Winters in the World

A heart-warmer for the coming winter . . . [and] we could do worse than choose Ms. Parker's book for a wintry companion. -- Tom Shippey * Wall Street Journal *
This is a lovely little book, based on a deceptively simple idea: the story of the Anglo-Saxon year, from the depths of winter, via the green shoots of spring and the heat of midsummer, to the fading light of Autumn. Deep down, though, it's a journey into the Anglo-Saxon imagination, with Old English folktales, poems and riddles on almost every page . . . [Parker] makes the Anglo-Saxon universe seem vividly, thrillingly real, a world of magic and mystery, ritual and song. * The Sunday Times: History Books of the Year *
[Parker's] prose is as lyrical as the poetry that she so deftly translates . . . Parker’s larger point is to show how older ways of experiencing the seasons continue to run steadily through our lives, even if we don’t quite register the tug. This lovely book acts as a portal back to an older time, using the poetry of medieval England to unlock a world where the seasons, and the changing weather, are a subject of deep pleasure and renewing wonder. * The Guardian *
Eleanor Parker in her fascinating and authoritative new book Winters in the World explains that the original division of the seasons in England before the Conquest was into winter and summer. Even today, we are not quite sure, I think, about how long spring and autumn last . . . Dr Parker, a lecturer at Brasenose College, Oxford, rejoices in two advantages. She has read and understood the original texts and she is superb in explaining them and the world from which they sprang. * Daily Telegraph *
Parker takes us through the rhythms of the Anglo-Saxon year, charting its seasons and traditions: its weather and agricultural patterns, its festivals and religious customs . . . Her lyrical, insightful book is being published in a year in which heat records have been broken across the world, and Weland’s winter-cold misery has ceded to a summer-hot equivalent. If heat is now the invading warrior, then it is one we have invited. As the crisis deepens, the texts that survive from Anglo-Saxon England “speak truths that we still need to hear” about the rhythms of nature and our dependency on the bounty of the earth. * Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Times Literary Supplement *
One book I particulary enjoyed was Eleanor Parker's Winters in the World. Parker sheds light on significant dates in the medieval calendar and the festival and celebrations that went with them . . . This beautifully written account transports us through each season in a deeply sensual manner, from freezing ice to warm, spongy loam in a year whose rituals are still thrumming below our own seasonal journeys. * The New European: 2022's Best Non-Fiction *
This examination of the year as seen in Anglo-Saxon England is a celebration of the relationship between people and Nature. The introduction describes the cycle of seasons and rhythms of growth and decay as the year progresses. Eleanor outlines the similarities to and differences from the Gregorian calendar, which is how we currently trace the passing of time. The book uses Old English verse (with modern translations) to paint vivid pictures of how our ancestors lived. -- Lorraine Connolly * Countryman *
Both an accessible introduction to the Anglo-Saxon age and an evocative celebration of its seasonal rhythms and links with nature, this book guides readers through the year as captured by the writers of the era. * History Revealed *
Anglo-Saxons experienced the turning of the year differently: with most wealth derived from agriculture, and over 90 per cent of the population in the fields, it was the rhythms of sowing, growing and reaping that dominated. That is the focus of Eleanor Parker's delightful and informative book, in which she introduces the workings of an Anglo-Saxon year with verve. Expertly drawing on the Old English poetic corpus, Parker gives a keen sense of how the four seasons were experienced . . . Throughout the book, Parker writes with great empathy, evoking the lost world of pre-Conquest England. * BBC History magazine *
Dr. Eleanor Parker, an Oxford lecturer in medieval English, has translated some wonderful weather poetry in her book Winters in the World. -- Malcolm Guite * Church Times - Poet's Corner *
With a compendium of textual period sources, Winters in the World offers a unique window into the rhythms of Anglo-Saxon England, which continue in part to this day. Parker eloquently captures the cultural vibrancy of the time with her analysis of the effect of the rhythms of nature on religious, social, and labor patterns . . . Parker illuminates the inner workings of the Anglo-Saxon mind * The New Criterion *
Winters in the World draws on Anglo-Saxon texts including poetry and religious writing to depict life in England over 1,000 years ago . . . Imagine a world with just winter and summer, where calendars depended on whether you were planting crops, rearing animals or praising your god . . . This book brings vividly to life a society which is devout, if war-like, and produces exquisite poetry. -- Paula Dempsey * Fortean Times *
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 . . . 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. It is a beautiful, charming, and evocative voyage into what, to many of us, seems a very distant past . . . Parker shows herself to be a master of her subject. Her knowledge is superb; her writing a form of poetry itself . . . Through her enchanting prose, her analogies, her eloquence, Parker convinces her audience of the intelligence, imagination and immense beauty of her subject. No-one can come away from this book still believing the Anglo-Saxons to have lived through the "Dark Ages". * Get History *
a guided tour through the Anglo-Saxon perception and measurement of time – a reckoning that was more closely linked to the rhythms of the natural world than our own today yet from which we still retain aspects of which we may not be aware . . .this book should now be taken up for reading as both edification and entertainment during the long, dark evenings to come. * The Well-read Naturalist *
In this wonderfully poetic journey through the Anglo-Saxon year, Eleanor Parker offers a profound meditation on time and the world, nature and its seasons. Plunging the reader into the glorious cadences of Old English poetry with her supple translations, Parker brings to vivid life the terrors of winter, spring’s promise, the joyful warmth of summer and the melancholy of autumn, powerfully connecting us with a rich and vital past that we have not quite lost. * Carolyne Larrington, Professor of Medieval European Literature, University of Oxford *
A fascinating, informative and hauntingly authentic account of the Anglo-Saxon experience of time; Eleanor Parker shows that understanding the early English calendar is a crucial point of access to Anglo-Saxon spirituality, learning, science, poetry and much more besides. * Francis Young, author of 'Magic in Merlin’s Realm: A History of Occult Politics in Britain' *
This book is a treasure and a delight, full of beautiful poetry and prose from the treasure-house of Anglo-Saxon culture. Lucid translations, accessible introductions and explanation, all combine to lead us through the cycle of the seasons . . . Eleanor Parker offers us a vision of time itself made sacred, each month hallowed, and full of unexpected beauty and wisdom. * Malcolm Guite, poet and life fellow of Girton College, University of Cambridge *
A literary book of calendric history. Parker’s Winters in the World is an education fit for the Humanities and lay person who wishes to expand upon what it means to exist as humans in a world full of wyrd winters. -- Barbara Castle * Front Porch Republic *
Winters in the World is one of the first volumes dedicated to exploring the cycle of the year as it was conceived in Anglo-Saxon times . . . Parker draws on a huge and varied range of textual sources encapsulating the sense of time. Thus, by interweaving the analysis of famous pieces of the literary corpus with other less known texts documenting a large variety of cultural traditions and social practices, this volume manages to provide a complete and vivid understanding of the cares of the year as experienced by the inhabitants of early medieval England . . . Parker’s compelling analysis of the understanding of the passing of the seasons according to the Anglo-Saxon mindset cleverly combines elements of literary analysis and cultural studies . . . Engaging and thoroughly well-researched, this book definitely makes a substantial contribution to the study of the cultural heritage of early medieval England. -- María del Carmen Muñoz Rodríguez * SELIM - Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature *