Anglo-Saxon England may seem like a solidly monochrome Christian society from a modern perspective. And in many respects it was. The only substantial religious minority in early medieval Western Europe, the Jews, was entirely absent from England before the Norman Conquest.
The post The Anglo-Saxons and the Jews appeared first on OUPblog.
A couple of months ago, I brought home a friend's electric-acoustic mandolin on long-term loan, cleaned it up, and then brought it to the local music shop to have the bridge lowered and the strings restrung. Not long after, my friend Dymphna said, "I must admit, I feel like you've got a new boyfriend who seems nice, but I just don't
get."
"What's not to get?" I asked. "I know it's difficult, I know that some of my chords sound like cows in pain, but listen to this pretty D chord!" I played it. She shook her head.
"As a violin player, I feel like it's missing a bow."
I replied, "The mandolin thinks your violin's bow is superfluous."
I started to play ukulele as "cross-training" for guitar. Guitar was my first, best love, but ukulele was cute, accessible, and portable. Songs I composed on the ukulele sounded merry, while songs I composed on guitar sounded like dirges. I've not mastered either instrument and I don't have any unusual musical talents (enthusiasm and desire are my strengths). However, when I started to learn mandolin from the excellent
Bruce Emery via his
Mandolin From Scratch book, I remembered that, in addition to guitar, mandolin was an instrument my teenage self wanted to learn, but thought was out of reach. I am a long way from playing Led Zeppelin's
The Battle of Evermore (my favorite song off of their fourth album), but I can play the New Britain version of "Amazing Grace" in G and D without too many gaps between the barred chords. Eventually, if I am diligent and practice regularly, I will get to melody lines. Someday, perhaps, I can work up to affording a relatively low-priced
Big Muddy mandolin.
In the meantime, I've got the "Octo-Lin," as I've nicknamed this Fender instrument. I bought a gig-bag and ironed on an octopus patch (Eight legs, eight strings!). Bede's banjo playing has progressed, and he is not used to being more skilled on an instrument than me, so now he gets to practice slowing waaaay down for me. We've been working on
Jesse James and Gordon Bok's
Dillan Bay, and are trying to make White Stripes'
Hotel Yorba work, too. Others have already done it, as YouTube videos reveal.
I will end with a little octopus song I made up for a friend who would prefer spiders stay far away from her, and who wishes the children's song about an intrepid wee arachnid were less ubiquitous:
The teeny tiny octopus climbed up the sailboat mastDown came the storm, but the octopus held fast.Out came the sun and dried the ocean sprayThen, the teeny tiny octopus jumped down and swam away.Sometimes, a
cephalopod craves adventure.
A few weeks ago, Lucia wanted me to tell her a sad story. I spun out a story of a couple who wanted a child, couldn't have a child, and then had the spirit of the child who was supposed to be theirs appear before them in the woods as the couple was cooking over a camp-fire. The child said, "Oh, how I wish I could have been your child," and disappeared. I filled it out with a lot of "and they
Friday, May 1, was sunny and warm. Sunday, May 3, was fairly pleasant as well. On Saturday, May 2, the day of May Faire and the May Pole dances, it rained for almost the entire day. It takes a lot to rain out a Waldorf school event, so everything went on as planned. We made garlands in the morning: Then, each grade did their May dances. Here is a video screen capture of Lucia dancing:I presented
By: Helena Palmer,
on 10/1/2015
By: Alkelda,
on 3/18/2014
Maybe she has a career as a country western singer in front of her. Or there's always Wall Street(: Just kidding!!!
Sounds like the teens who read all those Lurlene McDaniel tearjerkers. I had one young lady years ago who told me her mother was ticked because she was spending so much time crying over her books!
The two saddest stories I know are:
The Happy Princeand
The Little Match Girl.
ooh, The Happy Prince and The Selfish Giant are treasures.
oh! I forgot the saddest one of all (Wilde was great at these!)
The Nightingale and the RoseYou may want to tailor these to the particular audience but they are great tragic tales!
or maybe you could just abridge some Shakespeare for her?
I suspect that what she wants and what she needs may be two different things... at least at times. I'm reminded of the kids who want me to tell them scary stories, and then I DO, and then they're sorry! (I've learned my lesson with that, and any scary stories I tell have humorous endings). I thank you for all of the recommendations, though. For now, I'm fine with Lucia telling the sad stories because she's in control of the situation then.
P.S. LoneStarMa, one of the reasons why I love Mr. Putter and Tabby Toot the horn is because Mr. Putter loves the sad songs of opera and Mrs. Teaberry loves the sad songs of country/western.
"Sanguine" has always been one of those words I have to stop and think about. To me, it sounds sad, like it should have "melancholic's" meaning -- or at least "phlegmatic's."
I love how well you do stories-on-demand, but then I'm not surprised.
Every Lucia story just amuses me. She's ...so... unusual. I like that in a kid.
Oh! Lucia is absolutely precious.