Re: CELT: Spoken Conlangs

[Sally Caves <scaves@FRONTIERNET.NET>]

On Sat, 28 Mar 1998, Andrew Smith wrote:

> Arthur is remembered as Ill Imperadur and Test ill Dragun, back in a
> glorious golden age just before the establishment of the Principality.
> There is no evidence that the royal dynasty is related to Arthur, although
> Paternus and Arthur may have been near contempories.  The Matter of
> Britain may have evolved to resemble the Matter of France as it became a
> myth of kingdom-building than a myth of national resistance.

So what happened to the poor Anglo-Saxons?  Derailment?  No Beowulf poet?
No Norman Conquest?  No Geoffrey Chaucer?  Sob...  Oh well.

> Bardd is the common word in Brithenig for poet.  They are widely admired.
> Probably every pupil is forced to read Taliesin, Girallt, Gioffri,
> Dylan...

Add Aneirin, Llywarch Hen poet, Heledd, Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Goch, etc.

Cool ditty snipped (ouch!).  I liked it.

> I do know that
> there is an early style called Hesperic, (Ysperig) very heavy on
> alliteration, mostly written in monastic latin.
>

AH!  THE HISPERICA FAMINA!  I could go to town on that.  Irish monks
producing long, agonistic poems in which they call upon the most obscure
Latin vocabulary they can find to best their opponents.  It uses Latin,
but it's in the time-honored tradition of bardic competition, marked in
Welsh by long magical poems that are intended to blind one's competitors
with their obscurity.  Taliesin (see _Ystorya Taliesin_ by Patrick
Ford--see me, too, in my other life, bibliography on request) is a huge
contributor to the tradition in Welsh.  There are two glorious poems in
the Hesperica collection that detail the parts of the body.  They are the
Leiden Lorica and the Lorica of Laidchen.  The one is a charm, meant to
"empty out" the heart of one's beloved so that she will love you and no
other man (or he will love you and no other woman.  Or she will love you
and no other woman.  Or he will love you and no other man.  I want to
cover all bases here).  They are also fabulous collections of wordlists.
I've been basing my collection of T. parts of the body on these.  The
Lorica is the breastplate: you arm yourself and all the parts of you by
reciting it, calling upon the Godhead and the angels and saints to protect
you on your journey from injury and disease.  The other blesses all the
parts of your beloved.  No stone is left unturned (or uncovered, as the
case may be ;-)).  Hurray!

And that will have to be my last compulsive post of the day.  Back to
work! (including the much neglected Englisc... sigh)

Sally
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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net

            Mr. Book:  "Shut it down!!"
                            _Dark City_

        niffodyr tweluanrem letteuim an
      "The gods have retractable claws"
                   The Gospel of Bastet
       (from "Ketamine," F&SF Mar 1995)
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