J K Rowling Interview New Book "The Tales of Beedle

Here you have an interview with  J.K Rowling about her book The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Have a go at it!

The Tale of the Three Brothers (HD)

The Canterbury Tales ("California Dreamin" by the Mamas and the Papas)

Characteristics of Shakespearean Tragedy

Characteristics of Shakespearean Comedies

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (BBC Documentary)

The riddles of gollum and bilbo

Anglo-saxon riddles

The Anglo-Saxons loved riddles. They told each other riddles as well as listening to poems at their feasts. Some of the riddles were written down, so we are able to read them today.

Some Anglo-Saxon riddles have survived as playground rhymes. This one comes from Tiptree in Essex. It may be over a thousand years old, and has been kept alive by children learning it from one another and repeating it in the playground.

Four dilly-dandies (teats on the udder) 

Four stick standies (legs) 

Two crookers (horns) 

Two lookers (eyes) 

And a wig wag (tail)

The answer is a --------------------------

Have a look at this segment of The Hobbit where you can see Bilbo and Gollum telling each other riddles 

Here are some more riddles for you to solve.

When I am alive I do not speak.
Anyone who wants to takes me captive and cuts off my head.
They bite my bare body
I do no harm to anyone unless they cut me first.
Then I soon make them cry.

Answer:------------------------.

This one is about a creature and its home. Can you guess what it is?

My home is not quiet but I am not loud.
The lord has meant us to journey together.
I am faster than he and sometimes stronger,
But he keeps on going for longer.
Sometimes I rest but he runs on.
For as long as I am alive I live in him.
If we part from one another
It is I who will die.

Answer: -----------------------.

Can you guess this next one? There are lots of these in the story of Beowulf.

I am all on my own,
Wounded by iron weapons and scarred by swords.
I often see battle.
I am tired of fighting.
I do not expect to be allowed to retire from warfare
Before I am completely done for.
At the wall of the city, I am knocked about
And bitten again and again.
Hard edged things made by the blacksmith's hammer attack me.
Each time I wait for something worse.
I have never been able to find a doctor who could make me better
Or give me medicine made from herbs.
Instead the sword gashes all over me grow bigger day and night.

Answer: ----------------------------.

This last one is about a type of bird. What do you think it is?

I was abandoned by my mother and father.
I wasn't yet breathing.
A kind woman covered me with clothes,
Kept me and looked after me,
Cuddled me as close as if I had been her own child.
Under that covering I grew and grew.
I was unkind to my adopted brothers and sisters.
This lovely woman fed me
Until I was big enough to set out on my own.
She had fewer of her own dear sons and daughters because she did so.

Answer: --------------------------.

The Vikings: Myth vs. Fact - Anglophenia Ep 40

Watch this wonderful and claryfying  video about the Vikings and do the following exercises:

1.- Mark the following sentences as True or False:
- The Viking invasions occurred between 1800 and 1150 AD.
- Over 2,000 people left Scandinavia then.
-They made London their capital.
- Alfred the Great  used secret war tactics to beat the Vikings.
- Alfred stole food from the Vikings.
- After the war a treaty was signed.
-The Vikings were in all class of weapons and helmet with horns.
- They preferred to fight on foot.
- They were extremely brutal.
- The Vikings didn't look after their hygiene so much.
- Wealthy Viking women had the right to  request divorce.
- The Vikings didn't influence the English language.
- Odin possessed a magic belt.
- Freya was male.
-There are no Vikings nowadays.

2.- Watch the video again and answer the following questions.
- Why did the Vikings leave their homeland?
- How did Alfred the Great  manage to beat the Vikings?
- What was arranged when the treaty was signed?
- What was captured king Edmund used for?
-What happened to the archibishop of Canterbury?
- What is the "blood eagle"?
- How do we know the Vikings looked after their appearance?
- Why did the Viking women have more freedom than other women of their time?
-  Why would they change the names of the places they settled in?
- What was Odin associated with?

TOTAL RECALL - Official Trailer - or We can remember it for you wholesale

As you know, the first science fiction story we are going to read was written by Philip K. Dick; the film Total Recall  is based on it. Here you have the trailer; in it,  you  can see  some of the new vocablary the author invented while writing it, ( foot runnel, traffic runnels,sneaky-pete guns ,...)

El enigma de Shakespeare

Watch this video about the most famous British writer, and check different "theories" about his personality, the authorship of his works and his mysterious life.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (3 of 3)

Rikki Tikki Tavi Part 2 of 3

Rikki Tikki Tavi Part 1 of 3

The tell-tale heart

Here a short video  you have by Jules Dassin.
I hope you find it useful and entertaining.

Macbeth (part III)

Machbeth (part I)

Machbeth part II

Shakespeare: fact files

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was ____________ in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire and was __________a few days later on 26 April 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker and wool merchant and his mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a __________landowner from Wilmcote, South Warwickshire. It is ___________ Shakespeare was educated at the local King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford.

Marriage
The next documented event in Shakespeare’s life is his marriage at the age of 18 to Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a local farmer, on November 28, 1582. She was eight years ________ than him and their first child, Susanna, was born six months after their wedding. Two years later, the couple had twins, Hamnet and Judith, but their son died when he was 11 years old.
Again, a gap in the records ___________ some scholars to refer to Shakespeare’s life between 1585 and 1592 as 'the lost years'. By the time he reappears again, ___________ in a London _________- , Shakespeare has made his way to London without his family and is already working in the theatre.

Acting career
Having gained ____________ as an actor and ___________Shakespeare had clearly ruffled a few feathers along the way – contemporary critic, Robert Green, described him in the 1592 pamphlet as an, "upstart Crow".
As well as belonging to its pool of actors and playwrights, Shakespeare was one of the __________ partners of the Lord Chamberlain's Company (renamed the King's Company when James succeeded to the throne), whose actors included the famous Richard Burbage. The company acquired interests in two theatres in the Southwark area of London near the banks of the Thames - the Globe and the Blackfriars.
In 1593 and 1594, Shakespeare’s first poems, 'Venus and Adonis' and 'The Rape of Lucrece', were published and he _________ them to his patron, Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton. It is __________  Shakespeare also wrote most of his sonnets at this time.

Playwright

Shakespeare was prolific, with records of his first plays beginning to appear in 1594, from which time he produced __________two a year until around 1611. His hard work quickly paid off, with signs that he was beginning to prosper emerging soon after the ___________ of his first plays. By 1596 Shakespeare’s father, John had been granted a coat of arms and it’s probable that Shakespeare had commissioned them, paying the fees himself. A year later he bought New Place, a large house in Stratford.
His earlier plays were mainly _________and __________  such as 'Henry VI', 'Titus Andronicus', 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'The Merchant of Venice' and 'Richard II'. The tragedy, 'Romeo and Juliet', was also published in this period. By the last years of Elizabeth I's reign Shakespeare was well established as a famous poet and playwright and was called upon to __________ several of his plays before the Queen at court. In 1598 the author Francis Meres described Shakespeare as England’s _________ writer in comedy and tragedy.
In 1602 Shakespeare's continuing success enabled him to move to upmarket Silver Street, near where the Barbican is now situated, and he was living here when he wrote some of his greatest __________such as 'Hamlet', 'Othello', 'King Lear' and 'Macbeth'.

Final years
Shakespeare spent the last five years of his life in New Place in Stratford. He _________ on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. He left his property to the male heirs of his eldest daughter, Susanna. He also bequeathed his 'second-best bed' to his wife. It is not known what _____________ this gesture had, although the couple had lived primarily apart for 20 years of their marriage.
The first collected edition of his works was ______________in 1623 and is known as 'the First Folio'.



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