Holly and ivy

I belong to a group which is interested in the language which was spoken in the west country before the Normans came; this is one of the many forms of Anglo-Saxon which also had loan words from the Celtic languages, particularly Welsh, and the language of the first Norsemen to come to these islands from Scandinavia. We aren’t trying to learn the language, partly because the two gentlemen who are running the group aren’t teachers; they are however extremely knowledgeable about many things as well as Saxish as we call it.

Most weeks we are set ‘homework’, which is usually to look up the origin of particular words or place names; last time, however we were challenged to translate a Christmas carol. I had a go at it, and I chose a verse from a very well-known Christmas song:

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown.
O the rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.

I knew this would be difficult, so I tried to simplify the actual lines, trying to retain the sense but enabling me to manage to make some sort of verse as well as I could. The first simple line, ‘the holly and the ivy’ was alright, but I carefully checked whether the words were masculine or feminine or neuter to get the right article; I couldn’t find a way to translate ‘full-grown’ so after trying all sorts of different ways of getting the idea across, I decided to have something like ‘clothed’ or ‘equipped’ or ‘decked’ as they had leaves and berries on them. I gave up completely on ‘of all the trees that are in the wood’ that just defeated me!

I couldn’t find a word for crown, although there is one, so I changed it to ‘helmet’ and chose from the words on offer ‘helm’ as there is a current English word, albeit rather obscure (I don’t mean ‘helm’ as in ‘take the helm’). The word I have chosen for ‘dee’ is an all-purpose word just meaning game animals… maybe I should have chosen a specific words such as ‘rá’ meaning roe-buck, or if I wanted to be seasonal, ‘hrán’ – reindeer!

There were no organs, merry or otherwise, so I chose harp, as I couldn’t find pipe or flute, and I know harps were popular in those days. I liked the word blīþe, pronounced blithe, as I guess with a merry song the harp would be blithe! I couldn’t translate ‘choir’ so I had a singer singing – in English I would have chosen a different word rather than have that singer/singing repetition, but in Saxish it works perfectly, ‘scop ásingþ’, and I didn’t translate sweetly directly because it would be literally sweet as in flavour, so I chose a word meaning ‘beautiful’.

So this is what I translated:

The holly and the ivy
When they are decked
The holly wears the helmet (crown)
O the sun rises
The deer run
The happy harp plays
The singer sings beautifully

… and this is my translation:

se holen ac seo ífig
mid þam þe gearwe
se holen áwerian þone helm
o þæt sunne hit áríst
ac þa déor   iernaþ
se gléobéam blíþe galan
þes scop ásingþ wynnum

I am sure there are many laughable mistakes in what I have done, but I enjoyed the challenge of doing it… and if there are any Anglo-Saxon scholars or speakers, who could correct me, or point out my errors, I would be most grateful!