“Hwæt” —the first word of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, is to be spoken with great intensity. Wake up! Listen!
An attention-getter, it might be quite effective to speak such a word at the beginning of a class, or for that matter, during the middle of a lecture, to rein in the wandering minds.
Especially in spring, when the weather turned warm and the eyelids grew heavy, and I was seated in a room with many others and there was no escape. The droning voice only encouraged sleep and all my defenses were melting away. Had my teachers used this word, they could have saved a lot of souls. But no, salvation came when the school bell rang, and by that time all was lost.
