Anglo-Saxon dwellings : a lecture delivered in the lecture room of the exhibition, August 2nd, 1884 / by Professor Hodgetts.

  • Hodgetts (Professor)
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anglo-Saxon dwellings : a lecture delivered in the lecture room of the exhibition, August 2nd, 1884 / by Professor Hodgetts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    grand and glorious sword to which we owe this fair land, the boar spear for the hunt, the gar for combat, and the lighter spears hurled as javelins at the more distant foe, such a group of splendid weapons marked each warrior’s seat, as the escutcheons and coronets in* another great house mark the seats of our earls and thanes at the present day. There were but two windows, one at each end, and they were called wind-eyes ; their object being ventilation rather than lighting the hall. The roof was of the gable form, rather pointed, and covered either with wooden shingles painted and gilt so as to glitter in the sun like gold, or else they were ordinary tiles highly glazed and of variegated colours. In the centre of the hall was the fireplace or hearth, formed of burnt clay and surrounded by a low wall of fire¬ bricks from which the smoke rose in eddying columns to escape through the aperture in the roof left there for its passage. At each end of the long hall was a door, and during a feast both doors were open and the poorest passer¬ by might enter and be certain of noble alms. To these two doors allusion was made in the early time when Christianity was young in the land and very far from being the religion of our race. A warrior of Odin, who in a grand debate in the ting, or open meeting of the free and brave, then convened to discuss the advisability of adopting the Christian faith—spoke as follows, “ We in this life, O mighty king, are only passing guests. Man’s soul is like the bird in winter which flies in from the dark cold air without, warms itself at the hearth, O king, then passes out through the other door into the unknown dark. He is gone—no man knows whence he came or whither he goeth. Now if these new doctrines will teach us whither the spirit flies and whence it comes—let us listen and become Christians.” This anecdote is related by Bede, and may be of the latter part of the eighth century, or he may have heard it, as is most likely, from others as a current story coming B 3 [T. 40.]