Hi everyone, welcome to this bonus episode of the History of English Podcast.

This is bonus episode 5, odds and ends.

And as that name suggests, this is a brief bonus episode dedicated to a few bits and pieces

which were left out of the last few episodes for one reason or another.

odds and ends is also appropriate because it foreshadows the next few episodes of the podcast.

End is an Old English word used by the Anglo-Saxons, but odd is an Old Norse word brought to

Britain by the Vikings.

So in the phrase odds and ends, we have a combination of Old English and Old Norse.

And that mixing of English and Norse words is going to become a common theme over the next

few episodes when we begin to look at the Vikings.

The next full episode of the podcast, episode 42, will focus on the ancestors of the Vikings.

Unfortunately, I don't have that episode ready yet, and I probably won't have it ready

for a few more days, so I decided to go ahead and put together a quick bonus episode to

hold everyone over until then.

I want to begin by noting that the next episode will not only look at the ancestors of the

Vikings, it will also explore the historical setting and background of Beowulf.

For scholars of the Pre-Viking period of Scandinavia, Beowulf is actually a valuable resource.

While the story itself is certainly fictional, it's set in Scandinavia during this early

period when very little is known about the region within any certainty.

And even though the story is most famous for the battles against monsters and dragons,

the poem also contains numerous references to historical people and events.

And some of that information has actually been confirmed by the few other historical records

...