we can't now hear the voices of the past, children chanting their lessons, bards singing their songs, sages dispensing their wisdom. but we know they existed, these people, in some form or other and did use language much as we do now - in fact, they were our ancestors and we have inherited most of the features of our speech from them.
our speech is filled with metaphors, so many that we can't now uncover them all. we talk of branches of learning as if learning were or should be tree-shaped, and i rarely hear this questioned although perhaps it should be. certainly our ancestors have left us textual records of widespread tree metaphors: trees of learning, of life, family trees, world trees etc. trees are only one.
in punnings with a p- and kennings with a k- i've attempted to peel back the layers to reveal the hidden puns (kennings) in common words that denote or once denoted the features of our lands referenced via an metaphor to the body of a woman, her meat and bones, her breasts and veins, and her hair and brains.
if you like what you read here, you might be interested in my blog at http://hermannewt.blogspot.com/ it's about the hermeneutics of the old texts on which our sense of ancient and medieval history is based, and sometimes looks at etymology, history and associated topics as well. there's a dash of humour in it, too.
meanwhile, tara, the ancient seat of ireland's rulers and vital spiritual centre for more than just a few irish people, is endangered. they're actually intending to put a highway through it. you can sign a petition and learn what you can do for tara here.
<a xhref="http://www.petitiononline.com/hilltara/petition.html" target="_self"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><img align="right" xsrc="http://www.hilloftara.info/images/tarabutton.gif" /></a>
