Needed doing

[sollers]

I have spent the day sorting the books in my bedroom - the fiction library, so to speak.

I have dealth with ten double-parked shelves and six single-parked ones, which is about 2/3 of the total number of books in the room.

I have got six big bags of books to take down to various charity shops.

I feel shattered.

Comments

[sollers]

Found two more:

Not quite so relevant but useful in many ways:

Hugh Elton "Warfare in Roman Europe AD 350-425"

And the one I had been looking for:

Guy Halsall "Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900".

Talking of the "Hildebrandlied":

"It is blunt, triumphalist and in the final analysis, whilst more complex in terms of composition, language and poetic style, in content reasonably to be compared to the more unpleasant, aggresive songs chanted at the opposition every Satufday afternoon in British football grounds."

And my favourite, a quote from Lars Loennroth on heroic poetry:

"n most cases we only learn, after having streaightened out the inverted syntax and deciphered the intricate metaphors, that some great ruler, attended by brave warriors, defeated his enemies at such-and-such a place, thus making the life of local corpse-eating wolves and ravens a little happier"

My elder daughter's comment: "I do like a story with a happy ending!"