Historical Setting: 789 C.E. Jutland
Mostly I’ve been hauling and stacking logs for the feast. Day’s end, I return to the house of the smiðr with a load of thick hardwood for a hot fire and having seen the shipyard I can understand a purpose in this man’s work.
I ask the child thrall, Marian, who shares my language, “Having seen this art all around here, I am wondering what there is of writing? Who are the readers and the scribes here?”
“What are scribes?”
“Scribes are like Christian monks, smiðr maybe, who copy the scriptures.”
Marian was probably raised Christian, so she might know what I’m talking about. Finding written pages would relieve my fears, even in this language I have yet to learn. I have a dread that this future world where I find myself leaves nothing written anymore. Is it odd to fear a future without writing?
I ask her, “where is reading and writing done here?”
“These people aren’t Christian here.” She answers.
“And yet the art and the designs on all sorts of things appear to me like the illuminations on manuscripts.”
“All that writing would make it Christian and I just said they aren’t Christian here.”
Maybe my questioning is confusing because Marian seems to think that the difference between pagan and Christian is simply that Christian has the written word and pagan only uses the illuminations.
I ask again, “For me, this is a new time and a lost place. I was hoping there would be someone very old who might remember written language?”
Apparently, Marian has no idea of the distinctions between old Christian and new pagan, but she does recognize my confusion and believes it can be met with a visit to a seiðr. She says, “but that will have to wait until after the feast.”
“Of course.”
The last bundle of logs I hauled for the day I delivered to this house because the old man is feeling especially cold today. Even though I’ve just filled the log bin he calls for me, “Heitzman! More heat!” It doesn’t even need translating, when he uses that title in my old language.
He just sits in that chair by the window grasping each second of daylight. No wonder he’s constantly cold. If I stir the fire into a huge blaze, it will make Marian’s baking uneven and scald the soup and he will still be cold.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 