right from the start we get violence from Equitan which shows us that you shouldn't be evil lest evil be done to you. Good moral. Of course, this plan was doomed from the start (what do they think this guy is? seafood dinner?). And a victory bone in the tub should be done after the victim is killed, not that I would know. Because it seems less like karmic fate in the end and more "maniacal justice."

The correct way to prepare a boiled dinner.

At least no one died in Le Fresne. Still, ruining your neighbor's life just because you're jealous is a bit extreme. Especially considering your jealousy is over gross babies. The first act of this story essentially repeats the moral of our last story with less "Game of Thrones" worthy murders before moving on to the love story and concluding with the ever so familiar "long lost relative" story. Surprisingly, this ends happily! Must've gotten all the drama out of our systems with the intro.

Bisclavret threw me off a bit. When I think "Medieval werewolf," I think "rampaging monster" and not "dude who needs to keep his clothes on." Well, that's one modern stereotype that doesn't conform with past ideas. What about "sexy" werewolves from trashy romance novels? Well the wife didn't want anything to do with that furry mess. Then what were werewolves doing in those old stories?!

Pictured: Not our werewolf.

Even more surprising is how cool everyone was with it like, "Dude! A talking buppy!" Wasn't this supposed to be the time of superstitious fear mongering? And he attacks a knight at a party and everyone is privy that it's for revenge so they just forgive him! And he rips his wife's nose off and everyone thinks, "She had it coming maybe. Let's torture her to find out... Yeah, she had it coming." Way to go Medieval people... at least you stick to the fun stereotypes. In the end the wise man helps the knight assume his human form and everyone good lives happily ever after. How does the wise man know so much about werewolves anyway? I'm glad the story ended with the disclaimer this all actually happened for realsies. Cause a noseless lady having noseless kids? I would've thought all these stories were made up otherwise!

-Brian