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

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To tell the truth, he was very reluctant to start, now that it had come to the point. Bag End seemed a more desirable residence than it had for years, and he wanted to savour as much as he could of his last summer in the Shire. When autumn came, he knew that part at least of his heart would think more kindly of journeying, as it always did at that season. This sense of relationship between nature and humanity is something the Anglo-Saxon poets drew upon. They used it as a metaphor for emotion, and as a way to understand the processes of the world that their Christian god had created. The church calendar, and its method of dating, does, then, determine the course of the book. However, there is some effort to trace festivals, where appropriate, to their pagan past and, equally, to rubbish a few myths that have sprung up in the twentieth century. The line between myth and fact can be a fine one, and the reader can on occasion sense the extent of Parker’s frustration at modern notions, particularly when there is no textual evidence from the era to support various claims. What is clear in the poem is that Gawain leave the comforts of home at such an unpropitious time of year because, just like Bilbo and Frodo, he has a task to do which no one else can complete, a quest which only he can fulfil. Like them, he cannot wait for ideal travelling conditions. What matters here is courage, not good weather.

So what’s going on here? Part of the answer lies in the nature of their quest, which is difficult, even penitential. You sometimes get the impression that Chaucer’s pilgrims might as well be going on holiday but that’s clearly not the case for Bilbo or Frodo. They are in deadly danger the moment they leave Lake-town (in The Hobbit ) and the Shire (in The Lord of the Rings ). Maybe Tolkien was thinking more of Sir Gawain than The Canterbury Tales when he wrote these passages. Here, for example, is Tolkien’s own translation of a wonderful passage about the passing of the seasons in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight : There are many things I love about this book. As readers of her blog , History Today columns , Patreon articles , and books will already know, Eleanor Parker writes with great clarity and a deep knowledge of British history. On this occasion, she takes us, season by season, through the Anglo-Saxon year, teaching us a surprising amount about our own age as well as a great deal about the ways the Anglo-Saxons saw the world. On the way she also scuppers some deep-rooted myths. For example, she writes: So one day, although autumn was now getting far on, and winds were cold, and leaves were falling fast, three large boats left Lake-town, laden with rowers, dwarves, Mr Baggins, and many provisions… The only person thoroughly unhappy was Bilbo. Let’s take just a couple of examples, starting with the most important date in The Lord of the Rings : 25th March. This was the day on which the ring was destroyed and Sauron fell. As a direct consequence, it also became the first day of the new year in Gondor. What’s more, it was the day Aragorn arrived at the Bridge of Baranduin and the birthday of Elanor, Sam’s first child. (Elanor is, I think, a much more significant character in The Lord of the Rings than is widely recognised, but more on her another time.) As Eleanor Parker points out, many Anglo-Saxons believed that the 25th March was also the date of the Annunciation, the date of the Crucifixion, and the eighth day of creation. In other words, it was the most important date in history. This sense of relationship between nature and humanity is something these poets drew upon. They used it as a metaphor for emotion, and for the processes of the world that their Christian god had created. Of course, as these poets and other writers were almost without exception learned men of the church, it is hardly surprising that the focus of their writing, and therefore the focus of this book, is very much Christian. Yet there is some effort to trace festivals, where appropriate, to their pagan past and, equally, to rubbish a few myths that have sprung up in the twentieth century. In some ways, then, 'Winters in the World' is an Anglo-Saxon, early-Christian version of Ronald Hutton's 'Stations of the Sun'.

Now, this is very curious because, as Eleanor Parker points out, autumn is very much not the time for journeying (not even the Anglo-Saxon autumn which began on 7th August!). Spring is the journeying season and, of course, that is when Bilbo sets off at the start of The Hobbit . He leaves in April, a month forever associated with pilgrimage since Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . But the key date at the start of The Lord of the Rings is not April 28th (when Bilbo first leaves Bag End) but September 22nd, Bilbo’s birthday and Frodo’s too. Rather than leave Bag End in spring, they leave on or about the autumn solstice. In other words, they leave the Shire at precisely the wrong time of year.

I have just finished reading Eleanor Parker’s excellent new book, Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year . Rather than write a traditional review, I thought I’d offer an article that is part review and part reflection with a Tolkienian twist. Today it’s become a popular myth that that symbols linked in modern Britain with Easter, especially eggs, hares or rabbits, derive from the worship of Eostre, but there’s no Anglo-Saxon evidence to support that. None of these symbols were linked to Easter in the Anglo-Saxon period; eggs weren’t associated with Easter in Britain until the later Middle Ages, hares and rabbits not until much later still. There’s nothing to suggest any continuity of customs between the pre-conversion festival and the Anglo-Saxon Christian Easter, and the modern observance of Easter owes nothing to Anglo-Saxon paganism, with the sole exception of its English name. Eleanor Parker only mentions Tolkien in passing in this book, though she has written and spoken about him in detail elsewhere. However, her book incidentally provides all sorts of insights for anyone who enjoys Tolkien’s fiction. Eleanor Parker’s book also got me thinking about the passing of the seasons in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (for The Lord of the Rings , in particular, is a very seasonal book) . Let’s look at these parallel passages, for example.

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These beliefs weren’t unique to the English, of course. St Augustine of Hippo once wrote that Christ “is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since.”)