The Deorhord

An Old English Bestiary

By: Hana Videen

Narrated by: Isabel Adomakoh Young

Many of the animals we encounter in everyday life, from the creatures in our fields to those in our fantasies, have remained the same since medieval times - but the words we use, and the ways we describe them, have often changed beyond recognition...

Old English was spoken over a thousand years ago, when every animal was a deor. In this glittering Old English bestiary we find deors big and small, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the good, the bad and the downright baffling. From walker-weavers (spiders) and grey-cloaked ones (eagles) to moon-heads and teeth-tyrants (historians still don't know!), we discover a world both familiar and strange: where ants could be monsters and panthers could be your friend, where dog-headed men were as real as elephants and where whales were as sneaky as wolves.

From the author of The Wordhord comes another delightful dive into the realm of Old English - words and creatures that will change the way you see the world.

©2023 Hana Videen (P)2023 Profile Books Ltd

Beastly

I cannot recommend this for anyone interested in Anglo-Saxon Culture. Whilst a modern work linking this language of Beowulf using the narrative framing of a bestiary audio would normally be welcomed, the author's own currentism bias spoils the listen. There are numerous threads through the book listing the faults of the Anglo-Saxons (sexist, patrarchal, having gender sterotypes etc.) and have a dismissive attitude to the beleivers of that era.
Whilst it is unfortunately the case that academics must kowtow to their ideologies, the rather superior attitude of the author as she points out the faults of those who did not have the luck to be born in the 21st Century makes a grating listening experience for the ordinary listerner.