Danskcolin: Wednesday 4 September 2019

08:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower cubicle. After breakfast, Lois goes around the corner to Billy Shears, the local hairstylist.

In the meantime, I start clearing up and vacuuming all over the house because Scilla's U3A Old Norse group is holding its fortnightly group meeting here this afternoon at 2:30 pm. Afterwards, I browse through 2 more chapters of Njal's saga, which is the group's current project.

12:00 Lois and I have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 1:30 pm and prepare for Scilla's group meeting.

I take a look at my smartphone. Steve, my American brother-in-law, has sent me an interesting question via email. He has been watching Boris Johnson's first session of Prime Minister’s Question Time: he comments that Boris looked rather flustered. And he asks how Boris could possibly have kicked Winston Churchill's grandson (Nicholas Soames) out of the Conservative party.

The Danish media has also reported this story (ekstrabladet.dk) -

I answer Steve's question with another question, originally posed earlier this week by TV journalist Jeremy Paxman: why are our politicians so crap?

Enough said!!!

14:30 Members of Scilla's U3A Old Norse group ring at the door and we study Njal's saga for an hour and a half.

Gunnar, one of the saga’s heroes has killed a bunch of his neighbours, and is now being sued by the victims' relatives for compensation, with the hearings taking place at the area's local "Thing" (parliament).

a typical neighborhood brawl:

here we see Gunnar killing Otkel's son

It is interesting that much of the action in this part of the saga takes place under the shadow of the famous volcano Eyjafjallajökull.

the famous Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull

Kath, one of the group members, recalls the year 2010, when she was vacationing in the US and was forced to postpone her return because of the volcanic eruption that led to widespread flight cancellations over the Atlantic.

I comment that Steve, my brother-in-law, and Kathy, my late sister, had the opposite problem because they were vacationing with us in England and were not sure they could fly back to the US as planned.

Flashback to 2010: Steve and Kathy were visiting us,

when the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull threatened them with

flight cancellations and delays: the couple seen here in front of

the Woolpack pub in Slad, made famous by local author Laurie Lee

Steve and Lois on a hill near the small town of Birdlip

overlooking the Severn Vale. Happy times !!!!

16:00 The group meeting ends, but the members stay in our dining room another half hour and carry on chatting, which is nice. It is satisfying that they feel very much at home with us.

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and spend the rest of the evening listening to the radio and watching some television. First, we hear the latest concert in the BBC Proms series, which includes Dvorak's New World Symphony.

The symphony is filled with captivating melodies and variations that have delighted many hundreds of thousands of people over many decades.

It's a bit of a shame that modern composers couldn't make a little more effort and come up with some tunes - maybe if they did, their works would be performed more than once, which would presumably be quite nice for them as well - ha ha ha!

Lois reminds me that we heard this New World symphony at a concert in Shrewsbury Town Hall in 1970 during our first vacation together - we had just hooked up for the first time so the holiday was very exciting to put it mildly. We were both 24 years old.

Flashback to August 1970: Lois and I on our first vacation together,

in the county of Shropshire. We had just hooked up a month earlier

- exciting times

The following month we were in Norway together, so a bit of a whirlwind romance really.

the following month we were in Norway together

21:00 We turn off the radio and watch some television, the first episode in a new documentary series about the great archaeologists and the great archaeological discoveries of the last 100 years or so.

The programme's host is the charming Janina Ramirez, whom Lois and I call (informally) "Boots Woman". We like her trademark boots and her striking South European facial features and eye make-up.

The story of the Sutton Hoo excavation is very weird, to put it mildly. Sutton Hoo is the name of a ridge down near the Deben River in Suffolk, England, east of the village of Woodbridge.

Sutton Hoo, Suffolk

The site is known for its two Anglo-Saxon burial sites from the 500’s and 600’s, discovered in the 1930’s. One of the burial mounds contained an intact whole ship burial with grave goods surpassing all our other Anglo-Saxon sites, both in their wealth and cultural-historical interest.

The weirdest thing about the excavation was its wildly amateurish beginnings. Mrs. Pretty, a local widow who owned the property concerned, was a member of the local spiritualist group - and another member of the group happened to have a dream about one of the hills on the property - she told Ms. Pretty that she had had a vision in which she had seen medieval warriors marching all over it.

Mrs. Pretty contacted a local villager, a quite unremarkable, uneducated man, Basil Brown, a gardener who, however, had an amateur interest in archaeology. She persuaded him to do a little digging on the hill. Mrs. Pretty also asked her own gardener and her own gamekeeper to help him out a bit with the spadework.

Starting from these very amateurish beginnings, the whole thing was finally transformed into England's most important archaeological excavation ever. It is sometimes called "England's Tutankhamun".

Archaeologists were completely stunned by Sutton Hoo, and the wealth of the Anglo-Saxon king buried there with his ship, along with all the sophisticated jewellery, and also weapons embellished with precious stones, made with materials from all over the known world, etc.

Sutton Hoo’s Anglo-Saxon ship burial

arrival of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in England

early in the 5th century

Before the Sutton Hoo excavation, the Anglo-Saxon peoples were regarded very much as the poor relations of their Scandinavian cousins - and often dismissed as mere uncultivated barbarians, to put it mildly.

How fascinating!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation: onsdag den 4. september 2019

08:00 Lois og jeg vælter ud af brusekabinen. Efter morgenmad går Lois rundt om hjørnet til Billy Shears, den lokale damefrisør. I mellemtiden giver jeg mig til at rydde op og støvesuge overalt i huset, fordi Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder sit fjortensdagsgruppemøde hos os i eftermiddag kl 14:30. Bagefter blader jeg igennem endnu 2 kapitler af Njals saga, som er gruppens nuværende projekt.

12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 13:30 og forbereder mig på Scillas gruppemøde.

Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone. Steve, min amerikanske svigerbror, har sendt mig et interessant spørgsmål via email. Han har været i gang med at se Boris Johnsons første session af statsministerens spørgetime: han kommenterer at Boris så forfjamsket ud. Og han spørge, hvordan kunne Boris have kylet Winston Churchills barnebarn (Nicholas Soames) ud af det konservative parti.

De danske medier har også rapporterede denne historie (ekstrabladet.dk) –

Jeg svarer Steves spørgsmål med et andet spørgsmål, stillet oprindeligt af TV-journalisten Jeremy Paxman: hvorfor er vores politikere så skidt?

Nok sagt!!!

14:30 Medlemmer af Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe ringer på døren og vi studerer Njals saga i en time og en halv.

Gunnar, én af sagaens helte har dræbt en flok af sine naboer, og nu bliver han sagsøgt af offrenes slægtninge for erstatning på områdets lokale ”Ting” (parlamentet).

et typisk nabolag-masseslagsmål: her ser vi Gunnar dræbe Otkels søn

Det er interessant, at meget af handlingen i denne del af sagaen spiller sig ud under skyggen af den berømte vulkan Eyjafjallajökull.

den berømte islandske vulkan Eyjafjallajökull

Kath, én af gruppemedlemmerne, minder om 2010, da hun blev på ferie i USA og blev tvunget til at udskyde sin hjemkomst på grund af vulkanens voldelige udbrud, som førte til udbredte flyaflysninger over Atlanterhavet.

Jeg kommenterer, at Steve, min svigerbror, og Kathy, min afdøde søster, havde det modsatte problem i betragtning af, at de var på ferie hos os i England, og ikke var sikre på, at de kunne flyve tilbage til USA som planlagt.

Tilbageblik til 2010: Steve og Kathy var på besøg hos os,

da Eyjafjallajökulls udbrud truede dem med flyaflysninger og forsinkelser:

parret set her foran Woolpack-pubben, gjort berømt

af den lokale forfatter Laurie Lee

Steve og Lois på en bakke i nærheden af den lille by Birdlip,

der har udsigt over hele Severn-dalen.

Lykkelige tider!!!!

16:00 Gruppemødet slutter, men medlemmerne bliver siddende i vores spisestue og fortsætter med at snakke, hvilket er rart. Det er tilfredsstillende, at de føler sig meget hjemme hos os.

18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at lytte til radio og se lidt fjernsyn. For det første hører vi den seneste koncert i BBC Proms-serie, herunder Dvoraks simfoni fra den nye verden.

Simfonien er propfyldt af fængslende melodier og variationer, som har givet glæde til mange tusindvis af mennesker gennem mange årtier. Det er lidt af en skam, at moderne komponister ikke kunne gøre lidt mere indsats og kommer med nogle melodier – måske hvis de gjorde det, ville deres værker blive opført mere end engang, hvilket ville være rart for dem ha ha ha!

Lois minder mig om, at vi hørte denne simfoni fra den nye verden i en koncert i byen Shrewsburys rådhus i 1970 i løbet af vores første ferie sammen – vi havde lige fandt sammen for første gang, og ferien var meget begejstrende for at sige mildt. Vi var begge to 24 år gamle.

Tilbageblik til august 1970: Lois og jeg på vores første ferie sammen,

i grevskabet Shropshire – vi havde lige fandt sammen en måned tidligere:

spændende tider!!!!!

Den følgende måned var vi i Norge sammen, så lidt af en hvirvelvind affære.

den følgende måned var vi i Norge sammen

21:00 Vi slukker for radioen og ser lidt fjernsyn, det første afsnit i en ny dokumentarfilmserie, der handler om de store arkæologer og de store arkæologiske opdagelser af de seneste 100 år eller deromkring.

Programmets vært er den charmerende Janina Ramirez, som Lois og jeg kalder (uformelt) ”støvlerkvinde”. Vi kan godt lide hendes varemærke-støvler og hendes påfældende sydlandske ansigtstræk.

Historien af Sutton Hoo-udgravningen er meget underlig, for at sige mildt. Sutton Hoo er navnet på et højdedrag ned mod Deben-floden i Suffolk i England, øst for landsbyen Woodbridge.

Sutton Hoo, Suffolk

Stedet er kendt for to angelsaksiske gravsteder fra 500- og 600-tallet, opdaget i 1930’erne. En af gravhøjene indeholdt en intakt skibsgrav med et gravgods, som overgår det meste i både rigdom og kulturhistorisk interesse.

Det underlige ved udgravningen er dens amatøragtige begyndelser. Fru Pretty, en lokal enke, der ejede området, var en medlem af en lokal spiritualistisk gruppe – og en anden medlem havde en drøm om en af bakkerne, og hun fortalte fru Pretty at hun så middelalderlige krigere marchere over den.

Fru Pretty overtalte en lokal landsbyboer, en almindelig, uuddannet mand, Basil Brown, en gartner, der imidlertid havde en amatøragtig interesse for arkæologi, til at grave lidt på bakken. Fru Pretty bad også sin egen gartner og sin egen herregårdsskytte om at hjælpe ham.

Startende fra disse helt amatøragtige begyndelser blev det hele endeligt omdannet til Englands vigtigste arkæologiske udgravning nogensinde. Den er nogle gange kaldet ”Englands Tutankhamun”.

Arkæologere var helt overrumplet af Sutton Hoo, og rigdommen af den angelsaksiske konge, der blev begravet der med sit skib, sammen med sofistiske smykke, også våben pyntede med værdifulde sten, lavet med materialer fra hele den kendte verden over osv.

Før Sutton Hoo-udgravningen var de angelsaksiske folk betragtet som de skandinavske stammers fattige slægtninge – de var nedsablet som ukultiverede barbarer, for at sige mildt.