Things Professor Drout Said: Spring 2009 edition

(Apparently this is becoming a tradition. The following appeared anonymously in my mailbox).


Sheep DNA from manuscripts = CSI: Beowulf.

A librarian's goal in life is to not let people touch the materials.

'Cataloguey' -- I don't know if that is a word, but I'm going to use it.

(on theories of authorship): So theory will help you decide who's responsible for the awesomeness of Star Wars... and the crapitude of Jar Jar Binks.

I haven't mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien yet in this whole class, and that's just not acceptable.

So there was this bus full of drunken Anglo-Saxonists...

Scyld overturns the mead benches. Yes, he's fearsome because he re-arranged furniture.

I do have a life ... sometimes ... Maybe I was playing Lord of the Rings online and forgot to check my email...

Is New Jersey its own ethnic group?

(on Beowulf's lack of children)
I think the perfect phrase would be "epic fail."

Grendel couldn't pay wergild. My theory? No pockets.

(on Beowulf's sword)
It's a sword! It's pointy! Like a penis! And when it fails ... I don't really know what that means or when the other sword melts...

(on Icelandic sagas)
People don't worry too much about the existential meaning of life when at any moment someone might show up at their door with an axe.

His name means "Killer Barney" and all I can think of is the purple dinosaur.

"I love you, you love me. I slaughtered some members of my family..."

Imagine how well class would go if my name was "Killer Drout."

Where's the last severed head you had in a Jane Austen novel?

(On Egil Skallagrimsson)
He's a huge, snarling, murdering freak, and everyone wants him as their ancestor.

If I live in tenth-century Iceland, I don't want to go into Egil Skallagrimsson's bed closet for any reason whatsoever.

So I mixed up my 80's hair bands ... oh God, how horrible!

(on Gawain and his shield)
"So as I'm hacking someone's arm off and making him bleed to death, I can gaze at the Virgin Mary and it makes me feel better."

Everyone has a favorite Mayan god and Tlaloc is mine.

The first circle is the good part of Hell, with nice condos.

(on the problems with the rain in the upper circles and the rain of fire in the seventh circle)
It's a vision of Hell. I don't have to explain the meteorology!

Let's play "Name that heresy!"

Then the vikings realized "Hey! We can just go over to England and take their stuff."

Newton would boil mercury for a while, go insane, be dragged back to London and then invent physics.

Word of advice: Never build torture devices for evil tyrants. Ever.

Think of the barrators as being in a fondue pot of pitch.

Look! I made it to one minute before the end of class ... J.R.R. Tolkien!