By George

[Gary]

Happy St Georges day to one and all.

 

[Abbe Osram]

Happy St Georges day to one and all.

What is ST Georges day? Could you give a stupid foreigner a history lesson please?

cheers
Abbe

 

[Toddy]

It's the English patron saint's day. The United Kingdom is made up of at least 4 different countries; Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland...the Manx and the Shetlanders frequently claim autonomy too though and each country has it's own customs, Saints and flags.
Saint George slew the dragon, to earlier folks this was analogous to the English conquering the Welsh whose symbol is a dragon. It all ties in with the invasions that pushed the British (Welsh) out of their heartlands and into the west of the country. W. central Scotland down into Galloway use to be called Wallia and the inhabitants spoke Welsh (ancient British version anyway)
It's a busy wee island, ours

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[CLEM]

A happy st Georges day to all Englishmen and Women.

 

[Ed]

Happy St Georges day to you all..... I think its a day for a spot of mushroom picking.... see if I can find the patch of St Georges that were out last year.


Ed

 

[JakeR]

I learnt something new there Toddy...thanks!

Happy St Georges day everyone...

King Arthur woulda been a Welsh-speaker...And suprisingly the early Welsh is very similiar to modern Welsh...!

 

[Gary]

I learnt something new there Toddy...thanks!

Happy St Georges day everyone...

King Arthur woulda been a Welsh-speaker...And suprisingly the early Welsh is very similiar to modern Welsh...!

King Arthur would have spoken Brythonic (a form of celtic similar to welsh and Gealic) and latin Jake. And 'welsh' is derived from the anglo-saxon word Wylisc - or forienger.

 

[innocent bystander]

All this got me looking and i found this :

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintg05.htm

Look's like he's the saint of just about everyone and everything... I know prague is plastered with statues of him. Shame the pc brigade wont let us celebrate the day properly (i.e late opening )....

 

[Abbe Osram]

It's the English patron saint's day. The United Kingdom is made up of at least 4 different countries; Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland...the Manx and the Shetlanders frequently claim autonomy too though and each country has it's own customs, Saints and flags.
Saint George slew the dragon, to earlier folks this was analogous to the English conquering the Welsh whose symbol is a dragon. It all ties in with the invasions that pushed the British (Welsh) out of their heartlands and into the west of the country. W. central Scotland down into Galloway use to be called Wallia and the inhabitants spoke Welsh (ancient British version anyway)
It's a busy wee island, ours

Cheers,
Toddy

Thanks Toddy, now I got a picture!
Happy Saint Georges day!
cheers
Abbe

 

[Moonraker]

King Arthur would have spoken Brythonic (a form of celtic similar to welsh and Gealic) and latin Jake. And 'welsh' is derived from the anglo-saxon word Wylisc - or forienger.

I thought that Brythonic was the term used for the 'group' of Celtic languages including Breton, Cornish and 'Welsh' (Cymraeg or Cymric) Gary?

I guess you could say that he spoke British as 'brython' itself is the Welsh word for Briton

It's a great shame your book has not been published Gary. I bet it would made very interesting reading.

The United Kingdom is made up of at least 4 different countries; Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland...

I think you meant Scotland, Wales, England and 'Northern Ireland, unless I missed something on the news last night

The roots of St George and the Dragon go way back into antiquity. If you look at Greek myths:

For the Greeks of the Classical times, dragons were terrifying serpentlike earth-born remnants of an earlier age, dark creatures that had to be heroically eliminated.

and

Always, in the literary myths that have survived, the hero from the new Olympian age is seen to destroy the dragon, never to consult it; the dragon has been reinterpreted as having terrified and threatened the local populace

Later, the tale of hero defeating evil dragon was used by the Church as an allegory for good (Christianity) defeating evil (paganism) and you can see that also as good (Christianity) defeating evil (Celtic paganism) in the context of the British Isles.

The later Babylonian dragon worshiped by the court of the Persian Cyrus the Great, in the narrative in Bel and the Dragon probably dates to the late 2nd century BCE. John's Book of Revelation— Greek literature, not Roman— describes Satan as "a great dragon, flaming red, with seven heads and ten horns". Much of John's literary inspiration is late Hebrew (compare Bel and the Dragon) and Greek, but John's dragon, like his Satan, are both more likely to have come originally through Persia. Perhaps our distinctions between dragons of western origin and Chinese dragons (q.v.) are arbitrary.

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon

Personally I think it all rooted in the symbol of serpent (dragon) as ancient knowledge. Think Eve and the Serpent etc.

So Abbe, you probably have a similar mythological roots in the sagas with the dragon 'Nidhogg' finally being killed by Thor, or Beowulf bravely killing the dragon but being mortally wounded. As with so much in legend there are threads of truth and of myths with common origins found across the world.

Of course Beowulf brings us neatly back to King Arthur! But that's for another day. And don't mention the Knights Templar!

 

[Toddy]

I think you meant Scotland, Wales, England and 'Northern Ireland, unless I missed something on the news last night

You're quite right, I never even gave it a thought, we just take it for granted that it's understood. When we speak of southern Ireland we say Eire. Parochialism strikes again I believe they share the same saint, Patrick, though.

Toddy

 

[Gary]

I thought that Brythonic was the term used for the 'group' of Celtic languages including Breton, Cornish and 'Welsh' (Cymraeg or Cymric) Gary?

I guess you could say that he spoke British as 'brython' itself is the Welsh word for Briton

It's a great shame your book has not been published Gary. I bet it would made very interesting reading.

Your right MR - BUT in the dark ages the languages were divided into slightly differently to modern britian.

Breton, Cornish and Welsh would have been the last surviving dialects of British (brythonic) - scotland would have been speaking either Pictish or a gaelic derived from the Atti cotti (irish raiders/immigrants) who settled along the west coast and borders of hadrians wall ect.

Breton - Brittany and much of france (amorica) would also have spoken a similar dialect but this was lost after the franks (from where france gets its name) over ran it and finally took control.

As for my book - never say never - Steven King got rejected Hundreds of times before getting published - so you never know.

 

[Moonraker]

Your right MR - BUT in the dark ages the languages were divided into slightly differently to modern britian.

Breton, Cornish and Welsh would have been the last surviving dialects of British (brythonic) - scotland would have been speaking either Pictish or a gaelic derived from the Atti cotti (irish raiders/immigrants) who settled along the west coast and borders of hadrians wall ect.

Breton - Brittany and much of france (amorica) would also have spoken a similar dialect but this was lost after the franks (from where france gets its name) over ran it and finally took control.

As for my book - never say never - Steven King got rejected Hundreds of times before getting published - so you never know.

Thanks for the clarification Gary.

I believe that 'Armorica' was the old name for the region of Brittany (Bretagne).

GL with the hunt for a publisher

 

[JakeR]

Cheers Gary...

Your right about the "forienger" bit, thats why there is no direct translation for "Wales" or "Welshman"...Just "Cyrmu"/"Gwlad" and "Cymry". cos we're not foreign to ourselves

 

[Toddy]

King Arthur woulda been a Welsh-speaker...And suprisingly the early Welsh is very similiar to modern Welsh...!

There's a whole branch of Scottish History that is devoted to language. Many of the words that are still used as place names are indicative of 'lost' languages and the sentence structure of modern Scots Gaelic vs Irish Gaelic seems to throw a twist into the debate too, similar words used but the thought pattern and the construction seem to be tied to an older, indigenous, tongue.
Even in English Scots can sound odd, "Come you here to me.", "Fit like?", spatial words are different too. "Thon", meaning both that and there, is quite specific and there is no real equivalent in English/O.E./French. Many of the Pictish words are not unfamiliar to Welsh speakers and I'm told that the Cornish understand the spatial sense of self in place as we do. Makes you wonder just how much of the old British is still around us.
Welsh is probably the closest to the Iron Age tribes; further back? Who knows.
That said, we use a lot of French words and Dutch/Geman ones too and Northern England has a lot of (Danish) Viking terms while Shetland has Norse ones, and the more recent Indian input into the language from the Raj.....*too* early for this, I need my coffee

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Rhapsody]

I learnt something new there Toddy...thanks!

Happy St Georges day everyone...

King Arthur woulda been a Welsh-speaker...And suprisingly the early Welsh is very similiar to modern Welsh...!

I believe scholars these days think that if Arthur existed at all then he was from the Scottish border areas... Merlin was happily Welsh, though.

 

[Gary]

I believe scholars these days think that if Arthur existed at all then he was from the Scottish border areas... Merlin was happily Welsh, though.

Theres two lines of thought - one he was a warrior in or around the Roxburgh/Kelso area.
The other that he was born of the Votidini who moved from North of the wall into wales when the romans left.

Merlin never existed - but - there was a druid names Mryddin who seems to be the basis from the character.

Guineveir and Lancelot didnt exist until the Victorian era!

 

[Rhapsody]

Merlin never existed - but - there was a druid names Mryddin who seems to be the basis from the character.

And he was from Wales, wasn't he?

 

[Gary]

Only in as much as its wales now! But yes I believe Myrddin would have been welsh although there is a strong link to cornwall too.

Fortunately we will likely never know the truth - why ruin a good story with facts!

 

[JakeR]

I thought that Welsh was the language of great britain at the time of arthur?