1. Origins
1.1. The land of the Old Saxons was in West Germany so it can be assumed that the Saxons who invaded Britain came from this region. The Angles probably came from the north, from the Danish mainland and islands. The Jutes may have come from Jutland, but their culture had affinities with that of the Franks farther south, they may also come from Rhineland. Germanic invaders included Frisians. In the early days, they were politically organized into kingdoms, which names are preserved in modern counties, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Kent and Wessex.
2. Customs
2.1. The early Anglo-Saxons were pagans and believed in many gods. The king of the Anglo-Saxon gods, for example, was Woden - a German version of the Scandinavian god Odin. From his name comes our day of the week Wednesday or 'Woden's day'. Other gods were Thunor, god of thunder; Frige, goddess of love; and Tiw, god of war.
2.2. Anglo-Saxons were superstitious. They believed in lucky charms. They thought 'magic' rhymes, potions, stones or jewels would protect them from evil spirits or sickness.
2.3. The Anglo-Saxons were brave fighters. However, they were scared of evil spirits and monsters
2.4. In an Anglo-Saxon family, everyone from babies to old people shared a home. Anglo-Saxon houses were built of wood and had thatched roofs. The villages were made up of small groups of houses built around a larger hall. Each family house had one room, with a hearth with a fire for cooking, heating and light. A metal cooking pot hung from a chain above the fire.
2.5. People wore clothes made from woollen cloth or animal skins. Men wore tunics, with tight trousers or leggings, wrapped around with strips of cloth or leather. Women wore long dresses. Women spun the wool from sheep and goats to make thread. They used a loom to weave the thread into cloth. Clothing styles varied from region to region. For instance, an Anglian woman fastened her dress with a long brooch. A Saxon woman used a round brooch.
2.6. Men, women and children helped on the farm. Men cut down trees to clear land for ploughing and sowing crops. Farmers used oxen to pull ploughs up and down long strip-fields. Children with dogs herded cattle and sheep.
2.7. The smith made iron tools, knives and swords. Woodworkers made wooden bowls, furniture, carts and wheels. Potters made pottery from clay. The shoemaker made leather shoes. Jewellers made metal brooches, beads and gold ornaments for rich people.
2.8. Anglo-Saxons liked to gather in the lord's great hall, to eat and drink, and to listen to songs and stories. They loved tales about brave warriors and their adventures as Beowulf
2.9. Men enjoyed rough and boisterous pastimes, such as wrestling, weight-lifting, swimming races and horse-racing. These sports kept them fit, for work and war. They also played ball games. Gambling was very popular.
3. Settlement
3.1. Angles settled in East Anglia, the East Midlands and further north in Northumbria.
3.2. Saxons moved in to Sussex (named after the 'South Saxons'), Essex (East Saxons), Middlesex (Middle Saxons) and Wessex (West Saxons).
3.3. Jutes settled mainly in Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
4. Old English Language
4.1. Dialects
4.1.1. Kentish was spoken at Kent, Surrey and the Isle of Wight. It developed from the tongue of the Jutes and the Frisians.
4.1.2. West Saxon was spoken in the rest of England, south of Thames and the Bristol Channel.
4.1.3. Mercian was derived from the speech of the southern Angles, and it was spoken in the kingdom of Mercia and in the central region of the country.
4.1.4. Northembrian was an Anglian dialect spoken from the Humber north to the river Forth.
4.2. Literature
4.2.1. The greatest poem of the time was BEOWULF, an epic of the 7th or 8th c. The earliest samples of continuous prose are the first pages of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES .
4.3. Pronunciation
4.3.1. In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Word stress was fixed. Polysyllabic words, especially compounds, may have had two stresses, chief and secondary.
4.3.1.1. Old English script used the six vowel-symbols a,e,i,o,u, and y, and a seventh one called ash, which represent long ans short vowels. To represent dipthongs, the Anglo-Saxons used the diagraphs ea, eo, io, ie.
4.3.1.2. In OE, the use of double consonants was different from the one we are used to, because they tell us nothing about the length of the preceding vowel. Instead, they indicate that double consonants are pronounced double or long.
4.4. Writing
4.4.1. The Anglo-Saxons conversion into Christianity introduced them to writing. But the English had already a form of writing called Runes, used only for short inscriptions. Runes had been used for Germanic people from the third century AD, for carving and scratching inscriptions on stone, metalwork, or wood. The word rune meant ‘mistery, secret’, and the inscriptions were thought to have magical power. The English used a form of alphabet formed by six letters known as “futhorc”. When the clerics introduced writing, they used a Celtic version of Latin alphabet, but eked it out with runic symbols from the futhorc.
4.4.1.1. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records: "Franks Casket” and "Ruth-well Cross".
4.5. Grammar and Syntax
4.5.1. OE was a synthetical, or inflected language type containing four cases for the singular and four in the plural as regards nouns, adjectives and pronouns; Adjectives had separated forms for the three genders; and verbs had distinctive endings for the different persons, tenses and moods.
4.6. Morphology and Vocabulary
4.6.1. OE depended only from its own resources to enrich its vocabulary.
4.6.1.1. OE adjectives formed from nouns by adding suffixes as -ig, -leas and -ful.
4.6.1.2. Nouns formed by adjectives by using the suffix -ipo.
4.6.1.3. Adverbs were formed by using -e and -lice suffixes.
4.6.1.4. -for and -ge were the preffixes added to verbs to form adverbs.
4.6.1.5. OE formed new words by compounding.
4.6.1.6. OE borrowed some words from Latin, esp. words related to Christianity; and from Celtic, esp. for place names.
4.7. Other characteristics
4.7.1. Proper names of men ending in "a".
4.7.2. Nouns gender was arbitrary.
4.7.3. The present participle was "ende" and later became "ing"
4.7.4. No future tense, only past and present.