#64.5, Thursday, January 9, 2025

Historical Setting: 789 C.E. Jutland

         This place is not Christian and the feast we are preparing will be celebrating the solstice. The moose that fell into the pit provides plenty of meat. The moose is roasting over the embers of a huge central bonfire with breads rising on every hearth in the cluster of dwellings. Now the board is spread with all this abundance.  — heaps of breads, nuts and apples in bowls. The house that sends the milkmaid to the shed each night provides cheese; and where gardens were planted last spring, the root cellars are tapped for the winter stores of vegetables to make a very fine feast for celebrating longer days to come. Here is a pair of hollow bovine horns, and a large keg of beer.

         As people gather, the celebration has chanting and ritual, maybe prayers, rough and shouted. They definitely are not the tepid prayers of obedient monks to a god whose heroes are often martyrs and not always winners. These are the songs of warriors. I only know that from the sound of it. And maybe I’m hearing enough repetitions to catch some meanings.

         I’m looking for my place among these people.  The men are at the benches around the board and they seem not to reject me, only to ignore me. Already the bones of the beast are showing through the gnawed meats of moose.

         The outer circle at the feast is where the thralls find their places. And though I’m not actually a slave, I’ve decided to choose my place among them. Most here are women captured from their villages. The one I called Mara told me these people are marauders who came up from the waters and attack the Gaulish villages, murdering the men, plundering the riches, and capturing the women for the slave market. Mara was terrified of me when we were chained in that hovel. All she knew was my gender and my language and when I gave her the option for freedom, she chose to be owned by her captors instead. I can see here, that these marauders, first to eat, include the few women of their own people as the inner circle of masters. It is not a Roman feast where those at the table are only the men. Yet in Roman style, it is sons without beards and women slaves who stand aside until the inner circle has their fill.

         I have so many questions.

(Continues Tuesday, January 14, 2025)