by Smith, Skye
The word 'communal' described most activities in this village. Much more so than the communal activities of other villages in England. There seemed to be no privacy between women, between men, or between men and women. After working in the fields together on in-common crops, the villagers bathed together, ate together, and slept together. If someone stood up and started a chore that needed to be done, they were not alone doing it for very long.
He had been told that the villagers were all originally from one ancient clan, and therefore kin to each other. There certainly was a strong family feeling in how the villagers behaved with each.
Raynar's home in the Peaks was a communal hamlet. A glade hung off a mountain valley. That glade was a special place with mineral spring water, a milder climate than the moors around it, ample venison from the valleys of the Peak forest close by, and a location on the main porterway that connected the lead mines to the lowlands.
The glade was set up, built, and organized as a communal place by the brotherhood of Welsh miners as a place where injured miners could rest and heal, or die. The mines stole men's health from them. Many died too young, of crushed bodies or black lung.
Raynar's hamlet was run by the wives of the sick men, and the widows that had no other kin to go to. Families supported each other, because they had mutual needs. They traded meals and shelter to travelers and porters on the Porterway, for the staples of life. The hamlet glade was run by the women by necessity, because all the men there were injured or dying.
His glade hamlet and this island village were very similar in some ways and very different in others. His glade was poor, while this village was wealthy. The glade's folk often lacked necessities, whereas this village had plenty. The glade's commerce was thin, whereas this village was successful with their herding, and their fishing, and their ships.
The wealth of this village was shown everywhere. The women wore their jewelry openly with no fear of theft or envy. The children were well-clothed and had boots. The women had many changes of clothing, not just what they were wearing. Roas, for instance, despite her youth, had four different cloaks, all in good repair.
Despite their wealth of possessions, their huts and houses were never locked, could not be locked. They were made of local saplings and rushes and sedge and sun-baked clay, with their main purpose to keep things dry, rather than to keep things safe. Because of how he grew up in his glade, Raynar was quick to understand this Fen's village, where the men left for months at a time. He had lived it, though in a poorer, smaller version in his glade in the mining valleys of the Peaks.
He began to understand why Hereward had called it a paradise. It wasn't the island itself. The island was not good land. It was damp and misty and had more than its share of biting flies. But Hereward was the bastard son of the old Earl of Mercia. At his father's estates he would have been envied and pitied and hated, but rarely befriended or accepted by his peers. Hereward had grown up in formal courts and large manors where privacy is kept, and intimacy is private. A society where people plotted, and lied, and cheated for their own betterment.
To Hereward, this open physical friendliness would have been strange and wonderful and desirable. In this village he would have been accepted simply as Hereward, a good man. Here there was no such thing as a bastard. In this village the children all knew who their mothers were, but few knew who their blood fathers were, and it mattered nothing at all to anyone. They were children of the village, and raised by the village.
* * * * *
As the harvest chores wound down, Raynar and Klaes began to spend much time together. Klaes had agreed with Hereward that the island defenses need improving so that the women could hold it with the help of fewer men.
They walked together around the entire island. Raynar was surprised by things he saw. For instance, there was a forge. He was told that in the not-so-far-past the folk of the island had harvested bog iron and smelted it and worked it here. Now the island had the coin to buy the bog iron nails and the ships tools that they needed. Bog Iron was much more valuable to the seafarers of the North Sea than steel because it was so slow to rust. The ships were built using bog iron nails. The fittings were made from bog iron, as were the hooks and pikes and buckles.
Raynar suspected that either the bog iron or the coin or both were actually booty from raids carried out by the ships from this village. He had watched these men fight. It came easily to them, as if they had much practice.
There were larger punts pulled onto the bank at the fen side of the island than were in use beside the bridge. They climbed into one and both he and Klaes took a punting pole. The water was shallower here than in the bridge's channel and they did not need to oar the poles. He was told that these were the punts used to take the men back and forth to their ships.
They headed towards the pool where the ships were moored. It was quite far because they were moored close to the River Glen. The pool was still not tidal, but the channels had to be wide enough and deep enough to float the ships. They finally arrived at a pool surrounded by high bushes. The channel towards the river was concealed with floating live bushes that could be drawn out of the way of the ships. Thus the ships were hidden. Or rather ship, as there was but one moored in the pool.
Klaes shouted a warning to the watch and Gerke's tall frame and wide smile welcomed them aboard. He explained that this was not a standard Danish ship, but a flat bottomed waddenschip which the English called a Frisian Cog. It was designed for coastal trading in the shallow waterways along both sides of the North Sea. The flat bottom allowed them to beach the cog or have it stand upright on mud banks when the tide receded.
Though just a small ship, it fascinated Raynar. He walked its length and touched everything in his curiosity. "How much water does it need to float?" he asked of Gerke. He was always polite to Gerke, after all, they were sort of related through Roas.
"Unloaded, two feet. Fully loaded perhaps four. Sometimes when the river is low we have to jump out and pull it with ropes through the shallows."
"I thought you had three ships."
"We do, but this year we left half the crew ashore to guard against Normans, so there was crew enough for only two to trade," Gerke explained. "The storm season is getting close so they should come home soon. They will send word from the port in Spalding as soon as they arrive there.
Spalding may be smaller than Peterburgh, but it controls the mouth of the Welland river. This stream connects to the Welland near to Spalding so we need the friendship of that town to reach the sea. Luckily the Countess Beatrice of Spalding is a good friend to us. She buys our horses as gifts for her family, and backs some of our trade ventures."
"There is no Norman lord?" asked Raynar.
"Not likely. Her husband is Thorold, the Shirereeve of Lincolnshire, and she is a close cousin to Earls Edwin and Morcar. Thorold is a seasoned diplomat. He keeps the peace for both English and Normans and achieves it with little violence. The King needs the peace, and relies on his wisdom, so he has left him as the Reeve for now. You watch though. Eventually some greedy Norman will replace him as Reeve."
"This countess lives there, in Spalding, with the Shirereeve?" asked Raynar.
"Each of them has many estates. Duty keeps Thorold in Lincoln for most of the time, but this is her family home. She visits Lincoln often, but she prefers raising her daughter, Lucy, in Spalding away from the intrigue and politics. Besides, she likes to be the first at the dock when the trading ships arrive."
On the way back to the island, Klaes showed him the eel pools and the traps the village used to capture the eels. The eels were the original reason that his folk settled here back in the time of the ancients. The eels not only fed the folk with fresh food that made them strong, but eels were also a valuable fish for trading with the wealthy of towns. It was normal for the trading ships to leave Spalding carrying an outbound cargo of barrels of live eels.
It was no wonder that this village lived in plenty. The Fens provide a good life an
d the ships provide wealth beyond need. With ships they could raid or trade. With the shallow cogs they could trade on rivers or sea, and escape unfriendly ships by running in shallow waters.
Locally there were all the materials needed to build and fix the ships, even the bog iron for the nails. They were more than self sufficient in good food, and food with an easy and ready source. Their diet was healthy, their water clean. You could tell this by the strength of their teeth and the size and health of the children. The women were skilled at making high quality woolen cloth. The men were skilled in breeding high quality animals. The products of these skills were all good earners.
Raynar let his mind work. If a Norman lord was wise, he would leave this village to its peace and prosperity, and in return for peace, collect taxes from them. This village did not even need coin to pay taxes. The well-bred horses, fine cloth, and eels would be welcome as the payment. The thought depressed him because he doubted that any Norman would be so wise. They were wont to choose immediate plunder over long term well being.
His next thought made him feel disloyal to Hereward and to Hereward's brother, who was the closest lord to this village. It would be better if this village ally themselves with a Norman lord, than to fight them. Eventually a Norman lord would claim the dry land fields between the island and the Roman Street. Why not wed an island beauty to that Norman lord, and let him share in the earnings of this village. What lord would not want the fighting skill of these huge Frisians and their ships at his command, and one of the Frisian women warming his bed, and sons that would be handsome, and daughters of beauty?
Raynar shifted his thoughts. Whatever the future of this island village, it would be all the better for a good defense. When he began thinking of defenses, he had another disloyal thought. This island would make some Norman lord a fine fort. It was a natural location for one. Is the future of this village to be cleared and destroyed to make way for a Norman stronghold? He shuddered at the thought.
Klaes was saying something to him and brought him back to the now. He had found a full eel trap and wanted help pulling it into the punt.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13
Chapter 10 - Winter on the Island of Westerbur, The Fens in September 1067
One evening while waiting for the evening meal, the warlord, Klaes, and young Raynar sat beside a puddle filled with some slowly stiffening mud and drew up defensive plans with sticks. There were three shallow areas of the channel between the island and the fields and those needed dredging to a depth above a man's head. They agreed to create a series of low walls of woven saplings along the island bank to protect the defenders of the bridge from slings and arrows.
The main stream that fed the channels around the island could be used to float Norman boats into the channel so they decided to fell one of the large trees overhanging it to block it from boat traffic. The bridge needed strengthening so that animals could be hurried across it. The punts used as ferries on the channel needed basket weave sides so that passengers had some protection from slings and arrows. All the punts needed drying and recaulking so they would float higher and take more load.
The evening meal was delayed so they used the mud to try to plan improvements to the bridge. They made and then cleared a half dozen ideas, but each one showed that the bridge could not be improved unless heavier materials were used. Heavier materials would need more folk to move it. They finally gave up trying to improve the bridge. Not because of lack of ideas, but because they had been joined by a handful of children who also wanted to draw pictures in the mud. It was much more fun drawing with the children than planning defenses.
Raynar watched Klaes in a tickling wrestling match with three young boys. One of the boys was only three, but he was already larger than what would be expected of a five year old Saxon boy. Once Klaes stopped laughing, which took some time, Raynar asked him if the collection of weapons taken from the Normans included any crossbows. They ended up in a footrace with the small boys across the village to a large hut far from the bridge.
Klaes did not need an explanation. At the range needed to defend the island, a crossbow could damage armour. Women that were not strong enough to fully draw a longbow could use some types of crossbows. The three boys beat Raynar and Klaes to the hut but were not allowed to enter. Inside were enough weapons to arm two villages, and these were just the spares, as the men all kept their favorite weapons with them. Because of the irregular shape of the crossbows, they were all strung up on a line running from rafter to rafter. There were a dozen in all, of various designs.
Klaes and Raynar tried all the crossbows, to decide which type was the most useful in the hands of a woman. The women had to be able to cock it, and cock it quickly. It had to be light enough to hold steady and aim. The two largest crossbows were hard to cock and too heavy for easy aiming. They decided that those two would be mounted on shooting posts at the low walls next to the bridge. As the heaviest bows, they also had the longest range and their bolts could easily destroy armour at fifty paces.
They decided that the women with the strength for the shortened longbows would continue to train with them. All others would be trained with the crossbows.
* * * * *
Summer had given over to autumn. The sun caught the colors of the turning leaves, and the glisten from the streams and pools. On one of those precious autumn days with no wind and a bright sun, Inka came to Raynar and told him that today he would have another tour of the island, but a very different tour from the one Klaes had given him. It began with a breakfast of blue mushrooms cooked in butter, served on fresh bread. He looked at the mushrooms and looked at Inka.
"Trust me," she whispered.
Within the hour she was leading a temporarily confused Raynar through the village. Everyone in this village knew the look of a person under the spell of the mushroom magic. They smiled at him, and were purposefully gentle when around him. After the queasiness in his stomach had passed, he was filled with the energy of a child. He seemed to weigh no more than a child and yet had the strength of an adult. He also had the curiosity of a child, and the eyes of a child.
The most common of things filled him with awe. He stared unblinkingly at the birds swooping into the yellow and orange and red trees, and at the colorful leaves disturbed by them that floated to the ground. When he turned his eyes to the sun, Inka stood in front of him to put his eyes into her shade. "The mushrooms are of Freyja, the moon goddess, so you are forbidden to stare at the sun," she said.
Everywhere he was led, he sat and was still and watched with wonder at things that a grown up would no longer see. Whenever he sat, animals would come close to him, as did the small children. They seemed to understand the peace he was feeling and the magic coursing through his blood. Even wild animals would settle close by. The robins would hop over his legs. The field mice would sniff along his boots. He was wearing only his silk under shirt, and the butterflies were landing on it by the dozen and creating patterns of color that amazed his childlike eyes.
As they walked along the edge of the fen pools, Inka showed him many things. She showed him the plants that were poisonous, and those for healing, and those for food. She showed him the types of grasses and rushes that marked solid ground that could be walked on, and others that marked places that would sink and trap you in the mud. She showed him the special knots tied in rushes and grasses that her folk used to mark pathways. She showed him where eels grouped, places which were good for fishing but very dangerous for bathing. She showed him the peat quarries and the types of peat and told him their uses, like which was for building, which for fuel.
To Raynar it was all so interesting and colorful and beautiful that he felt filled of heart, and of soul, and felt an all encompassing sensation of wonderment that made him short of breath. He tried to explain it to Inka, but she put a finger to his lips. "Words cannot explain. I have felt what you are feeling. It is
the feeling of natural love. It is inside all of us as babies, but we lose the ability to feel it as we age. Freyja allows us to see and feel it again through her blue mushrooms."
They wandered, and skipped, and danced slowly back towards the village until they saw a group of the villagers cavorting naked in the sunshine. Under Klaes's instructions, some of the folk were dredging the channel. Men and women and children were working in the water and on the bank removing silt from the channel, and using it to build up the bank. Their naked bodies glistened in the sunshine as they dove and swam and pulled and carried. The channel was being deepened one basket-load at a time.
Inka and Raynar shed their own clothing and joined them in the work. Raynar felt one with the cool water of the stream. He dove down to the bottom with a basket and scraped up more silt. He stood with the full basket over his head and it was taken from him by two men in a punt, and replaced by another empty basket. He worked side by side with the tallest of the men until none could touch the bottom without having their heads drop under the surface.
When he was chilled to the bone, he swam to the bank and stepped up into the warmth of the sunshine. The women had stopped working. They had discovered Raynar’s silk shirt and were taking turns wearing it, and trying it with belts, and necklaces and scarves. Inka came to lead him back to the huts.
She told him to leave the shirt with the women and they walked naked and hand in hand towards her hut. Inside the hut she sat him on her pallet and pulled a soft woolen cloak around them both and warmed his skin with hers. Once they were warm, she used her healing touch on him, but this time, not to heal him. This time it was so he could reach a height of sensuousness where he walked and talked with the goddess.
