Lyra the Lyre (by sarah)

Lyra the Lyre would by lying if she said she was Anglo-Saxon but she knows how she is different and is very similar - so she will do.

Basically she is 10 strings and modern built "Celtic" style and the Saxon era ones were 5-8 strings. However culturally the music and things would be close to the Danes/viking stuff were they range from 2 strings (or t least this is my understanding form all the readingI've been doing). The style of harp/lyre used is basically the same as that used in Israel and the Middle East - stretching way back in time. Anglo-Saxon harps are rare finds though and we are lucky to have found the fragments at Sutton Hoo. Gaps in our knowledge are filled in from other parts of Europe - ie places in and around Germany where the Angles and other associated tribes came from.

Finding myself falling down a lovely rabbit whole of music history - and finding myself trying to understand music theory when I can't read music!

So... pentatonic scales are kinds of an ancient thing hidden in British music especially the folk stuff - this is not the 8 note thingy we are taught at school and kind of explains why folk stuff from other places sounds so hauntingly familiar to me. I struggle a bit with the restrictions of conventional music that tries to tell me sounds I can hear don't exist or can't sound good. These I've found are called Demi-tones - but that is another tale and arches back to the end of the nineties and my choir master being awesome in explaining stuff and encouraging people to experiment with music.

Anyway obv. Lyra has the wrong number and type of strings and has a key for turning the pegs for tuning but she is still really really similar to the harps the anglo-saxons used.

I have a book on Lyre history, making and tuning coming - for now I just sort of tightened the strings until they sounded ok to me. At some point I will be making a Sutton Hoo replica but not before the summer festival for Queen Aethelflaed!

Here are some fun links!

Viking Guitar

Guide To Playing a Six String Lyre

This one is an absolutely beautiful blog on The Saxon Hearpe - here is the lady in a vid about it too 🙂

Aethel in the Park (by sarah)

To commemorate Aethelflaed Queen of Mercia and Mother of England there is a beautiful bench in Gloucester Park - it backs onto the World War One bench so we had a little walk and took some pics 🙂

I like the fact that it is made of wood - wood is a very Anglo-Saxon material and was utilised for pretty much everything, Aethelflaed and her family which included Alfred the Great of burnt cakes fame, her brother who was King of Wessex and her foster son and nephew Aethstan who was the first "King of England" commissioned building in stone because it was the new fancy stuff and they brought in stone masons from the continent to do so (they also nicked already cut stone from the decaying remnants of various roman buildings) but wood - wood was the main thing. They built with it, ate with it, sailed with it and made their textiles from tools fashioned in it.

The bench has some lovely stylised art work on it showing the Queen with a sword representing her military rule.

Of course it is a natural material and they have have very much shaped the bench from the suggestions of nature leaving a huge great hole that Alaric just had to shove his hand into! (Had to think carefully about the phrasing of this sentence!)

Of course wood will weather even if efforts are made to maintain these benches - this is an interesting thing for these benches as they slowly become part of the landscape. There is also a stone statue in the making I believe which will be an interesting contrast and the two pieces will to me represent the juxtaposition of the Warrior Queen herself as she straddled the time of change form wood to stone buildings.

Here are the bits from the other side of the bench.

And though I am pretty sure I have already photographed this bird graffiti by Trix on the Avery - here it is again because I really like it 🙂

And on that note - why is there a random Avery in the park? And who looks after it? The birds all seem happy and healthy.

And last but not least I also found this interesting building on our walk - I've been collecting urban and architectural photos and this one seemed to fit the bill nicely.

The Quest for Aethelflaed Hots Up!!! (by sarah)

This year is the 1100 yr anniversary of Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia and Warrior Queen's death - living in the city she was buried in means that of course I have become involved with the celebrations to mark the occasion!

Here. is a little summary - though it does not yet mention everything that is happening 🙂

There is so much AWESOME going on for this event - I'm taking Cuddly Science's Histories to the event and have been researching and amassing much stuff for workshops including metallurgy, textiles, music, a new puppet, mud squishing, art history, wood work and more!

I have been privileged to work with the people at the Museum of Gloucester and have been pestering historians everywhere - I might also have high jacked the family holiday and various story telling gigs to slip in some extra research. I've reached the stage of trying to track down copies of various Chronicles (in translation) and have revived my interest in Viking/Saxon et al poetry.

Last year I decided it was time to move Cuddly Science onto phase 2 - Cuddly Histories and so found myself at the Archaeology Festival and even at some digs <3 Being a geologist by training this reminded me of my love for archaeology and history - I went on to take part in the History festival with a talk on Cave Art and so on...

I'd already decided to make the Aethelflaed puppet for this year when the chance of being involved in the festival came up and so my Quest for Aethelflaed and Search for All Things Anglo-Saxon started - I have taken photos of rocks and statues and medallions and fallen down rabbit holes of Norse language roots, I am using my science, technology, art, and craft skills, I am researching and learning and this makes me very happy - I am also meeting lots of interesting people on the way.

I am also learning so much about the city I live in - things I just didn't know.

With only about a month or so to go before the festival it's time to turn the heat up on my Quest - can you work out what I am up to with this little piece of kit?