Seasons for Fasting facts for kids

The poem called "The Seasons for Fasting" is an old, unfinished poem written in Old English. It mainly talks about how people should follow the rules for fasting on certain days of the year, which are set by the church calendar. It also criticizes some priests who were not doing their jobs properly or following the rules. It seems a church leader wrote this poem for regular people, maybe because he thought they might be getting bad advice.

How We Know About This Poem

The original book where this poem was kept, called MS Otho B XI, was mostly destroyed in a big fire in 1731. Sadly, "The Seasons for Fasting" was one of the texts lost in that fire.

But luckily, a long time before the fire, in 1562, a person named Laurence Nowell had made a copy of the poem. This copy was found again in 1934 by Robin Flower. Now, this important copy is kept safe in the British Library in London. Also, eight lines of the poem were copied by another person named Abraham Whelock.

Nowell's copy shows the poem ending suddenly. After the poem, the book continues with other old English writings, like old remedies and medical cures, and even some old laws from a king named Æthelstan.