[Ravensfort] Gesæliglic Geol

James Northfolke jamesnorthfolke at gmail.com
Sat Dec 20 08:42:30 PST 2008


At our Yule party, Lord Alaric and I worked a bit on the
Vince Guaraldi "Christmastime is Here" piece from the Peanuts special.  His
Qwouthe request gave me an idea.  Here are the lyrics to "Christmastime is
Here" in Old English.  I make no claims to form or style as the translation
is primarily literal, though I have made some concessions to sense where I
could not find a particular word or proper meaning in my dictionaries.  The
form and meter of the original is quite different than that of Old English
which used patterns of variable syllables with fixed stresses in each line.
 The lyrics in this translation do not rhyme.  Finally, I could not find the
words of, or allusions to, sleigh bells (though sleigh and sled are American
words that come from the Anglo-Saxon word "slidam," which means to slide);
so I used war horn.
How bored am I?

Happy Yule,

James

Cristesmæssetid is her

ead eac wistfulnes

dream to eal þæt lytlingen

hiera gewilnian sael


smaw in þa lyft

ymen gehwær

ealdantid eac gamol leoðorun

of þā frēondscipas eac gesihþ to bryttigean


guþhorn in þa lyft

wlite gehwær

geoltid be se lieg

eac gefeonde þā gemynda þær


Cristesmæssetid is her

hīe dōþ secan gehende

eala, þæt we æfre geseon

swelc gebære gearmælum
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