Reddit mentions: The best medieval literary criticism books

I'm really glad you enjoyed my reply. It's difficult to learn about these things, unfortunately, and it takes some special study. It's a very foreign time period, and because we know so little about Anglo-Saxon England, everything we do know has been very hard to come by. The world of AS scholarship is very small, and there is very little incentive to reach out beyond that world.

But don't stop pursuing it! When I was in high school, I hated Beowulf and used to joke about how bad it was. We read a terrible, outdated translation from a text book and it couldn't have been more boring. It wasn't until I read the original in college that I saw something in it. But I have the highest respect for high school English teachers. I remember telling my English teacher in my senior year that I was going to be a literary critic, and she told me she believed I would. I can still hear the sincerity in her voice to this day, and it motivated me for years. Actually, now that I think of it, it still does. You do incredible work and probably don't even know it most of the time. I can tell you that I never saw Mrs. Fennimore after leaving high school, and it took me years of reflection even to realize that I'd been so deeply influenced by her.

As to how I know all this crazy stuff: I studied OE for years, ultimately culminating in a phd in English, and I can tell you that OE meter is not something that even many professors of OE lit have a strong grasp of (it was just something I was particularly interested in, so I learned a lot about it). I was lucky enough to study with some of the world's best medievalists, and I learned history (it was my minor), paleography, codicology, dialectology, and historical linguistics, in addition to reading the literature. Most of the professors who were influential to me are retired now. They were old school, and had a very different perspective, and different training, than many current medievalists. The old guard talked about "training" and a "well trained medievalist" like you'd talk about a well trained doctor or mechanic, and I love that. My dissertation adviser is thanked by Heaney in his translation, and produced an illustrated version of it for Norton (it's a beautiful book!).

But academia was not for me. I couldn't help but look around at all the incredible research we were doing, and wonder why no one knew about it. I was in England visiting libraries to do some codicological work one time, and a man and woman struck up a conversation with me in a small, local museum in Winchester (which used to be the capital of England in the AS period). They asked me what I was doing there, and I mentioned that I was studying the Anglo-Saxons. It turned out that they hardly knew who the Anglo-Saxons were or what they did. This struck a chord for me, and I realized that I wanted to do something different with ancient history.

I loved teaching more than anything else I ever did in academia, but there are a lot of sacrifices in time and energy just to keep your job. I made the decision to try to do something else with all the incredible research we've done on the ancient past over the course of the 20th century. It just seemed such a shame that it all seemed so inaccessible to everyone but hardcore specialists. I don't see the point in producing so much incredible research, that people have devoted their lives to, while it just gathers dust in the library. And academia, as you probably know, doesn't recognize anything but monographs and articles as worthy of the scholar's time. I had to choose whether to keep on doing what I was doing, or strike out and try to express all this incredible stuff we've learned about the ancient past, and what's more important, the incredible feeling of engaging the past.

So to do that, I've begun working on the first of what will hopefully be a series of historical novels. If I accomplish a fraction of what I hope to do with the first one, I'll be happy. If few people read it, that will be fine, because no one read my academic stuff either, outside of the very small world that is the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists! As for work, well work's work. It's there to pay the bills so you can do the important stuff.

I wish I could point you in the direction of some resources for self study of OE lit, but there isn't much out there. If you have the time, you could work through a book like Mitchell and Robinson's Guide to Old English, which is what I first learned with. I know that Richard Hogg's An Introduction to Old English is well respected by some of the Anglo-Saxonists I know too. If you know anything about German or Latin, the grammar won't be so foreign to you, since Old English is a case based language. But even if you don't, you could still learn to read OE with some determination and a few months time. To be honest, reading Beowulf is hard, but most other OE poetry and prose isn't that challenging once you get the hang of it. The Beowulf-poet is legitimately on another level though--Beowulf is the crown jewel of OE lit, and reading it with pleasure takes work but it's definitely worth it.

Thanks for your interest. Good luck with your studies!

I'm no expert in Medieval or Old-Norse studies, however I've do have an interest in it & from some searching on various different aspects of the Vikings I come across these:

The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1. Prehistory to 1520 it's a anthological survey book consisting of both historiographical and hagiographical (biographies of saints) primary & secondary sources ranging from prehistory ( before historical events were documented) through to medieval history of Scandinavia. It's quite pricey but definitely worth the money if your serious...

>The first part of the volume surveys the prehistoric and historic Scandinavian landscape and its natural resources, and tells how man took possession of this landscape, adapting culturally to changing natural conditions and developing various types of community throughout the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The rest - and most substantial part of the volume - deals with the history of Scandinavia from the Viking Age to the end of the Scandinavian Middle Ages (c. 1520). The external Viking expansion opened Scandinavia to European influence to a hitherto unknown degree. A Christian church organisation was established, the first towns came into being, and the unification of the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia began, coinciding with the formation of the unique Icelandic 'Free State'.

The History of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland and Iceland) is similar to Cambridge History yet significantly cheaper

The Viking World by Stefan Brink & Neil Price is a mid-range anthological book compromising of many articles from various scholars.

>I would really appreciate material that covers linguistics.....philology, morphology and the like
As for the other categories, I would really appreciate some introductory material on archaeology.

This book will probably be the best one for you because it includes all of the above.

Myth and Religion of the North: the Religion Ancient Scandinavia this book is a good overview of the different mythologies before the christianisation of the nordics.

Women in the Viking Age is a good book on the niche subject area of Women roles within the viking age nordics & its various colonies (from Greenland to Russia). Jesch uses various pieces of evidence from archaeological finds, runic inscriptions, historical records & Old Norse literature.

I would also recommend you look into the Icelandic sagas & Eddas. I'd use SagaDB because there are many various different icelandic sagas & in a variety of languages including English, Icelandic & Old Norse. If you'd like to go about learning O.N. you check the Viking Society for Northern Research or check out the books: A New Introduction to Old Norse: I Grammar: 1 or Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas

If you're interested at all in the presence of the Vikings (and later scandinavians) in Eastern Europe check out Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe

Hopefully this helps if you have any more specific questions don't be afraid to ask :)

It depends what you mean by "Read Runic".

​

Runic Alphabets

Runes themselves are an Alphabet, not a language, each character represents a sound, ᛖ means "E", ᚠ mens "F". Some charicters mean multiple Latin letters, þ means "th" and ᛠ means "ea". I could write the word "East" as "ᛠᛥ"

This alphabet can be used to write most European languages, simply replace the Latin characters with their Runic counterparts. This is easy to learn, simply find a guide online (for example, Google Anglo saxon runes) and replace your normal letters with the Runes. This only took me a few hours to do proficiently. Reading is harder than writing.

There are many Runic alphabets, I use Anglo Saxon because it works well with writing English and Old Norse, but you can choose whichever ones you like, for example Celtic Runes may work better with some romance languages.

Runic Languages

Runic is Also used to write Archaic languages. For example the other Language I wrote in my original comment was Old Norse, I wrote it in the Latin alphabet because it is easier and better for the sounds of the language.

Archaic languages are usually difficult to learn, because there are not a lot of easy to use resources for them. There are some good books on Old Norse, but there is thankfully a lot online for free.

Personally, I use: https://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/

This is a good book if you want to learn more, but it is fairly expensive so make sure you are dedicated!

There are also a few good YouTubers such as Jackson Crawford, who make it easy to understand.

Other Runic languages include Old English, Proto Norse and Saxon. These are all equally difficult to learn, and are usually written in the Latin Alphabet for simplicity.

However, as with any language, Old Norse requires a lot of patience to learn, you need to make notes and practice. Modern Icelandic would be an easier alternative to Old Norse, because it has a lot of resources and fluent speakers.

If you want to Practice Old Norse, you can always look for people on r/Norse, I am still pretty amateur at the language, but you can DM me if you like after you've learned the basics.

Every time questions similar to this pop up, people recommend Neil Gaimen. Well, his book is not bad (I own it), but recommending it to a person asking for a detailed recount of the original myths is downright silly. It's a pretty short collection of myths retold into short-stories by Gaimen. They're well written and absolutely closely based on the original myths, but he still invents new stuff, and again, it's a novel-like retelling, not a detailed account of the actual myths. Here are some further suggestions:

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson is a great and thorough description of Nose myth and religion by an acclaimed specialist in the field. It's also laymen-friendly.

The Poetic Edda is arguably the single most important source of Norse myths. It's a collection of poems, written down in Christian times but many dating to well into the Pagan era. I've linked the new translation by Jackson Crawford (whose channel is great for learning about Norse myth, btw), but there are others.

Then there's the Prose Edda, which is likewise a very important original source. Whereas the Poetic Edda is a collection of poetry, the Prose Edda sees many of them retold into more consistent prose narrative (hence the title). As a source, however, the Prose Edda is less reliable than the Poetic, since the latter is a collection of actual Pagan myths, while the former is a compilation and retelling by an (early medieval Icelandic) Christian.

The Sagas of Icelanders important sources to Norse myth and particularly religious practice. The Sagas are actual prose stories (and good ones, too), written in the first few centuries after conversion. Figures from Norse mythology, particularly Odin, are often prominent, but the narratives tend not to primarily concern the mythology.

A notable exception is the Saga of the Volsungs, which is one of the most important narratives in Norse myth. Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's works were both heavily influenced by it. The Volsunga Saga features Norse gods, viking raids, dragon-slaying and much more.

There are more good books, but those ought to be a decent start.

Sure. :) Like I said, this research is still underway for me, so there may be other sources out there which I have yet to pick up. Determining what was traumatic vs. non-traumatic for the Romans is about as hard as determining the same for modern patients. At the end of the day, individual characteristics play a large role. Two individuals can experience the same event and only one might be traumatized as a result. That being said, there do seem to be some patterns if one is willing to paint with a broader brush.

Keep in mind that the personal identity of a Roman soldier (and this appears to be true for ordinary citizens as well) was very much wrapped up in his social environment. For a legionary to judge whether he was a "good" or "bad" person, he would have heavily relied on the level of esteem he held with others in his social circle, as well as by the strictures of society as a whole. Contrast this with a modern American who, while no one blames him/her for killing in combat, nonetheless comes from a culture which tacitly informs them from a very early age that harming others is wrong regardless of what your peers think or know. Every modern Westerner must rectify this contradiction within themselves to be at peace with their actions during battle. Some achieve this much easier than others, but the fact remains that resolving this tension is a much more complicated feat today than it would have been for a Roman legionary, who simply had to look towards how the group as a whole judged his actions. Much of this has to do with the rise of Judeo-Christian thought in the Western world, which holds each individual responsible for his/her actions.

As far as sources go, I mostly rely on primary sources since there has yet to be any major scholarly work on the topic of PTSD in the Roman world (I aspire to fill that gap). But I can recommend a few wonderfully written books that deal with Roman thought and emotion in general. Carlin Barton's The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans looks at the emotional life of the Romans from their own eyes. Her newer, thicker book Roman Honor explores much the same subject with a broader scope. If you only go with one, I would say buy Roman Honor since it covers and revisits a lot of the material found in Sorrows. Barton also has the advantage of a truly compelling narrative style which makes reading her work a joy. Another good book, though a bit more dry and academic, is Robert Kaster's Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome. Kaster is specifically interested in the language of emotion in ancient Rome. He gets at the meaning of words like pudor or satietas beyond the dictionary definition of "shame" or "satiety" to what it really meant to the Romans themselves.

Biological markers of PTSD are a compelling way to approach the subject, since ostensibly the neurological mechanisms prompting traumatized behavior should be common to all humans past and present. The main problem with this is that there is no way we can look at a Roman's brain to be sure. People often assume that the same brain activity will inevitably result in the same outward expression of that activity, but researchers have shown this not to be the case. In the most outstanding symptom of PTSD, intrusive memories, we have a perfect example. The same neurological mechanism may be at play for all people who experience intrusive memories, but how they choose to describe what they are feeling is shaped by how their culture and language informs them. We see this even among traumatized individuals today, who may have different triggers according to what they experienced and how they interpreted those experiences. The Romans described these phenomena in terms of ghosts and spiritual pollution because these were the tools they had at hand to talk about what they were going through. And what was or was not experienced as traumatic also has much to do with society at large. Your typical American child might very well be traumatized by watching someone slash open the throat of a cow, drenching himself in its blood. But for a Roman child of the upper class this was an exciting day at the temple of Magna Mater.

Most people start learning Middle Egyptian, and Allen is pretty much the standard English grammar book that most universities use these days. My only problem is that Allen is, in my opinion, not very well suited to learning on your own. It's a great reference book, but the way the lessons are presented is a bit obtuse, and the self-guided exercises are kinda awful. Granted, I used the second edition, and it's now in third, so some of the issues I had may have been corrected. Jim Allen has also released a companion volume of a sort of "greatest hits" of Middle Egyptian texts, and being able to learn and practice by diving right in to actual stories is helpful, I think.

If you want to start with Late Egyptian, I recommend "The Language of Ramesses" by Neveu which is a new-ish (2015) grammar, and it's pretty fantastic, and easy at least compared to the older Late Egyptian grammars that were available (like Junge). I find Late Egyptian easier, and more rewarding, to read, personally. The grammar rules are easier and better defined (from a modern perspective, at least), and there's a TON of literature in all genres in Late Egyptian.

So ever since getting into folk metal a few years ago I've been real big on Finnish myth, so much so that I actually give annual guest lectures on it and have done so for I believe five years now. As others have said, Kalevala is your bread and butter for Finnish myth, and is generally referred to as the cradle of Finnish mythology. I would advise you stay far away from the John Martin Crawford translation, as he did a really awkward job of anglicizing some names but not others. If you want something a little more straightforward, I'd recommend the Bosley translation and if you want something a bit more poetical, go for the Kirby translation. All in all its personal preference. Except the Crawford translation, as that's dogshit.

If you want stuff beyond Kalevala, then there are a few more reads worth looking into, namely Kanteletar, which is a book of folk songs, however that one's almost impossible to get a hold of in English.

Something else to take in mind is the Ballad of Bishop Henrik, which gets a bit away from some of the more fantastical elements of Kalevala.

Also, there's a film called The Sampo which is split up into a few parts on Youtube. It's basically an alternate telling of Kalevala which focuses far more on Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen than the Kalevala's actual protagonist, Väinämöinen.

Aside from literature and film, there's also a bit of art and music which ought to be taken into account. If you want to know about Finnish myth, and if you read the Kalevala, you're going to want to know what a kantele is, and more importantly you should familiarize yourself with this tune as it pops up quite a bit from various sources. Finally, the artwork of Akseli Gallen-Kallela is pretty important to Finnish romantic nationalism, as many of his works depict scenes from Finnish mythology, with the most notable of his paintings being Sammon puolustus/Defense of the Sampo. Anyways, hope that helps. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

This is a bit too vague to provoke a good answer. Are you asking about physical beauty, artistic beauty, natural beauty, philosophical/theological beauty, architectural beauty...? Are you asking about all of Europe, or France, or Britain, or the Germanic nations? For the landed classes or the peasants? Are you really asking about the entire Middle Ages period, from the 5th through the 15th centuries — a thousand years? Good answers require good questions; this is very vague. (And a lot of doing the work of history, and thinking seriously about history, is about asking the right questions.)

That being said, if you are interested in understanding the intellectual, aesthetic, and philosophical worldview of this period, one of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis' _The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature_ (1964). I have been reassured by my medievalist friends that it is still held in high regard as an introduction to the medieval worldview, with an emphasis on how people back then saw the universe as being ordered. It has some relevance to your question, depending on how one interprets it.

This Kickstarter kicks ass!

After reading Patrick's campaign summary, I am totally on board as a backer.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an essential piece of Transitional English Poetry.

• It exists between Old and Middle English.
  
• The majority of the poem is written in the Alliterative Old English style, but each verse ends in a rhyming 'bob and wheel' - which looks forward to the rhyming heroic couplets of Chaucer's Middle English.
  
• The 'Pearl Poet' freely and comfortably combines Christian and Pagan imagery - the most famous of which is Sir Gawain's Pentangle Shield, which the poet thoroughly describes as a Christian symbol.
  
• There are obvious undertones of 'masculine love' in the Poem, which Patrick has vowed to address (rather than ignore, like most other translations).
  
  But above all else, Patrick's translation seems to be an excellent representation of the alliterative poetic style, while still making sense to modern ears.
  
  There is an example of him reciting his translation of the first verse at the bottom of the Campaign page.
  
  'Peek Inside' this copy of W.R.J Barron's translation and turn to page 32 to compare the original text to Patrick's translation. He has done an excellent job.

My first piece of advice is to completely divorce in your mind the tarot and the runes. They are two completely different systems. The tarot were developed by Ceremonial Magicians in the late Victorian Age, and the runes are an ancient symbol set used by an ancient culture as a language and magical symbols. In fact the runes are a whole system of magic.

To really get started with runes you have to read up on each one and the history behind each. Divining with them is as simple as grabbing a few and scattering them and reading their meanings but you'll need to background about each letter for that to work. Here are a few sources that I like for runes.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jordsvin/Runes/Rune%20Of%20The%20Month/Index.htm - Ignore how this site looks. because it hasn't been updated in a while but each article on the runes is very well written by a couple who know the runes very well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1578633257/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1459023490&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=rune+divination&dpPl=1&dpID=51eexi1vgZL&ref=plSrch - A great book on the whole system of magic that the runes are. I really like this one as it doesn't try and "culture wash" the runes. Instead she frames each meaning historically so you can get a better understanding of why things are as they are.

http://www.amazon.com/Rune-Poem-Jim-Paul/dp/0811811360 - This book is a translation of the original Norse poems that the runes are mentioned in. It doesn't offer much in the way of interpretation so you are meant to take your own from it. It gives you a reference point to think about when meditating on the runes.

Hope this helps. Good Luck!

A few? He did the first 88 if I recall. Not the whole thing, but at least it's all of the practical advice section which is best suited for this style anyway.

On a bright note, the author (who shows great skill in translation by being able to accomplish this) is releasing a translation of the whole Elder Edda in modern English later this year.

EDIT: Now that I look again, by later this year I mean in three days. Awesome, now I know where part of my paycheck is going... I needed a new physical copy to supplement my digital anyway. Maybe I'll not give this one away for a while.

There is /r/latin which, while not dedicated to Greek, should have enough general classicists to help you along.

http://www.amazon.com/Selections-Homers-Iliad-Rogers-Benner/dp/0806133635/ref=pd_sim_b_4
http://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Homeric-Dialect-Richard-Cunliffe/dp/0806114304/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Those are the two texts I used when I studied Homer. We also used a parsed interlinear text. Here's Book 1. I don't know where the rest of it is. I'm not familiar with either of the books you mention. I had a fairly thorough introduction to Attic Greek before taking Homer and have a strong Latin background so I can't really say what wading straight into Homer will be like for you.

I just glanced at Pharr on the amazon preview. It looks fairly dense with a lot of page flipping to the back. It looks like text and vocabulary are in the chapter with references to the back for the grammar. It's going to require a lot of patience. There's really no easy way into Greek, but Homer in the original is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read so it will certainly be far more rewarding than it is punishing.

Good luck.

Bit of a warning, I might have gotten a bit too much. But, in my search I realized we have a rather large section of rock art. So let me know if you'd like any feedback on rock art traditions and archaeological assessments, or if that's much too obscure and prehistory for you.

Starting with the prehistoric suggestions and moving on from there, Movement, exchange and Identity in Europe in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC takes a look at Ireland and Britain social exchanges with the rest of Europe, with an argument that the channel didn't inhibit progress and the exchange of ideas/trade but actually was conducive to such things. It's a collection of papers.

More of an extension off the first suggestion, Becoming European looks at the earliest foundations for European culture and traces the influence of those prehistoric civilizations into modern day. More of the same with Bronze Age Connections so really you have your choice of the group for which might better suit what you're looking for.

The next title, Romans and Barbarians Beyond the Frontiers brings together academics on Roman Britain, specifically looking at the surviving viewpoints of Rome's take on "barbarians" of the north. There's quite a bit of research, both broad and niche, about Roman Britain but that doesn't tend to focus specifically on northern Europe like this collection does.

Slight aside, one of the interesting socio-political heroes that come from this time period is Arminius, and while lately he's been associated in a negative light, the original story of him being captured, raised in Rome, and eventually betraying Rome during a military campaign in the north, is pretty interesting. Forbes had an article about the coin deposit discovery that confirmed the location of the battle, just to get you started in that direction if you're interested. Maybe a bit too obscure?

Apparently this book isn't in production anymore, but it's in my database so maybe you might luck out and find a library that has it. But splendour of power examines the material and social value of kings and gold/silver, specifically around the North Sea - so smack dab in the region you're look at. Bit unfortunate it's not in print. A quick google search yielded this, so maybe delve more into that if you're interested?

Moving on down the timeline, Everyday Products in the Middle Ages looks at the average consumer and individual's lifestyle in relation to archaeological objects.

Next to each other, both focus on a specific region but examine social spheres, are Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World for Shetland and Myth and Materiality for Ireland. Both look at how myths and research can feed into the other, while providing specific case examples throughout history of both locations.

For a more contemporary take, the essay Heritage and Peacebuilding by Diana Walters does include regions outside of your list, but the first half takes a look at northern Europe and the Balkans in order to see if a peaceful society is attainable looking at the heritage/history of each region.

And since war is an extension of politics by another means, there are quite a lot of books on warfare in the region! I nabbed the Roman Britain one because it's perhaps the most extensive list, with Warfare in Northern Europe Before the Romans - which is, as the title says, actually prior to Rome's influence.

If you'd like a main source, the publisher Pen & Sword seems to have quite a selection of war, war histories, family histories and the like. Their Your Towns and Cities in the Great War series provides exhaustive coverage of UK cities that were impacted by the Great War. Really useful and helpful if you want primary sources such as legal documents, letters, death certificates and copies of land deeds.

Sorry if that was a bit much! I had trouble narrowing things down and left a lot off at the last minute because I was concerned about being on point. These are all pretty scholarly, but that's research texts for you. The Pen & Sword books should be more trade-focused as far as price points are concerned. And as always, double check local universities and libraries near you since we can usually afford the big research collections!

Steady reading!

Martial, in the thirteenth book of his Epigrams, gives one an idea of the variety of food items seen on (some) Roman tables:

beets, lettuce, cabbage sprouts, radishes, leeks, turnips, asparagus, raisins, figs, quinces, dates, plums, several varieties of cheese, sausage, olives, goat (kids), eggs, suckling pig, pomegranates, sow's teats, pheasant, Persian apricots, mushrooms, truffles, duck, dove, bacon, ham, pig's chitterlings, beans, goose liver, rabbit, partridge, capons, goose, lamprey, turbot, prawns, char, gudgeon, pike, boar, venison, honey (Attic & Sicilian), raisin wine, honey wine, (many other assorted varieties of wine by region)...

In his tenth book of Epigrams, Martial describes the cena that he prepared for several guests:

My bailiff's wife has brought mallows that will ease the stomach, and the wealth the garden bears: among which are squat lettuce and clipped leek, and flatulent mint is not wanting nor the salacious herb; sliced eggs shall garnish lizard-fish served with roe and there shall be a paunch dripping with the tunny's brine. So much for your hors d'oeuvre. The modest dinner shall be served in a single course: a kid rescued from the jaws of a savage wolf, and meat balls to require no carver's knife, and beans, the food of artisans, tender young sprouts; to these a chicken, and a ham that has already survived three dinners, shall be added. When you have had your fill I will give you ripe apples, wine without lees from a Nomentan flagon which was three years old in Frontinus' second consulship."

There is an extant letter from Pliny the Younger which relates a menu that he prepared for Septicius Clarus:

"I had prepared, you must know, a lettuce and three snails apiece; with two eggs, barley water, some sweet wine and snow...Besides all these curious dishes, there were olives, beets, gourds, shallots, and a hundred other dainties equally sumptuous. You should likewise have been entertained either with an interlude, the rehearsal of a poem or a piece of music, as you like best; or (such was my liberality) with all three. But the oysters, chitterlings, sea-urchins, and Spanish dancers were, it seems, more to your taste!"

And yes, Romans also used garum as a condiment.

SOURCES:

Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis). Epigrams, Vol. II, Books 6-10 and Epigrams, Vol. III, Books 11-14. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, trans. Loeb Classical Library.

Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus). Letters and Pangyricus I, Books 1-7. Betty Radice, trans. Loeb Classical Library.

EDIT: formatting

For some potential starting points, I've just dug up the bibliography for the dissertation I wrote last year for my undergrad and chosen a few that might be of interest to you. (Some might require access to JSTOR or something like that, if it can't otherwise be found online - apologies if that's not possible for you!)

The Failure of Justice, The Failure of Arthur by Laura K. Bedwell

Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is a pretty influential book - though not specifically focused on Arthurian romance, it certainly has a few things to say about them.

Public and Private Spaces in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" by A. C. Spearing might be of interest for your studies of Gawain.

Merlin: Knowledge and Power Through the Ages by Stephen Knight is a pretty interesting look at the development of Merlin from his origins to his place in modern popular culture.

For Old Norse, I strongly recommend Jesse L. Byock's Viking Language Series. Getting your hands on E.V. Gordon's work is going to be pretty expensive, and the material is pretty dated and dense. Byock's approach is very beginner friendly while still introducing the reader to the technicalities of the language. In the second book, it's very reminiscent of Wheelock's Latin where you will be asked to translate excerpts from the sagas. Hope that helps!

Welcome!

A Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru is a great beginner book. Probably essential for new heathens.

If you want to start reading about the gods, the Poetic Edda is our main source for Norse mythology. I recommend Jackson Crawford's translation. I have it, and it is a simple English translation. Crawford also has a great Youtube channel about Old Norse language and mythology. Heathen Talk, the mods' Youtube podcast, is pretty good as well for getting a feel for everything.

A specialist in this stuff would be able to answer better, but I've really enjoyed the plays of Aristophanes. It's not all dirty; he's just an absolutely hilarious playwright. Links to plots of his plays can be found here. Translations vary widely on the spectrum of scholarliness vs. accessibility; I enjoyed the Penguin translations quite a bit.

If long speeches designed to inflate one's own reputation and sully those of one's opponents are your thing, Cicero's your man. His second "Philippic" against Mark Antony is one of my favourites, and is available in this volume.

Jesse Byock's unfortunately titled but very well-executed Viking Language course has been compared to Wheelock's Latin in terms of its quality, as has Michael Barnes's A New Introduction to Old Norse.

For Old English, I recommend Baker as mentioned below or, if you're like me and like a straight-up grammar, Sweet's A Primer of Anglo-Saxon.

I'm new to Ásatrú but an old hand at ancient languages. Sweet was my grammar in undergrad years ago. PM me if you'd like more info.

Cheers. Honestly, I really recommend reading the actual source material of the Norse sagas where all of these originate from - the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga, Völsunga saga, Egil's saga, etc. I grew up hearing these stories here in Scandinavia (added: hadn't heard of Ratatoskr until now though) but there are still a lot to discover and appreciate anew even for me. There's a new translation of the Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford that is supposed to have a much more natural flow to our modern language sensibilities. Often these materials seem translated to sound old, with a rather stale language which makes the wonder and magic of the stories harder to soak up. This new one should be much more natural and possibly more entertaining to read.

Thanks! :) I love his unique name. DH and I both have incredibly common names, and we don't really care for them much. He can read Old English, and I can kinda read it too, with his help. I first heard the name Hengest from us reading the Anglo Saxon Chronicle together. According to the Chronicle, Hengest and Horsa were brothers, and leaders of a war band. They were hired as mercenaries by the king of the Britons to fight the Picts, and later revolted, which led to the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain. Here is a funny video portrayal of the tale. This happened in the 5th century, so the details of his deeds are somewhere between historical and legendary. He is mentioned in legendary/mythical sources like Beowulf, and JRR Tolkein adapted these sources into a historical fiction called Finn and Hengest.

Æþelwulf literally translates to "noble wolf". I picked it out because I like the way it sounds. I came up with some criteria for a middle name to go with Hengest (not hard to say, flows nicely, initials not embarrassing, etc.) and DH made a list of words for us to match together. It wasn't until after we'd settled on the middle name that I googled the names together and found out that Æþelwulf was also a ruler of Kent. We obviously can't put Old English characters on a birth certificate, so we chose the spelling that academia prefers.

It's great that you're interested! However, you're asking for two different things.

This should be a nice book of the [Anglo-Saxon Chronicles] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anglo-Saxon-Chronicles-Michael-Swanton/dp/1842120034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744983&sr=1-1&keywords=anglo+saxon+chronicle) in translation, for a non-academic reader.

As for the language, that's a bit more tricky. As Old English is basically only taught at universities and the ubelievable greed of academic publishers, the prices are more than 20 pounds or dollars for a paperback copy. And these are textbooks for learning the language, mind you. They will explain the pronunciation, the case system, the nouns and adjectives, the grammatical gender, the declension of verbs, the poetic metre, etc etc. They also have some shorter texts in Old English, both poetry and prose, with a glossary at the end.

From those, I'd recommend [Peter S. Baker - Introduction to Old English] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Old-English-Peter-Baker/dp/047065984X/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744924&sr=1-8&keywords=old+english) (my favourite), [Richard Marsden - The Cambridge Old English Reader] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Old-English-Reader/dp/1107641314/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744918&sr=1-5&keywords=old+english) (which is more of a collection of texts and not a textbook for learning the language, though does provide some very limited help), or [Mitchell and Robinson - A Guide to Old English] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Old-English-Bruce-Mitchell/dp/0470671076/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744828&sr=1-12&keywords=old+english)

For a non-academic book to learn the language, I don't have any experience with it, but people seem to like it on Amazon, so it's [Matt Love - Learn Old English with Leofwin] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-English-Leofwin-Matt-Love/dp/189828167X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744828&sr=1-4&keywords=old+english). There is also a book+CD set by [Mark Atherton - Complete Old English: Teach Yourself] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Old-English-Teach-Yourself/dp/1444104195/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521744446&sr=1-14&keywords=old+english)

That is true, in a sense, but not wholly accurate.

The idea that Ahti Saarelainen (his epithet means of the Island, the Island being a locale in Finnish mythology) is the same character as Lemminkäinen is for the most part a 19th-century literary invention. (A few poems suggest this, but it's evidently a late addition.) It is mostly the handiwork of a certain Elias Lönnrot, who, at the middle of the 19th century, compiled a number of Finnish and Karelian poems to create a Finnish national epic, the Kalevala (Finnish for "the land of Kaleva".)

In actual Finnish mythology, Lemminkäinen is a character who appears uninvited at to the feast of the gods, is killed by the host, thrown to the river of the Underworld (Tuonelan joki) and then resurrected by his mother. Since this myth includes the motif of death and rebirth and the name Lemminkäinen bears an similarity to the name Lempo and the Finnish word lempi or "love", some researchers have surmised that Lemminkäinen was actually a male god of fertility and love, somewhat akin to Freyr (or Baldr, considering the manner of his demise).

Ahti, on the other hand, is not a mythic character, but a mortal hero. Ahti is a warrior and a raider - a Viking, if you will - who swears a double oath with his newlywed wife Kyllikki that he should never again go to war, while she vows to never visit another man. A long poetic passage describes Ahti's ship lamenting its fate, having to lie on the shore while other ships bring home gold and silver. Kyllikki breaks her oath, and as a result, Ahti breaks out his weapons, assembles his old warband and sails off. He first goes to Finland to fetch Teuri, a skilled navigator. The ending of the poem is not known, since it usually trails off or merges into another narrative, such as the story of Lemminkäinen.

I hope this is helpful to you. Very little in general is known about Finnish mythology - we don't have any written pre-Christian sources for Finnish myths like we have for Norse ones, just oral poems. If you're interested in Finnish mythology, the best source is probably Wikipedia, although the quality of the articles varies heavily. There's also this paperback translation of the Kalevala, if you're willing to have a go at that.

Otherwise, English sources are practically nonexistent, which is a shame, really.




^This ^recontruction ^is ^the ^courtesy ^of ^the ^Finnish ^folklorist ^Matti ^Kuusi. ^The ^original ^poems ^are ^fragmentary ^and ^contain ^conflicting ^information, ^but ^this ^reconstructed ^version ^holds ^water ^reasonably ^well.

I want to also plug an awesome pagan religious work; the Nordic “Bible”: the Poetic Edda.

You reminded me of it when you said the ‘thirukkural’ was written like psalms; the Edda is a collection of poems telling many stories that is like that too, with parts giving words of wisdom accredited to Odin himself. A recent 2015 translation by Dr. Jackson Crawford is very good.

It’s a great little book, Mark Atherton is a brilliant scholar of Old English (and his work on Tolkien is equally good, if you’re a fan). It starts very easy, then works up through real texts and cultural context. The same is true of Hough & Corbett’s Beginning Old English– lots of original sections of prose and poetry, starting with basics and building enjoyment alongside the language.

If you want something that’s more academic from the start, I’d recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction, which contains a good grounding in grammar more generally, or the more linguistics-based one by the late Richard Hogg. The best overall textbook is undeniably Mitchell & Robinson’s Guide – but it is dense and (despite what the authors claim) not easy to use in independent study. Their sections on syntax are vast and comprehensive, however, so that might be what you’re looking for.

A few thoughts:

At one point Lewis and Tolkien were going to write companion novels about space and time. You can see echoes of this in the last chapter of Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in CSL's Space Trilogy when he mentions that space has been cut off from human travel and now any future voyages would be through time. There's also echoes of what might have been in JRRT's Notion Club Papers, which has a time-travel element, but was never published.

In addition, JRRT did not care for the Narnia series because he felt it lacked a coherent theme. However, in the controversial Planet Narnia, Michael Ward posits that CSL actually did have a theme: the medieval view of the planets (The Seven Heavens). There are definitely intriguing arguments made in the book, especially as he combines information from Narnia and the Space Trilogy into his thesis. I wouldn't say it's iron-clad, but if I was still in education, or had the luxury to write papers, this is an area I'd love to explore in depth - specifically the influence of Charles Williams on the evolution of CSL's thought.

If you're interested in aspects of their backgrounds that influenced their worldviews, I would recommend The Discarded Image from CSL (on medieval literature - my favorite CSL book) and The Road to Middle-Earth by Tom Shippey (on the philological undergirding of Middle-Earth). The Humprey Carpenter books are also good (JRRT Letters, Tolkien bio, Inklings bio) as are CSL's letters.

While it isn't exactly Norse Mythology, the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala, was an important catalyst for inspiring Tolkien to create what would eventually become Arda. I'm currently about 1/3 through and while certain cantos are quite dull, overall my experience with it is very positive. If you're the least bit interested in Finnish culture, I definitely recommend reading it.

Awesome reply, thanks. I'm currently going through Herodotos' "The Histories", so I'm looking forward to learning more about Hannibal after I'm through with it. Though it seems like I'd find even the "boring" parts of Livy's writings interesting.

I also just checked Amazon, and it looks like there's quite a few Penguin Classics books on ancient history available. If anyone is interested, here's a link to "The War with Carthage" on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-War-Hannibal-Foundation-Classics/dp/014044145X/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0QZTSAH3TVKP89YTGGA7

I just happened to end up at a university that had a professor of Old Norse. Modern Icelandic and Faroese are pretty close and there is an Old Norse dictionary (Zoega's concise dictionary - it's concise because he was going to make a larger one but died before he could). My old norse professor has two textbooks you can get on amazon (textbook 1 and textbook 2) but I don't know how good those are because he was writing them while I was taking his courses. There's also this textbook which I've never used but has good reviews.

You can also learn modern Icelandic and then study Old Norse because they very similar. It may be easier to do it that way. We also read the sagas in the original Old Norse which was very interesting.

Me again :) I had some more ideas.

​

You might also enjoy Livy's War with Hannibal, a really exciting book about the battle between Hannibal and Fabius Maximus, and their different fighting styles (Maximus was very cunning, or maybe just considered so because he won). I have this exact edition and it's a fun read, also full of gossip about goings-on in Rome at the time.

​

You could also have a look at Caesar's Conquest of Gaul: the history of his conquest, straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. I recall it being a bit dry and self-congratulatory, but hey, it's the man himself!

​

If you're looking at a very realistic description of political leadership (including military), have a look at Machiavelli's Prince. Despite having a reputation that's, well, Machiavellian, it's actually a very reasonable books about attaining and keeping political power. It's very much in line with what you say about

\> not making them the perfectly good side

plus he talks a lot about his ideal Prince, the infamous Cesare Borgia (who was a condottiere, or military leader of sorts). Loads of examples about his military achievements are given.

​

From modern history, De Gaulle's War Memoirs is very well-written and makes one fully realise the difficulties he faced and the responsibilities he took!

I second The Longship.

​

Asatru is a type of Heathenry. Heathenry is an umbrella term for religions, philosophies, piety, lifestyles that are based in Germanic Paganism and/or Germanic Pagan culture.

A good place to start is reading books.

Here are the ones I recommend:

A Beginner's book: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Heathens-Guide-Asatru/dp/0738733873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673929&sr=8-1&keywords=heathenry

​

And the Poetic Edda translated by Jackson Crawford: https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673980&sr=8-1&keywords=jackson+crawford

​

Also, for some spiritual music to meditate to, I recommend starting with

Wardruna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fnPwj1AMpo

And this song by Heilung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqdk34f210w

​

Ancestors are very important to Heathenry, so I would meditate on some of your ancestors that have passed on, if you don't already.

​

Connect with the energies of your local land and woods. Some Heathens think these energies are literal beings called Land Wights. Some see them a bit more fluid and amorphous but still relational energies tied to the local land.

​

I also recommend learning a bit about the three major ritual forms: Blots, Sumbels, and Fainings.

​

At least, these are the places I would begin.

Here's Egil's saga in old Norse

And here's a series of dual-language sagas

That's all I've found so far, the second link has about 10 sagas but you might wanna be careful with them, most don't have reviews and some that do are pretty bad (I don't have any of those so I couldn't say personally, the first link is nice though.)

Also, Jesse L. Byock has an old Norse reader coming out in September that will have at least large exerts if not full sagas.
Amazon page here where it's up for pre-order

https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ The Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford is good, he makes pretty interesting videos on youtube about Old Norse as well.

I studied Intro to Old English at uni, and we used Peter Baker's Intro to Old English:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Old-English-Peter-Baker/dp/047065984X

If you buy it new it also comes with online resources like worksheets which are super helpful for learning the grammar and sentence structure!

Great video! His translation of the Poetic Edda is also another awesome resource.

No, not really fantasy but I do think the medieval details and general plot would appeal to a fantasy reader. A good resource is The Key to the Name of the Rose, a translation of all the latin in the book with notes which puts in even more interesting context.

The other two Eco books have many more fantasy elements.

You can find the AS Chronicle here.
If you’d like to get into poetry (which is generally a bit easier to translate than prose), McGillivray has a very useful site.

I’m not sure how much of a beginner you are, but if you’re just starting out, I also highly recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction to Old English. The textbook has a free-access companion website with loads of exercises.

To my knowledge there isn't an online translation tool for Old English. UToronto has a dictionary/corpus that may interest you.

If you can get it, the Mitchell and Robinson Guide to Old English is a great book for learning translation (though they do standardize the OE texts substantially).

Lysias 1 and Xenophon Anabasis are pretty standard texts for post-first-year Greek. If you're feeling a bit more adventurous, perhaps a bit of Homer (or this, which I haven't used but looks interesting) or Herodotus. The dialectal differences aren't hard to pick up, and they feel like "lighter" reading.

From what I'm told, this is one of the best books to start with: https://smile.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483301517&sr=8-1&keywords=learn+old+norse

I'm currently learning as well so definitely curious as to what resources you find!

Viking Language 1 and 2 by Jesse L. Byock. Here's the first one:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

You can get audio recordings for the lessons on Amazon or iTunes as well.

The courses are by far the most modernized, user-friendly courses available. A close second would be 'A New Introduction to Old Norse,' which can be purchased here:

https://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/new-introduction-old-norse-part-i-ii-and-iii-discount-set

Holy crap I actually know this guy IRL. Uhm. Wow.

Yeah he's one of a dozen or so people in the world doing the work he's doing. He wrote a book a few years ago that is a translation of an Icelandic epic poem from the 13th century. Well worth the ~$15. I think my dad has a signed copy floating around somewhere.

He also worked with the production team of Frozen to help with translations, and providing cultural/linguistic authenticity to the story and worldbuilding.

He was also working on a retelling of the Star Wars saga in the style of an Old Norse epic poem a few years ago. IIRC he might have recieved a C&D from George Lucas's legal team for it, but don't quote me on that.

Super cool guy, incredibly knowledgeable.

Link to his retelling of SW: https://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/tattuinardoela-saga-if-star-wars-were-an-icelandic-saga/

Link to the full pdf retelling of all 6 episodes (then extant) of the Star Wars saga: https://tattuinardoelasaga.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/tattuinardoela-saga-complete.pdf

I have A Guide to Old English, Introduction to Old English and Old English: Grammar and Reader at home and they all are pretty useful if you are interested in the language (plus Clark-Hall's dictionary). I've never tried to study it as a live language - I just wanted to read some old texts :)

There is also Complete Old English - not sure how good it is but you may want to look at it.

For Norse sagas, Penguin classics has some fantastic editions:

• The Saga of Icelanders
  
  
• Njals Saga
  
  
• Prose Edda
  
  
• Volsungs saga
  
  
• Kalevala
  
  For eastern mythology, you'll want:
  
  
• Bhagavad Gita
  
  
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
  
  
• The Arabaian Nights Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3
  
  
• Journey to the West Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4
  
  For Celtic mythology:
  
  
• The Mabinogion
  
  
• Arthurian Romances
  
  
• Early Irish Myths and Sagas

I like Dr. Jackson Crawford's translation. It's easy to read.

Link

I love getting the opportunity to plug my absolute favorite book

http://www.amazon.com/Scipio-Africanus-Greater-Than-Napoleon/dp/0306813637

Scipio Africanus was the man that beat Hannibal in the second Punic War. If you want a more Hannibal-centric text then I would recommend The War with Hannibal by Titus Livy, though that one was written in antiquity so you'll have to keep that in mind while reading it.

This book is excellent:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guide-Old-English-Bruce-Mitchell/dp/0470671076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369787220&sr=8-1&keywords=guide+to+old+english

I have Keith Bosley's translation, which seems to follow the meaning more than the rhythm. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not a fan of the free versions I have seen online. They are quite dated.

Eco doesn't make it easy, and there aren't footnotes or translations for, well, anything.

​

I found this book really helpful as a companion: The Key to the Name of the Rose.

Excellent channel. I also recomend his translation of the poetic edda. Ive really enjoyed reading it.

When I took an Old English module a couple of years back we used a couple of different resources for learning the language:

• First was Wordloca (good grammar guide), which if you private message me I can send you a PDF of or you can make an account and use their website online. However, this doesn't use the long vowel markers, but if you use it in tandem with the second which was...
  
  
• Bruce Mitchell's Guide to Old English (available here) as a reader. He does use the long vowel markers you're looking for.
  
  If you're getting started with the language I would recommend starting with translating 'Cynewulf and Cyneheard' before tackling Bede's account of the poet Caedmon - both of which can be found in Mitchell's book.

I recommend Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's book, and Stephen Barney's Word Hoard isn't bad either.

These two textbooks are terrific:

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Old-Norse-Reader/dp/1481175262

I took an Old Norse class in college, and we used Viking Language by Jesse Byock (https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445). It would be a good book to work through on your own and also includes culture and history lessons.

My go-to resource: http://www.oldenglishaerobics.net/

Companion book: Introduction to Old English https://smile.amazon.com/dp/047065984X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_9sR4Bb0CWZR0P

If you want familiar reading material: Æðelgyðe Ellendæda on Wundorlande: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Old English (Old English Edition) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1782011129/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_twR4Bb5EWXJZY

If you're looking for an intro, try Our Father's Godsaga by Viktor Rydberg. Other than that, you can't go wrong with the already mentioned one by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

Besides that, Dr. Jackson Crawford (Ph.D., Scandinavian Studies; Taught Old Norse, Norse myth, Sagas, Vikings, etc. at UCLA) is releasing a version of the Poetic Edda which is worth checking out. It's available for Pre-Order here

http://www.last.fm/music/Various+Artists/The+Kalevala+Heritage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala

This is really worth buying: http://www.amazon.com/Kalevala-Albert-B-Lord/dp/0199538867/ref=sr_1_2?s=english-books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408490232&sr=1-2&keywords=kalevala

I prefer the originals. And if you want a story that's actually about a Viking family, try this one.

Finn and Hengest, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and, Tree and Leaf (or my copy is B-Format and matches spine wise,, granted the HC logo is smaller but thats due more to the thinness of the book)

http://i.imgur.com/fSYbEGL.png

I guess for next time, if there will be, I will have to read up more thoroughly on my source and cite it. You are right though, that an academic community demands the same level of rigor and proof.

Crossley-Holland oversætter de nordiske mytologier til et mere gammeldags engelsk, som kan være svært at forstå for nogen.
I anbefaler at vælge Jackson Crawford's oversættelse af den poetiske edda. Den er mere ny, og er mere forståelig fordi det er oversat til nutiddags engelsk.

The same guy from the video translated that!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1624663567/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_0BqFybN17GJPS

This translation of The Poetic Edda came out earlier this month. It is very readable.

https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Language-Learn-Norse-Icelandic/dp/1480216445

Here you go if you are getting charged too much for shipping then it's Amazon just being a bitch....

There are not many grammars of OE out there that cover syntax. If you want a quick overview for beginners, you could read the first half of Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's Guide to OE. Mitchell, who recently died, was the expert on syntax (If you want all the details, check out his two-volume Old English Syntax from the library.). You will find most other grammars of OE cover phonology and morphology and that's about it. There is, however, a small section in Lass's OE: A Historical Linguistic Companion.

As for Middle English, I don't know the bibliography as well, but the introductory Book of ME by Burrow and Turville-Petre have a short section on syntax.

This wikipedia page about chapter and verses in the Bible gives some context about when the modern numbering system came to be, and the different systems that were used before.

If you are looking for how people used to cite the Bible before the Stephanus numbers...well, citations as we know them were not really a thing in the middle ages (see C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image for a fairly accessible look at how medieval scholars used previous works). If you look at the writings of the early church fathers (Augustine etc.), you can see how people used to quote the Bible. Many times it's just "As John says..." or a more specific "When Jesus was talking to Nicodemus he said..." No chapters or verses, but someone familiar with the text could find the spot. Here's a website where you can see early church father allusions/quotations of the NT.

You can even look at the New Testament and see how they "cited" the Old Testament to see this in action. Usually your English translation will give you the cross reference notes so you can look back to the OT verses to compare. Look at the place where Jesus says "you have heard...but I tell you", or where Paul is quoting the Law. They didn't even cite the book usually! I suppose people must have just been more familiar with the texts and knew where to look. Or more likely, people didn't have access to the scrolls as much as we have access to Bibles on our own nightstands today and had lots of the text memorized.