Wednesday, February 18, 2004

 
Read All About It! Mel Gibson Turns Into Scotsman!(Whither William Wallace?)
Or: The Romance of the Gibson- Gael
Or: Bergman, Bergman, To The Wall!




Gawd bless Google. I had forgotten that the Python bit which ends with a Scotsman winning Wimbledon began with horrifying accounts of thousands turning into Scotsmen.
Padding out, er I mean expanding upon the previous post: Geipel also notes that "Whilst Norse declined or, more accurately fused with English fairly rapidly in the Danelaw, the Lothians of Scotland and islands off Wales and in the Bristol Channel, it survived in some of the outer Hebrides until the mid-thirteenth century and appears to have been spoken until well into the fourteenth by the 'Ostmen'(Easterners), merchants and traders of Scandinavian descent in such Irish coastal centres as Dublin, Wexford and Waterford. In remoter areas, such as Caithnes and, especially, the Orkneys and Shetlands, Norse vernaculars, albeit unwritten and increasingly corrupt, persisted as recently as the eighteenth century; it was still necessary in the late 1600s for Scots ministers posted to some of the remoter Shetland Islands to learn Norwegian in Norway in order to make themselves intelligible to their congregations." (-wonder if there are any comedians in Oslo getting politically incorrect yuks out of Norwegian spoken with a thick Scottish accent)
In an earlier section of his book Geipel noted the persistence of "nursery rhymes, riddles, oaths or magic formulae" in the speech of people who had long forgotten the original language: "..many decades after the old Norn language had died out in Shetland, riddles, curses and snatches of ballads in that language continued to pass from father to son and from mother to daughter. The lines:
Barn vil ikka tea,
Barn vil ikka tea,
Tak an leggen, slog an veggen,
Barn vil ikka tea,

[will finish later-the nine year old won't be quiet until I relinquish the Main Frame....wish I *was* making this up-now using the craptop in bed]

whilst meaningless to an Englishman - and no doubt to the last of the Shetlanders to recite them - still make perfect sense to any Scandinavian; they mean:

The child will not be quiet,
The child will not be quiet,
Take it by the leg, hit it against the wall,
The child will not be quiet."

Reminds me of Ingmar Bergman's "Virgin Spring" in which a man who having taken in three destitute travelers, learns that they had raped and murdered his daughter, slaughters the two adults and then throws the child of the group against the wall, killing him. Present day Sweden has, of course, outlawed the spanking of children. (although, assuming it has its share of Jocelyn Elderses(Elderi?), that of the "bishop" is part of home work) A website claiming good results from those Scandinavian sanctions also notes that some Swedes are concerned about the importation of *Donald Duck* cartoons because of their "violent" content. It seems unlikely that the Scandifabians have welcomed the importation of the non-violent pro-capitalist fables of Scrooge McDuck -however much they might wish to apologize for raiding and settling the land of his ancestors.
And speaking of various Celts, Conan Obrien "apologized" last night for Triumph The Insult Dog's slaverings about the french Quebecers. While Conan gave some boiler pate' statement of contrition, beside him stood a guy(pronounced "ghee" I guess)"translating" it with phrases like "Did mention that I have a small penis?" -very funny(seriously)-even if it reinforced suspicions that the Irish and Gauls ultimately flock together(well, except for WWI & II) Some star or starlet, whose name I've forgotten, visibly upset Mr. Obrien when she said something to the effect that he looked very Germanic. But as Geipel notes.....blah blah...time to wrap this up for din din













http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode07.htm