a good harvest was essential for sustaining life through the winter months, and bringing in the heavest required a huge amount of hard work, communal labour necessary for everyone's survival... August wasn't holiday time, but the season when many people were doing their harest work of the year.
Thus around harvest/autumn there were a series of important festivals and religious events that were tied to the hope for a good harvest and prayers for bountiful fruits. This was also a special, perhaps magical, time and as Parker says, "poests writing about this season often reflect on what might be the ultimate source of nature's bounty, the invisible power that makes the crops grow."
The reference to poets highlights another important aspect to this book - its focus on literature and poetry, two key sets of sources that give us an understanding of how the Anglo-Saxon people understood their world and its nature. It was as time of transition, when Christianity was replacing older, traditional beliefs, festivals and practices. The Christians understood the importance of tying in their festivals to older activities, few of which we know in detail. But the songs and poetry often retain their links to the earlier beliefs. Here is an old rune poem that Parker quotes, where Gear (which became our "year") refers actually to the "season of growth and harvest".
Gear is a joy to men, when God,
holy King of heaven, causes the earth
to give bright fruits for nobles and the needy.
holy King of heaven, causes the earth
to give bright fruits for nobles and the needy.
It is not difficult to read in this Christian poem, allusion and patterns that are much older.
Eleanor Parker's exploration of the Anglo-Sazon era is far more than a series of accounts of how they understood the changing year. It is a discussion of how people understood time and their place in a world that constantly changed, but also cycled. It is rather a lovely book.
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