Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery
On this terrible day Brother Ealdwin and I have been burying the dead left in the wake of the Viking raid. There are more empty cells where monks lived, than are the number of bodies we buried. Apparently, more monks than just Brother Ealdwin escaped death, but they aren’t here on the island. Did they flee by boat? Did they escape into the sea and drown? Were they taken as slaves?
This whole long morning Brother Ealdwin watches the pathway rising in the ebb tide in case someone would return. Then he watches the water path to the main land for the currachs. Those boats that belong here may surely bring some who are returning. Do they even know someone here survived and is waiting for a familiar person to share in this grief?
Brother Ealdwin imagines some were taken as slaves. I chose not to tell him what I know of that. I actually don’t know anything of the Viking slave market so it may be possible. I don’t even know if stolen monks would demand a good price. But I do know the Vikings themselves aren’t using slave power for digging any tunnels or building pyramids. They aren’t doing things that would require lots of able-bodied men who are really longing to escape. They have their own artisans carving ships and sailing ships and that is what they do. I found slave duty was only to help with the rowing and guard the ships. Of course we weren’t trusted to help with the raid. I would assume raiders can’t depend on slaves to commit brutality when their slaves share languages and names with those who are being attacked. So, I really can’t imagine monks were captured and taken away by the Vikings.
The day is nearly done so I ask Brother Ealdwin if we might check for any food available at the cooking hearth. He isn’t very hungry, he says. And besides, the monk who tends to the cooking isn’t here. So, we can’t eat? I understand grief. And fasting is not impossible.
If we can’t keep meals times, at least we can keep the hours. I speak the call of each verse of the vesper psalm and Brother Ealdwin whispers with me in familiar response:
“If I say surely the darkness shall cover me”
“And the light around me becomes night,”
“even the darkness is not dark to you,”
“the night is as bright as the day,
For darkness is as light to you.” [Ps. 139:11-12]
(continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 