by Jeff Guinn
The Celtic Cross of Ireland
Our group chose to stay close to the southeast coast. Most of the fighting was over. There were rumors that Arthur had been killed, perhaps stabbed in the back by one of his own captains who’d betrayed him to the Saxons. More hopeful Britons whispered that perhaps Arthur had only been badly wounded, and would come back in all his warrior glory someday to free their island of foreign rule.
The truth was, Arthur had been wounded, though not fatally. We knew this because a few days after he lost a final battle to the Saxons, an old woman cautiously approached us as we were walking by a small farm in the countryside a few miles from the battle site.
“Pardon, strangers, but are you some of those Christians?” she asked. I noticed the poor woman was wearing rags, and most of her teeth were missing. She went on, “If you are, and if you give help to others like they say Christians do, could you come see a wounded man? He’s badly hurt, and I don’t know what to do for him.”
Dorothea had a great deal of experience assisting wounded men, having spent most of her marriage following Attila from battle to battle. She and Layla hurried ahead to the barn where the old woman said the wounded man lay unconscious. Felix, Attila, and I followed.
As soon as we saw the man, we knew he must be Arthur. There was a grandness about him, even as he lay in a bloody heap on the barn’s dirt floor. With Attila’s help, Dorothea raised him to a sitting position, and Layla got water from the old woman’s tiny well. Dorothea bathed the wounded man’s face. He had two deep cuts across his midsection and a nasty gash across his forehead. As Dorothea cleaned his face, his eyes fluttered open.
“Who are you?” he whispered, his legs jerking convulsively as he tried to get to his feet.
“Sit back, Arthur,” Attila ordered in the softest tones I’d ever heard him speak. “Rest, brave chief. Your battle is done for a while, and the time to heal has begun.”
“How do you know who I am?” Arthur wanted to know.
“One warrior knows another,” Attila said briefly, and then told Felix, Layla, and me to wait outside while he and Dorothea inspected Arthur’s wounds. The three of us left the barn and joined the old woman, who was fearful any Saxons hunting for Arthur would burn her farm if they found him there.
“It’s him; it’s the great Arthur, isn’t it?” she asked, and we told her it was. “Well, he’s got to leave right away. I came out to get eggs from my chickens and there he was in the barn, looking like he must have crawled in there during the night. I feel sorry for him, but I can’t hide him here, don’t you see? My husband’s away hunting, and we’re too old to start over if the Saxons find that man here and burn us out because of it.”
Layla looked at me, the question reflected in our eyes. When I nodded, she said, “Don’t worry. Let our friends tend to the man’s wounds, and then we’ll take him with us.”
Dorothea
Arthur
And that is what happened. Arthur was very weak, so for the first two days Attila fashioned a sort of stretcher with strong cloaks tied between a pair of long, trimmed tree branches. He, Felix, and I took turns two at a time carrying the stretcher with Arthur on it. His wounds healed quicker than his mind, which retained memories of what had to have been a terrible battle. At night Arthur would toss and moan, no doubt dreaming of Saxon warships and cruel invaders arriving on them.
On the third day he was able to walk part of the time. We were moving west. Attila thought the Saxons would be so proud of their victory that they’d stay near the coast to celebrate for a while. As we got farther from the battlefields, we were able to travel faster. I thought we might as well go all the way to Ireland and visit Patrick.
That night Attila drew Arthur aside and spent hours talking with him quietly. I could only guess, but I thought he might be telling Arthur about his own victories and defeats and how he’d eventually decided even the bravest warrior could only fight for so long. Apparently his words touched Arthur. The next day our newest companion walked along with the rest of us, despite having little to offer in the way of conversation. That took longer, but in another week when we’d reached the far west coast and gotten passage on a small ship to Ireland, Arthur had started entertaining us with stories of British history. He was a very good storyteller, far better than the rest of us, and a talented hand with a carving knife. Between Felix, Attila, and Arthur, we had three men who could turn bits of wood into almost anything imaginable.
It wasn’t hard to find Patrick, who had become the most famous man in Ireland. His followers had built him a fine stone church, with a sturdy log hut covered with a thatched roof beside it so the good missionary would have a dry place to sleep. We sent word ahead to Patrick of our impending arrival, and when we arrived he welcomed us with a meal. He might have driven snakes out of Ireland, but he’d kept the rabbits. Two fine fat ones were roasting over Patrick’s fire.
“I knew you and Felix would be hungry.” He grinned. “After our meal, I’ll want to hear about everything that’s happened to you, and how you gained another companion. But take your time as you talk. All there ever seems to be in this world anymore is war and killing, so let’s enjoy fellowship and peace here for a little while before we go out into the confusion again.”
Charlemagne was a tall man with a long gray beard. He had something of the look of a warrior, standing straight and staring at me with an expression of curiosity, not fear. But there was great wisdom in his face, too.
ELEVEN
The Dark Ages
Not much really worth telling about happened during the next six centuries. When scholars are feeling generous, they refer to this period as “The Middle Ages,” but its most common—and correct—nickname is “The Dark Ages.” Almost everyone living in Europe and Britain spent these hundreds of years in misery. Wars were fought everywhere. Different tribes battled each other for control of bits and pieces of land. Warriors did what they wanted and common people suffered for it. No one was safe from the sword.
The six of us—Attila, Dorothea, Arthur, Felix, Layla, and I—spent these centuries doing what good we could. Often, we couldn’t do much. Our travel was slow; as I’d learned previously, being anywhere near fighting reduced our ability to travel at wondrous speeds, and there always seemed to be fighting wherever we went. Timothy’s heirs continued to accept our carved book covers and whittled figures, and sell them for us, but their ships were frequently attacked by pirates. We had less money to spend and often there was nothing worthwhile to buy with the money we had. What a sad, terrible time!
Yet, while Europe wallowed in despair, other parts of the world flourished. In 570 A.D., a man named Muhammad was born in the Arab city of Mecca. By the time of his death in 632 A.D., he’d sown the seeds of a new religion, Islam. In 589 A.D., China, a nation we’d heard of only in the vaguest terms, was united under one ruler for the first time in four centuries. Four years later, an island nation eventually known as Japan developed its first central government and laws.
Europe remained, for the most part, primitive. Brave missionaries gradually won most of the tribes over to Christianity, but this new religion seemed to have little effect on all the fighting. Stories about Jesus and his life were often intermingled with more superstitious tales. Legends sprouted everywhere. In some places, it was still believed dragons might be lurking.
People whose everyday lives are desperate often look to myths for comfort. In these years, the people of Europe wanted miracles to happen to them, so they easily accepted outrageous tales of miracles involving others. Our small, six-member band knew all about this, and we should have, because many of the made-up stories involved Attila or Arthur or me.
Attila, who’d simply left his army to join us, now was widely reported to have died in a fit of bad temper, then buried in a secret place made even more secret by his captains deliberately killing everyone associated with the burial. The rest of us knew from his own stories that Attila had been, in his time, a rather cruel fighter, but ev
en he was amazed to hear stories of how he had preferred drinking his wine from human skulls.
“I suppose I might have done that if I’d thought of it,” Attila said with a wry grin. “I must have shrunk, too. I heard recently that I was seven feet tall.”
Still, tales of Attila were nothing compared to legends involving Arthur. As the years passed into decades, then centuries, it became widely believed in Britain that this simple war chief had actually been a king with a crown, one who lived with hundreds of fine knights and ladies in a magical castle called Camelot. Poems were written about Arthur; songs were composed and sung about him. At first, native Britons told these stories to give themselves hope that the hated Saxons would someday be driven back to Europe; but when the Normans crossed the channel in their turn and conquered the Saxons, the Arthur stories continued. Now, the stories went, he was being kept in some wonderful cave, asleep in the company of a magician named Merlin. Both would reappear soon, whenever “soon” might be.
And I, too, became the subject of more myths. Many of these stemmed from a new church policy of recognizing a select few men and women after their deaths as saints—people who were especially touched by God and who performed miracles during their lives. After saints had passed away, they were still supposed to be able to help those who prayed to them for assistance.
I was named a saint. Now memories of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, became memories of Saint Nicholas, the man who in life was able to do wondrous things such as guide sinking ships safely into harbor and rescue children from all kinds of harm. In return for these acts, I was now considered patron saint of sailors and children, an embarrassing honor since I hadn’t done any of it.
“If it’s any comfort, I don’t think I ever lived in the fabulous castle called Camelot,” Arthur said jokingly. Often at night we’d entertain ourselves by reciting the latest myths we’d heard that involved each of us. “Nicholas, I once thought it was magic enough that I’ve joined you and lived to be—what?—three hundred years old already. But that’s a little thing compared to living in enchanted castles and being named king of a whole country. I don’t think the real magic would be splendid enough for the people who make up stories about us.”
“Don’t make fun of those who tell or believe the stories,” Layla cautioned. “Many people have no joy in their own lives, so they let their imaginations work freely. Let’s talk about other things, like the coronation of Charlemagne. Could he be the leader who will finally make things better?”
She said this just after December 25 in 800 A.D. Charlemagne, king of the Franks, had chosen that Christmas Day in Rome to be crowned emperor of the West by Pope Leo III. He picked the date because it was already a time of special celebration for Christians.
All over Europe and Britain, new ceremonies had gradually been added to the traditional Christian festivities on Christmas. In 529 A.D., Roman Emperor Justinian had declared December 25 a civic holiday on which none of his subjects could work. This news pleased me greatly. Most people had to labor too hard for their meager wages.
As Christian missionaries traveled throughout the world, they began to take winter customs of various nations and combine them with Christmas worship. In northern Europe and Britain, for instance, native peoples had long since had their own celebrations in December, mostly for the winter solstice. To symbolize their faith during snowy winter months that warm planting weather would eventually come again, they hung out evergreen branches in front of their homes. “Julmond,” as these people called it, also required feasting afterward as another mark of confidence that times of plenty would return.
The Christian missionaries, seeing all this, carried tales back to central Europe of “Jul,” pronouncing the “J” like a “Y.” Soon enough, proper Christians began hanging out evergreen branches as part of their celebration of Christ’s birth. A similarly named custom came to central Europe from Persia, where end-of-the-year customs included burning part of a log in the season called “Yole,” the fire being an offering along with prayers for good weather during the next planting season. “Jul” and “Yole” eventually became “Yule,” another name for the Christmas season that continues to be used to this day.
Amid all the other bad times, people began to consider the Christmas holiday a very special, happy occasion. For one day, at least, fighting was usually forgotten. Charlemagne’s choice of Christmas for his coronation was the clearest sign yet that even the greatest war leaders recognized the significance ordinary people placed on December 25.
By this time, we were in the western Frankish region of Burgundy, now part of France, at the time of Charlemagne’s crowning, news of which had been carried across the continent by messengers. After so many centuries of discouragement, we wanted to meet this new emperor whose rule promised to be special. Charlemagne was supposed to be spending the rest of the winter camped outside Rome—he had little use for the fancy palaces in the city—so we set off, traveling east and south until we crossed into Italy.
Ever practical, Layla wanted to know what I’d say to Charlemagne. “Will you tell him everything about us, and ask him to leave his army and come with us like Attila and Arthur?” she wondered.
“Charlemagne has his own important mission, so I’d be wrong to ask him to abandon it to join in ours,” I replied. ”I just want to meet the man so I can see with my own eyes that there’s reason to hope for better times.”
Western Frankish area of Burgundy
“It’s probably going to be hard to see him,” Felix predicted. “They say he’s trying to do everything at once: build a government, start schools, and encourage artists to paint and write. Hundreds of important people every day are surely begging for an hour of his time. He’ll hardly be interested in talking to strangers.”
Felix was right; when we arrived in Charlemagne’s camp and asked to see him, we were told the new emperor was much too busy. We left, spent a week giving gifts at night to poor children in the many villages surrounding Rome, then went back and asked again. The answer was the same.
“That’s enough,” said Attila, who was never especially patient. “This emperor has no time for us, so let’s go back to the countryside somewhere and do our gift-giving as best we can.”
“Let’s go back to Britain,” Arthur said hopefully. “We haven’t been there in a hundred years. I’d like to see the green hills again, and give gifts to all the needy children who live in them.”
“We will, we will,” I said, being careful not to promise anything specific. “Tonight, when the rest of you are out leaving gifts, I’ll stay at our campsite and think about this.” But as soon as they were gone I put on my red bishop’s robes—not the original ones, which long since had been worn out, but newer ones sewn by Dorothea—and crept into Charlemagne’s camp. The emperor was living in a big tent. I hid myself in some bushes until Charlemagne sent away all of his staff for the night. Then I quickly, quietly ducked inside.
Charlemagne was a tall man with a long gray beard. He had something of the look of a warrior, standing straight and staring at me with an expression of curiosity, not fear. But there was great wisdom in his face, too.
He greeted me by saying, “I don’t think you’ve come to try and kill me. I see both your hands, and neither is holding a weapon. Your robes are those of a priest, and I’m a good friend of the church, so you can’t be angry about that. Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to talk to you, Emperor,” I answered. “For a week, one of your staff has said you were too busy. So I thought I’d wait until you were alone and might have time for a conversation with a stranger.”
Charlemagne raised his eyebrows a little; he wasn’t used to being spoken to so plainly. Then he nodded, smiled, and said, “Well, then, here you are. Would you like something to drink or to eat? No? Well, here’s a bench. Sit down and we’ll talk.”
And we did. I asked Charlemagne how he planned to use his new powers as emperor, and he told me of his plans for a united Europe that offered
protection to people who needed it, with free trade between countries and free education so children could learn enough to earn good livings when they grew to be adults.
“I never learned to read very well, and I can’t write at all,” he admitted. “I was lucky enough to be born in a royal family, but if I’d been born to a poor man and woman I’d only have been considered fit for herding sheep. The more education people have, the less they’ll fight, because they’ll be smart enough to find other ways to solve their problems. Now, what about you? There’s something about you that makes me think you’re a fellow with many secrets, and that you’re someone who’s seen a lot of this world.”
I didn’t tell him everything. I just said some companions and I traveled about finding children in need and helping them with gifts. Charlemagne asked where we got money to buy these gifts and I told him how we carved book covers and figures.
“Don’t you have any rich friends who will give money to buy the gifts that you leave?” he asked, and when I said we didn’t, he got out parchment and a goose-quill pen. “Can you write? Well, then, write down what I’m about to tell you, which is an order to all my captains and officers to bring you into my presence whenever you like, and to give you food and other supplies for your party whenever you need them. I can’t give you money. What I have comes from taxes and every coin is needed for the programs I’m starting. But at least getting more traveling supplies for free will let you use all the money you make to buy those gifts you give to poor children.”
Charlemagne dictated a lengthy order. When I’d written everything down he heated wax and put a blob of it on the parchment. Then he took a heavy metal disk, his official seal, and stamped it on the wax. This seal meant that the emperor himself had given the written order to assist “Nicholas and any of his trusted friends, these being named Layla, Arthur, Felix, Dorothea, and Attila.”
