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Littlestone

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Re: Caherkirky

Aug 04, 2008, 10:58

Thanks g, that's fascinating.

Glad you got to see the Franks Casket. A photo of one side of the casket was used for the cover of the Penguin Classics' edition of The Earliest English Poems, translated by Michael Alexander (and dedicated to Ezra Pound).* Mention that not only because of the photo on the cover but also because the first poem in the book is The Ruin; some believe that the poem is describing Stonehenge, though I think it's now generally accepted that it's describing the Roman baths at Bath. The mention of 'tiles' and the, "...wide streams welled hot from source..." is a bit of a giveaway.

Never fails to amaze me though that some one thousand years ago an Anglo-Saxon poet stood in the ruins at Bath and put his feelings into a poem, a fragment of which we still have. Other poets and minstrels (or were they one and the same) must have sung about the remaining wonders of pre-Roman Britain - the stone circles and tumuli that were still all around them. Such a pity we have no early poems about them. One can but hope though - perhaps in a dusty corner somewhere there is more waiting to be found...

* ISBN 0-14-044594-3

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Megalithic Poems – Littlestone, Mar 19, 2005, 22:51


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