Seniors Get the Gielps!

Tucker Winter
In Anglo-Saxon warrior culture, boasting (a gielp) was not arrogance but a way to establish identity, courage, and honor. Warriors introduced themselves, listed past deeds, declared their present mission, and boldly promised future glory. The act of making a gielp was a significant part of Anglo-Saxon warrior culture, often done during feasts (symbel) in the mead hall. A gielp (pronounced “Jill-p”) was a formal and public oath that had two parts: 
  1. A boast of ancestry and past deeds. This established the speaker's background and credibility.
  2. A pledge (beot) of a future deed. This would be a vow to accomplish a heroic feat. 
This ritualized public boasting, famously exemplified in the epic poem Beowulf, was not a sign of vanity or hubris in the modern sense. Instead, it was an important way for a warrior to establish their honor and create their reputation. By making a public oath, they were committing to fate (wyrd) and cementing their place in the collective story of their tribe.

The Senior Composition class just held a Mead Hall event where we had snacks (Bodos), and students were tasked with  raucously presenting original gielps written about themselves. Students were asked to include conventional elements of a gielp, including epithets, kennings and alliteration in their boasts and to follow the format and style of the gielps found in Beowulf. Check out some examples here.
Back
Tandem Friends School is a co-ed Quaker day school for grades 5-12 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
 
Copyright 2016 Tandem Friends School