The gem of the skies in a summer season

Phoenix rising by the sun in the Aberdeen BestiarySource: University of Notre DameIt has been intensely hot again this week and I was listening on the news this morning to reports of fires in the Midlands. It made me think of these lines from 'The Phoenix', a 10th century Old English poem in the Exeter Book which expands upon an older Latin text.When the gem of the skiesin a summer season, hottest with the sun, shines across the shadowsand performs its destiny, surveying the world, then the bird’s house becomes heated by the glowing sky. The herbs are warmed, the house of desire steams with sweet fragrance, then in flames that bird burnsthrough the grip of the fire amid its nest.Of course the poem has a hopeful theme, as the fire is not destructive - the phoenix regenerates. In her fascinating book about the Anglo-Saxon year, Winters in the World, Eleanor Parker links this self-immolation and rebirth to the seasonal cycle. The word used to describe the bird's nest is solere, borrowed…