The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary
£12.30£15.20 (-19%)
‘A dream! I learnt something new and fascinating on every page’ Lucy Mangan
‘If you love words, the weird and the wild, I guarantee you’ll crouch over this book like a dragon over gold’ Meg Clothier
‘Endlessly fascinating’ – the Spectator
Many of the animals we encounter in everyday life, from the creatures in our fields to those in our fantasies, have remained the same since medieval times – but the words we use, and the ways we describe them, have often changed beyond recognition…
Old English was spoken over a thousand years ago, when every animal was a deor. In this glittering Old English bestiary we find deors big and small, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the good, the bad and the downright baffling. From walker-weavers (spiders) and grey-cloaked ones (eagles) to moon-heads and teeth-tyrants (historians still don’t know!), we discover a world both familiar and strange: where ants could be monsters and panthers could be your friend, where dog-headed men were as real as elephants and where whales were as sneaky as wolves.
From the author of The Wordhord comes another delightful dive into the realm of Old English – words and creatures that will change the way you see the world.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Profile Books, Main edition (2 Nov. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 352 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1800815794 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1800815797 |
| Dimensions | 20 x 3.4 x 13.6 cm |
by brjones
Really interesting look at the creatures described in the Bestiarys and Old English words which relate to them. Not too heavy, but you’ll learn things. Great book.
by Tiny Bulcher
Fascinating tour through the descriptions of various animals, real and fantastical, in the corpus of Old English literature. Both informative and entertaining, and illustrative of how our ancestors sometimes thought very differently about the creatures of the world. Oferwyrðe.
by A. Howes
A fabulous book, and an excellent sequel to her Hannah’s previous book, ‘Wordhord’. Both brilliant and easy-to-read introductions to Anglo-Saxon as a by-product of a wealth of research and information in a very easy-to-read style.