The Wanderer

Translated by W. R Sims

Recited by Charles Bryant

Anglo-Saxon poetry can often be fairly maudlin. I have taken on when reading 'The Wanderer' the mantle of the bard. See him standing now in the fire-lit mead-hall surrounded by the warriors and their families and servers, dogs and cats and favourite pet ravens, well soaked with the beery libations, intoning his sad poem! Can't you just hear them all sobbing?

Of course, it is a heavily Christianised message, hence much of the morbidity; but also the mood is innate with these often glum fighters. Some people have put it down to the English weather! But oh, the sense of relief when the recitation is complete, the falling tears in the beer-horn; and then, by contrast, the knowledge that one is still alive, still among friends and family, still fairly hale and hearty. You always feel much better after a good old cry!