British Library: Beowulf - read and listen - 0 views
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Katie Day on 02 Mar 10Includes audio of someone reading the original Beowulf.... "This exercise will show you how English was written and spoken a thousand years ago. At first the words may seem completely unfamiliar. But, look closely, and you'll find plenty of links to the modern English of today. This passage is from the epic tale of Beowulf, a tale told around winter fires on long evenings in Britain in the Dark Ages. The manuscript shown here is 1000 years old; blackened edges to the pages are the result of a fire in the Cotton Library in 1731. But the story of Beowulf is 2 or perhaps 3 centuries older."