October 13th is the Feast Day of Edward the Confessor. We confess we don't have too much to say about the English monarch whose 24 year reign ended shortly before William the Conqueror invaded England. Although history unflattering records Edward as an ineffectual ruler whose close ties to Normandy hurt his country, he is memorable for his piety.

Enough about the sins of the son; let's turn our attention to his father. Edward was the son of King Ethelred the Second. Like his son Edward, Ethelred is often remembered as a poor ruler.

So poor, in fact, that he was dubbed Ethelred the Unready. While it's true that Ethel red’s shortcomings allowed the Danes to overrun England, you shouldn't think he got the title Unready entirely because he was unprepared for the Danish invaders. His original epithet was Ethelred Unread. Unread derives from an Old English word that literally meant "evil counsel." In Ethel red’s case, he was more properly without counsel because he couldn't control the nobles of his court. Unread was modernized as Unready largely because the two words look and sound alike.

The Old English root of unread has another descendant, the word reed which is still used in some English dialects as a noun meaning "advice" or a verb meaning "advise."