Anglo-Saxon dwellings : a lecture delivered in the lecture room of the exhibition, August 2nd, 1884 / by Professor Hodgetts.

  • Hodgetts (Professor)
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anglo-Saxon dwellings : a lecture delivered in the lecture room of the exhibition, August 2nd, 1884 / by Professor Hodgetts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Men told of that fair hall far and near, Both Danes and Angles. No braver building might builder rear : The roof trees rose straight as shaft of spear, High o’er the hearth the blue heaven beamed clear With its shimmering stars for spangles. And the rising roof was full richly wrought And fairly furnished With gilded gables, and gold work brought From distant lands and dearly bought, That by many a golden thatch ’twas thought All blazing and brightly burnished. At either end by the eaves on high, Each other crossing, Huge horn-like carvings met the eye, That glittered and gleamed in the glowing sky ; Afar men thought a huge hart to spy, It’s beam’d brow to the breezes tossing. And Gleemen and Guthmen this high hall, This dearworth dwelling, The hall of the hart were wont to call; And the thriving thane and the thriftless thrall, Would wonder and gaze at the warfast wall Of wealth hoards in wardage telling. On the walls within the rich wrought web hung, In set shape showing The deathless deeds that the skalds have sung : How thundering Thor his huge hammer flung, That hard on the Frost Giants helmets rung, Setting their black blood flowing.” The word Herot means a stag, and is the old form of our word hart, and its position at Hartlepool which derives its name from events in the story, has already been pointed out. When the winter set in and the meetings in the open air were impossible and the viking expeditions equally so, such a grand Hall must have been a bright scene indeed. The roaring fire in the centre ; the splendid colours of the gorgeous tapestry, shown up by crescents or iron lamps hanging from the rafters ; the four massy pines support¬ ing the roof in the centre of the hall, in the stems of which