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Maeshowe

Entymology of Maeshowe — discussed with experts

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PeterH P
PeterH May 2, 2005 23:02:43
Replying to Littlestone

We shall have to disagree then, my friend. The AS language and culture became dominant but the Germanics never supplanted the common folk. Francis Pryor in Britain AD paints a more extreme scenario than I can accept, but his view is that the AS invasion never happened and the Venerable Bade was nothing but a spin doctor. Peaceful trading and transition won the day for the Germans and the Brits were so impressed with grubenhausen that they built their own.
Give him a read and have a good laugh. We had better move off this topic soon as we are way out of prehistory now.

P PeterH
PeterH May 2, 2005 23:04:00
Replying to PeterH

Sorry - that was Bede not Bade

L Littlestone
Littlestone May 2, 2005 23:33:23
Replying to PeterH

"Such", he said, "O King, seems to me the present life of men on earth, in comparison with that time which to us is uncertain, as if when on a winter's night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegns, a single sparrow should fly swiftly into the hall, and coming in at one door, instantly fly out through another. In that time in which it is indoors it is indeed not touched by the fury of the winter, but yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before we are utterly ignorant."*

Travel a long way to find words as well-writ as those. But you are right, we move away from prehistory.

* Bede. Ecclesiastic History of the English People.