HISTORY......orcs?

Tolkien was a lecturer in Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. He drew on his knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture when describing and ascribing language to middle earth so it does not surprise me that he used that word to describe vile monsters in Lord of the Rings

Normans still remembered as vile monsters in this neck of woods.

The Battle of Hastings has also been called the Battle for Middle Earth.....

If only we had a few ENTS [ maybe that word is anglo-saxon too?]

My Ex was proud of Norman ancestry..........

Jess - and the Romans too?

Come to think of it quite a few of the link comments would describe my Ex...

Oh dear Alie

DH is a Tolkein fan so will pass on that bit of info regarding Orcs.

I would guess that along with the Anglo/Viking/Celt blood, my family has a smattering of Norman (Orcish) blood.

Eek!

I think Allie that the Romans are so far back they have been almost forgotten. But it was just around the corner from here that they finally conquered englandandwales when they crossed the Straits and beat up the Druids.
The Normans/Orcs brutally conquered this part of the world with huge armies and their massive fortresses (Conwy, Caernarfon and Beaumaris) stand to this day as an un-ignorable reminder - along with their mediaeval towns where the locals were not allowed to live or trade. The local population near Beamaris were thrown off their land and made to live in a sandy waste on the other side of the island - Newborough is still a rather bleak little village and Beamaris more English than the rest of the island.
The Normans took all the best land leaving the damp, scrubby land for the locals.
In the 19th C one of the gentry spent his slaveryandslate money building himself the most enormous, vulgar, imitation norman castle at Penrhyn, just to rub salt into the wound. It's where I do my volunteer gardening and it is my nomination for the worst-taste-least-sensitive NT property. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/penrhyn-castle/ Photographs cannot convey just how flipping big it is.
Been reading the books by Sharon Penman on the normans and they seem to have been an extremely brutal, nasty bunch.

I'm sure that recent'ish BBC series about them made them sound quite nice ....[or perhaps I'm getting nice mixed up with cunning?]

Romans, far back? No way! They're modern.
My interest is in Egyptology and other early civilisations!

I don't have ents, but I have efts! Will they do?

Which prog was that Tegan?
I'm sure individually some of them were... but it was a dog eat dog world in which brothers and cousins waged war against each other (and even their parents) and the ones with the most bloodthirsty armies got to be king - with had absolute power. And women (with very few exceptions) had a rough deal.

The Normans were actually Viking immigrants to France, weren't they?

It was a three or four part series caled The Normans; at first I thought the presenter was going to be really dry and boring but it turned out to be really interesting. Trouble is, I watch these things and five minutes later I've forgotten everything I've seen.

Yes and once they had nicked advanced technology from the Welsh (the longbow) they kept up the beserker tradition (with a hefty dose of Catholicism thrown in)
Quite a few of the nobility had reddish hair and their idea of perfect female beauty was a scandinavian type blonde - presumably the Viking influence.

Gingers, eh?

Not forgetting the Harrying of the North and the burning of the land there...

I was surprised that Chepstow Castle (near my sister's place) was built in 1067!

The Normans were Vikings and the Anglo Saxons from North Germany were genetically identical to the Danish Vikings, although the Vikings from the Northern lands were different.

Jess, when I was a student I had a vac job as a waitress in Penrhyn Castle. It was a nice walk up the drive in the morning. I still have the Lady Janet cookery book (not her copy obviously) with recipes for things like Mrs Dai Evans' suet roll.

Sounds like the gentry nicking the local recipes?