r/OldEnglish

for context i'm thinking of making a homebrew monster for D&D that would essentially be a dragon infected with the curse of lycanthropy and I need a proper name for it. I know "werewolf" essentially means "man wolf" and I think the "were" bit is old english? (please correct me if I'm wrong). so by that logic I want this thing to be called a (dragon in old english)wolf. from my very cursory knowledge I think the term I'm looking for is "wyrm" but I might be misremembering because that word is already used as a term for stuff related to dragons in official D&D like a baby dragon being called a wyrmling and the oldest, almost godlike dragons being refered to as greatwyrms. thanks for any help! ^_^ <3

Sē bealubrōga forþcymþ þǣre brycġe. Gandælf stōd on middeldǣle þǣre stōwe, hliniende on þǣre ġierde þe on his winestran handa wæs, ac Glamdring on his ōþerre handa mid ċealdum leoman līxte, and hwītum. His fēond eft ætstent and hine andwlat, and swa swa twā miċele fiþru, sēo sċeadu ārāhte, þe him ymbhringde. He hefde þæt hweop, and þā þwangas þuton and cracodon. Fȳr cwōm fram his næsþȳrlum. Ac Gandælf ġestōd.

“Þū ne mōst lēoran,” he cwæþ. Þā orcas ætstōdon, and þǣr full swīgung wæs. “Iċ eom þæs Diernan Fȳres þēow, Anores līġes wealdend. Þū ne mōst lēoran. Þæt deorce fȳr ne framaþ þē næs, Udūnes līġ. Eftċiere Sċeadwe! Þū ne mōst lēoran.”

Note: I did my best with the diacritics, as I don't normally use them but a lot of people here prefer them. They're a pain to use if you're not writing by hand, and I may have missed one or two. Also Reddit decided to delete all the spaces between words when I copied this from my document, so if there's yet a missing space somewhere, my bad.

https://preview.redd.it/mjt1rdfcox8h1.png?width=429&format=png&auto=webp&s=5720b910e8b524e7bbce04c56a392b1d8be762d3

I've been trying to get the hang of noun declension in OE for a while, and I came across this "paradigm cheat sheet" that I found, so I thought "great, perfect for practice." I noticed this, but I could've sworn "scip" was a strong a-stem? Please advise.

I was really inspired by a YouTuber Graham Scheper who memorized 1000 lines of Beowulf. It was quite a challenge for me to learn The Wanderer. I made it through 80-84 lines. Unfortunately, I can’t make it through the second part as my brain apparently refuses to do so. Share your favourite OE poems here👇🏻

https://preview.redd.it/cl4b5f3ue39h1.jpg?width=1206&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2905e8332ec127eeffd9d091bd8f6bd889938f27

i.e., do you say: minu scipu or minan scipu

I'm trying to construct an Old English phrasing for a motto that would translate to something like "Service by choice, not by compulsion."

With my rudimentary understanding, I have something that *seems* grammatical, but I wonder how stilted it is (or if it would have different connotations).

Þeġnung þurh cyre, nealles þurh nēad.

Basically, I don't want to find something that's technically grammatical, but mixes up a butt dial with a booty call.

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I'm reading Aelfric's summary of the Old Testament and a few times he has mentioned that he has translated certain books into English that don't seem to be included in the extant corpus. He mentions that he also awende on Englisc: Judith, Esther, Maccabees 1 & 2, and Job.

Does anyone know if these are lost translations, or do they refer to the homilies he did on these five books?

I think Job and Esther probably do refer to homilies. Just based on how he phrases his description as sceortlice "short" which I read as "summarized or abridged" for Esther, and sumne cwide for Job, which I read as literally "some saying" which sounds like it could mean a sermon?

Am I understanding this right?

It seems like gietan had multiple senses somewhat resembling the uses of get today, but rather than the base form it was words like begietan, ongietan, or agietan. Begietan seems straightforwardly related to the modern word, or at least the closest form to the obtain sense that isn't the root itself, but ongietan and agietan meaning to understand made me wonder about where the meanings of our modern word get come from. Because in Modern English you can "get" something as In understand it also. Would it be more likely that these senses of get today are descendant from some of the senses in derivative words in Old English, or would these senses have been lost along with those derivative words and the modern senses more likely be a recreation of the same metaphor of grasping/acquiring/having a hold on meaning to understand? On one hand I don't know if meaning would survive all the forms collapsing into the base root word, but on the other, they seem to match up relatively closely in meaning? I don't believe North Germanic languages have these same senses of "get" that Old English and Modern English share? If those meanings were lost and then remade, why would only the descendant language recreate them rather than cousin languages which also have the cognate?