A important saying we had on the Pilgrimage was 'if we knew why, we wouldn't be doing it' - Daisy stole it directly from Bill Drummond's mouth
This is all very lovely stuff. I'm generally not that fascinated by etymology... But word and letter archeology... That's another thing. If I had more time I'd dig deep into Owen Barfield's work.
All I have to offer, inspired by A and the Ox... is the little known theory about the $ motif.... A nice easy one for reversing! There are a few tedious theories about how it came to be. But the one I love is suggested by Marc Shell... It makes total sense to me... $ is a monogram of In Hoc Signo (by His sign... Ie By the sign of Christ).
Well, as ever, Bill has it right. Love that saying Jon.
You know I've got a real pash for Owen Barfield and his theories! There's a whole bit in my new book about him and he featured a lot in The Idyllegy Happening.
Thank you for the $ intel. That's very interesting!
We think we've found a field in Devon so might need your pilgrimage expertise at some point. x
Thank you for sharing this fascinating breakthrough, Thomas. Not only endeavouring to create a type that can be read both this way and that, but to channel 'boustrophedon' as the creative furrow to do so... a word which is trampled into the sod of language by the brutes of the plough themselves!
Your project had me digging out my MA Creative Writing dissertation, Out of Darkness, Cometh the Black Country - a saga of people, place and identity. In this piece, I reference the setting and experiences of the West Midlands, including some of the allegorical themes found in the Plowman narrative. In my saga, I was influenced by epic medieval narratives, Middle English epic alliterative verse and Old Norse saga forms. Although this was ‘penned’ around 150+ years before Piers Plowman, I wanted to share an old bull story with you, hoping it may unearth another creative turn. It’s an Old Norse myth, with oxen at the front and centre…
In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, the opening of ’Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)’ talks of Sweden’s King being tricked by the Goddess Gefjun. Here is an extract from The Prose Edda (Byock, 2005):
King Gylfi ruled over the lands now called Sweden. It is said that he offered a travelling woman, in return for the pleasure of her company, a piece of ploughland in his kingdom as large as four oxen could plough in a day and a night. But this woman, named Gefjun, was of the Aesir. She took four oxen from Jotunheim [Giant Land] in the north. They were her own sons by a giant, and she yoked them to the plough, which dug so hard and so deep that it cut the land loose. The oxen dragged this land westward out to sea, stopping finally at a certain channel. There Gefjun fastened the land and gave it the name Sjaelland. The place where the land was removed has since become a body of water in Sweden now called Logrinn [the Lake], and in this lake there are as many inlets as there are headlands in Sjaelland. So says the poet Bragi the Old:
I’ve only just gotten around to putting it online, or at least some of it - thanks for the nudge on that. Here’s an introduction to the project: https://substack.com/home/post/p-150164071 You can then click through to read the first story, The Splendid Isolation of the British Empire, complete with a few colloquial kennings.
Look forward to the next instalment of Our Longland Is Dreaming!
I opened my copy of Piers Plowman the other day, for the first time since I was about 19. Just in case the cosmos is trying to convey anything, I'll share that I enthusiastically highlighted the word 'songewarie' (interpreting dreams). Also scrawled '3 estates. Know your place' in the margin of the Prologue, which I think is my corporate purpose interest being born. ('Dowel by doing good' comes to mind.)
My hazy memory is that I found the allegory WAY too much to get my head around. But looking back, I now think that's probably the point – you're not really meant to get your head around it.
The project already sounds ingenious and multilayered – look forward to watching on. Will happily join in any Peasants' Revolt that results.
I'm so excited to experience what emerges from this.
The ox-in-the-A triggered vague memories of something on this topic in the lectures of Eugene Halliday (my grandparents' guru). I tried to track it down, but haven't yet managed to, but I did find this, which seems worth sharing, a sort of letter-level boustrophedon:
"This A we once drew before, also upside down, and we said that the one upside down used to be the drawing of an ox, like this, and the one this way up was the drawing of an eagle and it represented two kinds of energy, an energy vectored upwards and an energy vectored downwards. This down vectored A is the privative A or the alpha, deprived of ascending energy; it is passive, it is accepting. This one is active, ascending. This would be called the ‘spiritus asper’, the hard A and this one, the ‘spiritus lenis’, the soft one. So, we mustn’t be confused by the symbols, we must always go to the sound and learn to think in terms of the sound."
Fascinating stuff, once again. I’m no expert on the history of lettering and type but ‘boustrophedon’ and ‘as the ox turns’ and the connection with the letter A reminded me of a short BBC series from a few years back, called The Secret History of Writing, in which, if my memory holds right, they unpack that very letter. Sadly it’s no longer available to watch but I check back once in a while in case that changes:
A important saying we had on the Pilgrimage was 'if we knew why, we wouldn't be doing it' - Daisy stole it directly from Bill Drummond's mouth
This is all very lovely stuff. I'm generally not that fascinated by etymology... But word and letter archeology... That's another thing. If I had more time I'd dig deep into Owen Barfield's work.
All I have to offer, inspired by A and the Ox... is the little known theory about the $ motif.... A nice easy one for reversing! There are a few tedious theories about how it came to be. But the one I love is suggested by Marc Shell... It makes total sense to me... $ is a monogram of In Hoc Signo (by His sign... Ie By the sign of Christ).
Look forward to the next passage. Xx
Well, as ever, Bill has it right. Love that saying Jon.
You know I've got a real pash for Owen Barfield and his theories! There's a whole bit in my new book about him and he featured a lot in The Idyllegy Happening.
Thank you for the $ intel. That's very interesting!
We think we've found a field in Devon so might need your pilgrimage expertise at some point. x
Thank you for sharing this fascinating breakthrough, Thomas. Not only endeavouring to create a type that can be read both this way and that, but to channel 'boustrophedon' as the creative furrow to do so... a word which is trampled into the sod of language by the brutes of the plough themselves!
Your project had me digging out my MA Creative Writing dissertation, Out of Darkness, Cometh the Black Country - a saga of people, place and identity. In this piece, I reference the setting and experiences of the West Midlands, including some of the allegorical themes found in the Plowman narrative. In my saga, I was influenced by epic medieval narratives, Middle English epic alliterative verse and Old Norse saga forms. Although this was ‘penned’ around 150+ years before Piers Plowman, I wanted to share an old bull story with you, hoping it may unearth another creative turn. It’s an Old Norse myth, with oxen at the front and centre…
In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, the opening of ’Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)’ talks of Sweden’s King being tricked by the Goddess Gefjun. Here is an extract from The Prose Edda (Byock, 2005):
King Gylfi ruled over the lands now called Sweden. It is said that he offered a travelling woman, in return for the pleasure of her company, a piece of ploughland in his kingdom as large as four oxen could plough in a day and a night. But this woman, named Gefjun, was of the Aesir. She took four oxen from Jotunheim [Giant Land] in the north. They were her own sons by a giant, and she yoked them to the plough, which dug so hard and so deep that it cut the land loose. The oxen dragged this land westward out to sea, stopping finally at a certain channel. There Gefjun fastened the land and gave it the name Sjaelland. The place where the land was removed has since become a body of water in Sweden now called Logrinn [the Lake], and in this lake there are as many inlets as there are headlands in Sjaelland. So says the poet Bragi the Old:
Gefjun dragged from Gylfi
gladly the land beyond value,
Denmark's increase,
steam rising from the swift-footed bulls.
The oxen bore eight
moons of the forehead and four heads,
hauling as they went in front of
the grassy isle's wide fissure.
Joseph, my apologies for the delay in replying to your thoughtful comment. I'm very pleased you're liking the ideas we're playing with so far!
Thank you so much for the Swedish piece, super interesting, love it.
Out of darkness, cometh the Black Country sounds brilliant. Would love to read it if you're able to share?
It’s all good, Thomas. My pleasure.
I’ve only just gotten around to putting it online, or at least some of it - thanks for the nudge on that. Here’s an introduction to the project: https://substack.com/home/post/p-150164071 You can then click through to read the first story, The Splendid Isolation of the British Empire, complete with a few colloquial kennings.
Look forward to the next instalment of Our Longland Is Dreaming!
I opened my copy of Piers Plowman the other day, for the first time since I was about 19. Just in case the cosmos is trying to convey anything, I'll share that I enthusiastically highlighted the word 'songewarie' (interpreting dreams). Also scrawled '3 estates. Know your place' in the margin of the Prologue, which I think is my corporate purpose interest being born. ('Dowel by doing good' comes to mind.)
My hazy memory is that I found the allegory WAY too much to get my head around. But looking back, I now think that's probably the point – you're not really meant to get your head around it.
The project already sounds ingenious and multilayered – look forward to watching on. Will happily join in any Peasants' Revolt that results.
'songewarie' is such a beautiful word.
Delighted you've been turned back on to Langland. This is the poetry version of being a hipster.
I'm really interested in the concept of allegory. I agree, it seems so weird and forced and clumsy but therein lies the power.
The spirit of 1381 lives on.
I'm so excited to experience what emerges from this.
The ox-in-the-A triggered vague memories of something on this topic in the lectures of Eugene Halliday (my grandparents' guru). I tried to track it down, but haven't yet managed to, but I did find this, which seems worth sharing, a sort of letter-level boustrophedon:
"This A we once drew before, also upside down, and we said that the one upside down used to be the drawing of an ox, like this, and the one this way up was the drawing of an eagle and it represented two kinds of energy, an energy vectored upwards and an energy vectored downwards. This down vectored A is the privative A or the alpha, deprived of ascending energy; it is passive, it is accepting. This one is active, ascending. This would be called the ‘spiritus asper’, the hard A and this one, the ‘spiritus lenis’, the soft one. So, we mustn’t be confused by the symbols, we must always go to the sound and learn to think in terms of the sound."
[From https://eugenehalliday.com/liverpool-lectures/ ]
Fascinating stuff, once again. I’m no expert on the history of lettering and type but ‘boustrophedon’ and ‘as the ox turns’ and the connection with the letter A reminded me of a short BBC series from a few years back, called The Secret History of Writing, in which, if my memory holds right, they unpack that very letter. Sadly it’s no longer available to watch but I check back once in a while in case that changes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mtmj