The Anglo-Saxons
After the Celts, new invaders came to Britain from the north of Germany about 8th and 7th century before Christ. They were the Anglo-Saxons.
Sir John Ronald Reuel Tolkien in Lord of the Rings, the famous fantasy novel written in 1955 describes
the Saxons as “proud and determined” but also “fair and generous; brave but not cruel; intelligent but ignorant. They did not write books but sing many songs”.
In fact, these tribes used to listen to songs and stories while eating and drinking. Their stories were about brave warriors and their adventures.
Saxon minstrels usually played an instrument to accompany their songs and poems.
The minstrels were called scops; they did not read or write, they told their long poems by heart. They travelled from village to village telling tales for food and money.
If they played an instrument, a harp or lyre, they were also called harpers.
The sense of exile and sadness comes from Anglo-Saxon nostalgic poems and legends.
J. R. R. Tolkien studied a lot the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse literature and has made us enter a world where dragons and monsters are real, a world of myth and story characteristic of the peoples from the North before the coming of Christianity.
NOTES
proud: of themselves, self-confident (orgogliosi)
fair: honest (onesti)
brave: courageous (coraggiosi)
warriors: soldiers (guerrieri)
by heart: (a memoria)
sadness: melancholy (tristezza)
myth: legend, fairy tale (mito)