anglo-saxon

In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated.

She knew them by their thick woven cloaks, their hanging hair and beards, and their Anglisc voices: words drumming like apples spilt over wooden boards, round, rich, stirring. Like her father__ words, and her mother__, and her sister__. Utterly unlike Onnen__ otter-swift British or the dark liquid gleam of Irish. Hild spoke each to each. Apples to apples, otter to otter, gleam to gleam, though only when her mother wasn__ there.