Reddit reviews Finn and Hengest (Old English and English Edition)

Finn and Hengest, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, and, Tree and Leaf (or my copy is B-Format and matches spine wise,, granted the HC logo is smaller but thats due more to the thinness of the book)

http://i.imgur.com/fSYbEGL.png

Thanks! :) I love his unique name. DH and I both have incredibly common names, and we don't really care for them much. He can read Old English, and I can kinda read it too, with his help. I first heard the name Hengest from us reading the Anglo Saxon Chronicle together. According to the Chronicle, Hengest and Horsa were brothers, and leaders of a war band. They were hired as mercenaries by the king of the Britons to fight the Picts, and later revolted, which led to the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain. Here is a funny video portrayal of the tale. This happened in the 5th century, so the details of his deeds are somewhere between historical and legendary. He is mentioned in legendary/mythical sources like Beowulf, and JRR Tolkein adapted these sources into a historical fiction called Finn and Hengest.

Æþelwulf literally translates to "noble wolf". I picked it out because I like the way it sounds. I came up with some criteria for a middle name to go with Hengest (not hard to say, flows nicely, initials not embarrassing, etc.) and DH made a list of words for us to match together. It wasn't until after we'd settled on the middle name that I googled the names together and found out that Æþelwulf was also a ruler of Kent. We obviously can't put Old English characters on a birth certificate, so we chose the spelling that academia prefers.