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Jan. 9th, 2005 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rymenhildHello, all.
I'm back in my apartment, after two very pleasant weeks spent with my family in Philadelphia. In the words of Jane Austen (from Emma, which I am reading this week in preparation for teaching it next month), "It was a delightful visit; - perfect, in being much too short." Although it was wonderful to see parents, assorted relatives and old friends, the best part was the amount of time I could spend with my sister; we are very close, and generally talk to each other five times a week via telephone, but we hadn't spent more than seven consecutive days together in the last year and a half.
Of course, since I didn't really use the computer much while home, my friendslist is now at skip?some unreasonably high number. If any of you have important news or writing you posted in the last weeks and don't want me to miss, please comment here. Also, I will applaud the rest of the friends I promised to praise in the next few days, and I will finally read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jandersoncoats's novel, which has been sitting unopened in my mailbox waiting for me to have three consecutive hours to spend reading it for weeks. Sorry!
I did, however, glance briefly over some![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide tales others recommended, and I am absolutely thrilled to report the presence of excellent stories in the two fandoms I wanted most to see.
The Water-Horse by Thamiris.
Fandom: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Rating: NC-17 (The rating is only earned near the end of the story, but it is definitely earned. Be warned.)
In the fourteenth-century Middle English poem that inspired this tale, Sir Gawain passes several kisses from his host's wife to his host. Gawain's omnisexuality has not attracted nearly as much attention, at least from fanwriters, as it really ought. There's a fine trilogy by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
irisbleu out there somewhere (I can't find the link; Irisbleu, could you link it?), but the world certainly needs more Gawain/Green Knight. The cheery, sexy, hilarious "The Water-Horse" is a wonderful addition to a nearly nonexistent fandom.
The tapestry's first panel shows the Green Knight on his knees before Gawain, who holds the axe high above his head so high that it seems divorced from the scene. Instead the focus falls on Gawain's arched body and the kneeling figure with his parted lips, a parody so grotesque that Gawain nearly rips the tapestry from the wall.
"No wonder the lady's seduction failed," Alisander crows, close enough to bump hips. "Her approach was too subtle."
Unfortunately, imaginary armour is thinner than vellum. "He's laughing," Gawain snaps, "not offering me oral satisfaction."
"Oh, he's laughing all right, imagining your turn with his big axe." Alisander has more teeth than a hungry fox and flaunts them in his grin. "`The Beheading Game'--now there's a metaphor I'll have to try it [sic] on the tavern wenches."
Freawaru's Lament byellen_fremedon
Fandom Inspiration: Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment
Rating: G
Freawaru, one of a handful of female figures wandering quietly and unobtrusively through the text of the Old English epic Beowulf, fascinates me. Her doom, an unhappy marriage capping a failed alliance, is sketched in brief allusions and foreshadowings.ellen_fremedon takes up Freawaru's story in a verse fragment paralleling the fragment that tells the tale of Hildeburh, another one of those mysterious women of Beowulf. She uses an alliterative meter, which, although not quite identical to Beowulf's alliterative meter, is about as close as any English translation could ever come.
ellen_fremedon knows the presence and absence of women in Beowulf well. Her username suggests a longstanding interest in the subject; ellen fremedon, from line 3 of Beowulf, translates to "they performed courageous deeds" and is the punchline to the geeky medievalist joke, "Who is the most interesting woman in Beowulf?" When she recites Freawaru's story, then, she does so with infinite understanding of exactly what the incompleteness of Freawaru's tale does to Beowulf, She signals the importance of incompleteness by leaving one careful, intentional absence in the fragment. The woman in Freawaru's Lament is never named.
Wretched the woman who wakes alone,
And on the sea-cliffs from sun's rise
Till the deep waters drown its light
Watches the ship-road and the shore beyond
For men returning from the raven's feast,
The field of the slain far over the waves,
From fire and slaughter to the sheltering hall
Coming safe home-- sons and their father,
Her own dear lord from Denmark returning.
But no track crosses the tide-rocked waves,
No sight of sail sped by the wind
To the haven coming, and the high hall.
---
Breaking news:muchabstracted is a queen among women, a jewel among friends, and a selectrix of the very best presents, like a copy of The Fall of the Kings signed by both Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, with a note from Delia Sherman, "To: Andrea - who appreciates the academic in-jokes."
I'm back in my apartment, after two very pleasant weeks spent with my family in Philadelphia. In the words of Jane Austen (from Emma, which I am reading this week in preparation for teaching it next month), "It was a delightful visit; - perfect, in being much too short." Although it was wonderful to see parents, assorted relatives and old friends, the best part was the amount of time I could spend with my sister; we are very close, and generally talk to each other five times a week via telephone, but we hadn't spent more than seven consecutive days together in the last year and a half.
Of course, since I didn't really use the computer much while home, my friendslist is now at skip?some unreasonably high number. If any of you have important news or writing you posted in the last weeks and don't want me to miss, please comment here. Also, I will applaud the rest of the friends I promised to praise in the next few days, and I will finally read
jandersoncoats's novel, which has been sitting unopened in my mailbox waiting for me to have three consecutive hours to spend reading it for weeks. Sorry!I did, however, glance briefly over some
yuletide tales others recommended, and I am absolutely thrilled to report the presence of excellent stories in the two fandoms I wanted most to see.The Water-Horse by Thamiris.
Fandom: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Rating: NC-17 (The rating is only earned near the end of the story, but it is definitely earned. Be warned.)
In the fourteenth-century Middle English poem that inspired this tale, Sir Gawain passes several kisses from his host's wife to his host. Gawain's omnisexuality has not attracted nearly as much attention, at least from fanwriters, as it really ought. There's a fine trilogy by
irisbleu out there somewhere (I can't find the link; Irisbleu, could you link it?), but the world certainly needs more Gawain/Green Knight. The cheery, sexy, hilarious "The Water-Horse" is a wonderful addition to a nearly nonexistent fandom. The tapestry's first panel shows the Green Knight on his knees before Gawain, who holds the axe high above his head so high that it seems divorced from the scene. Instead the focus falls on Gawain's arched body and the kneeling figure with his parted lips, a parody so grotesque that Gawain nearly rips the tapestry from the wall.
"No wonder the lady's seduction failed," Alisander crows, close enough to bump hips. "Her approach was too subtle."
Unfortunately, imaginary armour is thinner than vellum. "He's laughing," Gawain snaps, "not offering me oral satisfaction."
"Oh, he's laughing all right, imagining your turn with his big axe." Alisander has more teeth than a hungry fox and flaunts them in his grin. "`The Beheading Game'--now there's a metaphor I'll have to try it [sic] on the tavern wenches."
Freawaru's Lament by
ellen_fremedonRating: G
Freawaru, one of a handful of female figures wandering quietly and unobtrusively through the text of the Old English epic Beowulf, fascinates me. Her doom, an unhappy marriage capping a failed alliance, is sketched in brief allusions and foreshadowings.
ellen_fremedon takes up Freawaru's story in a verse fragment paralleling the fragment that tells the tale of Hildeburh, another one of those mysterious women of Beowulf. She uses an alliterative meter, which, although not quite identical to Beowulf's alliterative meter, is about as close as any English translation could ever come.ellen_fremedon knows the presence and absence of women in Beowulf well. Her username suggests a longstanding interest in the subject; ellen fremedon, from line 3 of Beowulf, translates to "they performed courageous deeds" and is the punchline to the geeky medievalist joke, "Who is the most interesting woman in Beowulf?" When she recites Freawaru's story, then, she does so with infinite understanding of exactly what the incompleteness of Freawaru's tale does to Beowulf, She signals the importance of incompleteness by leaving one careful, intentional absence in the fragment. The woman in Freawaru's Lament is never named.Wretched the woman who wakes alone,
And on the sea-cliffs from sun's rise
Till the deep waters drown its light
Watches the ship-road and the shore beyond
For men returning from the raven's feast,
The field of the slain far over the waves,
From fire and slaughter to the sheltering hall
Coming safe home-- sons and their father,
Her own dear lord from Denmark returning.
But no track crosses the tide-rocked waves,
No sight of sail sped by the wind
To the haven coming, and the high hall.
---
Breaking news:
muchabstracted is a queen among women, a jewel among friends, and a selectrix of the very best presents, like a copy of The Fall of the Kings signed by both Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, with a note from Delia Sherman, "To: Andrea - who appreciates the academic in-jokes."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:42 pm (UTC)I've never heard that one before. Those are the sorts of things that make me happy to be a medievalist, or an aspiring one. (As opposed to things like a night spent with Catherine of Siena's Dialogue, which is guaranteed not to make me happy.)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:20 pm (UTC)Also, the lovely thing about these stories is that their inspirations are safely in the public domain, and therefore no copyrights can possibly be broken in their postings.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:20 pm (UTC)Hm, the main news in my LJ was probably the post introducing my boyfriend.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:17 pm (UTC)Got your postcard - thanks so much. As for the Da Vinci Code, I got ten pages into it and loathed the writing style so much I couldn't continue.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 05:42 pm (UTC)(No real news from over here save vagaries of work-stuff. Oh, and w/r/t Milliways, a new character approaches that I really do need to email you about... *does so*)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:36 pm (UTC)(Oh, I so hope you like the idea...)
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Date: 2005-01-10 08:36 pm (UTC)I never knew that about Ellen Fremedon's name! That's so very cool. I love obscure puns like that.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-17 03:58 pm (UTC)... some later point. gah.