North British Warrior

[Alanus]

It's known these days through research of the work of the last known oral poets (ask Jona) that, opposite to what was thought for a long time, the contents of oral poetry varies with each performance, however slight. That means that Homer did not write down the contents of songs that had changed little troughout centuries, but merely the last of many many versions.
The same goes for medieval songs that are passed on orally. each performer adds his own stuff, so we cannot possibly rely on this material as conveying actual details.

Hi, Robert

You are correct-- "oral poetry varies with each performance."

Thirty years ago, I wrote and performed oral poetry (songs) and they did vary each time, BUT the meter and rhyme remained the same, only the timing changing. The important part-- the information or tale-- did not vary. I moved on to become a national writer and gave up performing folk music. My brother-in-law (a professional), impressed with one of my songs, still sings it. He first heard it orally, and the "information" within that song remains unchanged.

"For tens of thousands of years before humans had writing, they had important information they needed to preserve... Anthropology has taught us that most of this information is encapsulated in song. Out ancestors discovered that if they set words to music they were easier to remember. The internal constraints of music-- the meter, the accent structure-- not to mention poetic elements like alliteration and rhyme, limit the possible words that will fit." (Professor Daniel Levitin, 2009)

We remember songs with uncanny precision; and as adults we are able to recall verses not sung since childhood. "Mares eat oats, and does eat oats," etc. Even children living in differing countries do not change it. This marvelous capacity of the human brain allows us to encode musical information and pass it verbatim to the next generation: the accurate transmission of tribal memory. I believe it because I did it and I lived it... as a once-professional bard.

Yes, there is some "pollution" in the material, but a careful scan can pick it out: things that DON'T FIT. One example is the Arthurian verse added to the "Death of Geraint." Its meter and structure are obvious intrusions in what I consider a "historical text," even though it was once verbal.

As for creating a new thread under the banner of "Late Antiquity?" :roll: I bought a huge Oxford book with that title, hoping to find good grit. Its contributors included a dozen prestiegious professors, yet everything was centered on Egypt, the Lavant, and Constantinople, all of it mosty covering religious subjects. Where was the info on Western Europe?

When your house is burned, your wife is raped, and your children sold into slavery, you are not living in Late Antiquity. That term, perhaps the product of weeping liberals, seems to hold no relevance to post-Roman Britain in the period under discussion. Just a thought. :|