So what’s going on here? Part of the answer lies in the nature of their quest, which is difficult, even penitential. You sometimes get the impression that Chaucer’s pilgrims might as well be going on holiday but that’s clearly not the case for Bilbo or Frodo. They are in deadly danger the moment they leave Lake-town (in The Hobbit ) and the Shire (in The Lord of the Rings ). Maybe Tolkien was thinking more of Sir Gawain than The Canterbury Tales when he wrote these passages. Here, for example, is Tolkien’s own translation of a wonderful passage about the passing of the seasons in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight : All this combines to make a work of rare value. It will be interesting to the history or literature buff. For me, I found my prayer life took on new focus and depth. As I went my day and the recent liturgical seasons, I thought of those long-ago Catholic Anglo-Saxons doing the same thing, taking it seriously, knowing that prayer matters, that saints will rush to your aid, that God gives us all that is good in life beginning with the riches of the natural world around us. Eleanor Parker’s book also got me thinking about the passing of the seasons in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (for The Lord of the Rings , in particular, is a very seasonal book) . Let’s look at these parallel passages, for example. Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories and religious literature, medievalist Eleanor Parker of the University of Oxford takes you on a journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England. To tell the truth, he was very reluctant to start, now that it had come to the point. Bag End seemed a more desirable residence than it had for years, and he wanted to savour as much as he could of his last summer in the Shire. When autumn came, he knew that part at least of his heart would think more kindly of journeying, as it always did at that season.

Now, this is very curious because, as Eleanor Parker points out, autumn is very much not the time for journeying (not even the Anglo-Saxon autumn which began on 7th August!). Spring is the journeying season and, of course, that is when Bilbo sets off at the start of The Hobbit . He leaves in April, a month forever associated with pilgrimage since Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . But the key date at the start of The Lord of the Rings is not April 28th (when Bilbo first leaves Bag End) but September 22nd, Bilbo’s birthday and Frodo’s too. Rather than leave Bag End in spring, they leave on or about the autumn solstice. In other words, they leave the Shire at precisely the wrong time of year. Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. On a side note this book makes Tolkien's use of Anglo-Saxon literature as one of his main influence so obvious. Even if you already know it. Not just names and stories but how he adapts their culture in more general terms. I also was surprised to see how integral the Catholic faith was in the Anglo-Saxon world. I'd expected to read a fair amount about pagan rituals but the author made it clear that this was a Christian world with only a glancing relationship with pagan religions. The way the faith was practiced then was, of course, different than now but there was enough in common to make me feel a connection with those times. In fact, I now am interested in getting my hands on some of Aelfric's homilies, many excerpts of which were featured in this book.Eleanor Parker’s Winters in the World is a lyrical journey through the Anglo-Saxon year, witnessing the major festivals and the turning of the seasons through the eyes of the poets. Beginning during the darkest days of winter, when writers read desolation and dread in the world, we are introduced to the hopefulness of the festivals of returning light; the promise of better (and less hungry) times ahead as the days lengthen and the plants bud; the fruitfulness of the harvest; and the calm reflection of the autumn. We feel the thrumming in our souls as we recognize on some primaeval level the connectedness of humanity, the environment, and the cycles of nature and life, even if other aspects – the marking of the seasons, the religiosity, the extremes of feast and famine – are alien to us. And we approach an appreciation of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors as we dive into the rhythms of their lives and language, their turns of phrase, and the force of their habits. There are many things I love about this book. As readers of her blog , History Today columns , Patreon articles , and books will already know, Eleanor Parker writes with great clarity and a deep knowledge of British history. On this occasion, she takes us, season by season, through the Anglo-Saxon year, teaching us a surprising amount about our own age as well as a great deal about the ways the Anglo-Saxons saw the world. On the way she also scuppers some deep-rooted myths. For example, she writes: This sense of relationship between nature and humanity is something the Anglo-Saxon poets drew upon. They used it as a metaphor for emotion, and as a way to understand the processes of the world that their Christian god had created. The church calendar, and its method of dating, does, then, determine the course of the book. However, there is some effort to trace festivals, where appropriate, to their pagan past and, equally, to rubbish a few myths that have sprung up in the twentieth century. The line between myth and fact can be a fine one, and the reader can on occasion sense the extent of Parker’s frustration at modern notions, particularly when there is no textual evidence from the era to support various claims. they wanted to read and interpret the natural world, to learn to recognize the meaning God had planted in it. They saw time and seasons, from the very first day of the world, as carefully arranged by God with method and purpose - so they believed it should be possible to organize the calendar not according to the randomness of custom and inherited tradition, but in a way that reflected that divine plan. She also writes beautifully about many Anglo-Saxon poems. Time and time again, she models how to read literature closely and sensitively. Winters in the World isn’t simply a book about the Anglo-Saxon calendar and world view, it’s a great example of what literary criticism can be when it’s done well. In that sense, it reminds me of Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-Earth , another book which opens works of literature as you would unwrap a gift rather than dissecting them as you might a cadaver.

So one day, although autumn was now getting far on, and winds were cold, and leaves were falling fast, three large boats left Lake-town, laden with rowers, dwarves, Mr Baggins, and many provisions… The only person thoroughly unhappy was Bilbo. Let’s take just a couple of examples, starting with the most important date in The Lord of the Rings : 25th March. This was the day on which the ring was destroyed and Sauron fell. As a direct consequence, it also became the first day of the new year in Gondor. What’s more, it was the day Aragorn arrived at the Bridge of Baranduin and the birthday of Elanor, Sam’s first child. (Elanor is, I think, a much more significant character in The Lord of the Rings than is widely recognised, but more on her another time.) As Eleanor Parker points out, many Anglo-Saxons believed that the 25th March was also the date of the Annunciation, the date of the Crucifixion, and the eighth day of creation. In other words, it was the most important date in history. Most of all I felt a deep appreciation with the sacred cycle of time both then and now. I really love the Catholic liturgical cycles and how they connect with the natural world. This book brings that to the fore since the Anglo-Saxons were so much more in tune with nature and the seasons. It is a book that does what its subtitle suggests. It takes us on a journey through the Anglo-Saxon year. Starting with winter and ending with autumn. Parker admits that what the Anglo-Saxon year looked like before Christianity is hard to piece together. Some of the evidence is there, some educated guesses can be made via Bede and other sources but a lot is lost. But the important dates in the Christian calendar give a structure to the year which is familiar to people even now. We still celebrate Easter and Christmas, but with - most of us - having lost our links to agriculture a lot has slipped into the cultural archives. Known perhaps by name, but not marked or celebrated by the majority of us. Are Harvest Festivals still a thing?This event will take place live on Zoom Webinar. You will receive a link to join a couple of days before the event and a reminder an hour before. During the event, you can ask questions via a Q&A function, but audience cameras and microphones will remain muted throughout. I have just finished reading Eleanor Parker’s excellent new book, Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year . Rather than write a traditional review, I thought I’d offer an article that is part review and part reflection with a Tolkienian twist. Today it’s become a popular myth that that symbols linked in modern Britain with Easter, especially eggs, hares or rabbits, derive from the worship of Eostre, but there’s no Anglo-Saxon evidence to support that. None of these symbols were linked to Easter in the Anglo-Saxon period; eggs weren’t associated with Easter in Britain until the later Middle Ages, hares and rabbits not until much later still. There’s nothing to suggest any continuity of customs between the pre-conversion festival and the Anglo-Saxon Christian Easter, and the modern observance of Easter owes nothing to Anglo-Saxon paganism, with the sole exception of its English name.