#63.11, Weds., Dec. 25, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         Back into the woods, I’m searching for more firewood.  I find lots of tracks in the snow, and here is that pit trap for large beasts.  Fresh blood tells of a beast that was killed here and taken away on a sled – maybe it was the sled I already know too well. The tracks in the snow indicate the place where the work was done, drawing a very large animal up from this hole using ropes and chain. And maybe I know that same chain, intimately. This close edge of forest is already picked clean of fallen logs and to find firewood without an ax I will have to walk deeper into the wood. 

         This oak and ash forest does go deep. The hardwood is heavy, but I know it burns long and hot for winter fires.  When I have a few bundles collected, I gather them into a pack and trek back over my own tracks.

      By the light of this second day here I see what goes on in this little house of Smiðr. He is an artist — a carver of wood. He has a steady hand and a whetstone always sharpening the blades. He has a focus and intensity; he sees nothing around him. His worktable faces a thick glass window so he can seize every second of sunlight even in the sparse hours of a winter’s day.

         He seems not to notice Marian who goes about the tasks of a thrall, fetching water, stirring the fire, soaking the beans for supper, sweeping up the wood shavings on the hardened dirt of floor. For such a young girl – a child yet — she takes these chores on herself without orders.

         I commend her and offer to be helpful. She tells me there has been no bathing in this house since she has been here and maybe even before that. I kind of guessed as much from the human stench. She says she sometimes meets other thralls of these houses at the fresh creek where they fetch water. In the winter, the luxury of bathing is done with a wood half barrel which is shared from one house to the next and filled with water heated with a kettle on the fires.

         It requires lots of lifting and pouring hot water – she could use the shared half barrel if someone were to help lift it.

(Continues tomorrow)


#63.10, Tues., Dec. 24, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

               The ferocious, tottering man at the door of this house yields his weapon and reaches out to point to his empty woodbin. Repeating the words of the thrall for “heat,” as “heit” and “man,” I’ve been given a name, “Heit-man.” I lay the logs in the bin, and some feeding the fire on the hearth, so that they may bring light and warmth to this cold, dark, little room.

         I see this thrall, this child, captive from warfare, as a promise for peacemaking with these people because she can translate the words of my old tribal language until I, too, can learn the language of these others.

         The thrall calls this man smiðr as that is who he told her he is. But she tells me now that she has heard others speaking in this language and she realizes that smiðr is his gift as artisan, not his name. Can those things be separated? And if he has a name, it is unknown to us.

         The child tells me her name before she was “thrall,” was Marian.

         “I will call you Marian, then,” And I beg a bowl of gruel.

         She says the artist is very poor, because he took no time from his work when it was the season for growing a garden. And when the shipbuilders needed his work, they gave him Marian as payment. All the food here is begged or stolen from the community cache. Marian said she found some peas and beans and she draws from a sack in the cache an amount for his bowl, putting some aside for herself and she shares with me from the bag.

         “He gives you no food?”

         “Not always a daily meal. Maybe, everyone is poor here. Though some have gardens. Sometimes, the village feasts when a large beast falls into the pit in the woods. Then the village shares bread flour all around, for every oven, even our own in this poor place. Then everyone feasts here and we eat and eat until every bone is picked clean and everyone has had their fill. Nothing rots, nothing molds. No one is hungry. There is rumor now, that a moose is in a pit and we will feast for the solstice.”

         I can find they have a need here for my strength, such as it is. Here, even fire logs are valued.

(Continues tomorrow)

#63.9, Thurs., Dec. 19, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         At every village door is a woodpile that will dwindle as the night grows colder. I watch from the woods.

         I see one door with only a few random sticks where the woodpile should be and the thread of smoke from that house is thin. I choose that house to give my gift of firewood because it might be most needed there. Maybe I will find a welcome.

         I knock and the door flings opened. An elderly man with a fierce eye set on me, totters, leaning on a tall-backed chair, clinging for support with one arm and pointing a steel dagger at my starving belly with his other hand. Surely, he sees I’m not a danger. I have no weapon, simply an armload of logs. But I also don’t have language. I don’t know his word for “peace,” if these people even have such a word. As best as I can, I offer it anyway.

         “I come in peace.” My attempt at a calm smile is a strained response to the dagger threat. He snarls some kind of verbal answer and tightens his grip on the weapon between us. Even as the old man totters and sways, he holds his weapon steady. He shouts the one word I know of this tongue, “Thrall!” And from a dark corner heaped in rags rises a frail tattered child in a carefully stitched dress of a rich fabric, probably from another land. She was undoubtedly captured from a land familiar to me and she tells him in his language what I said, then he asks her something more. She tells me he is asking who I am and why I have come.

         “Tell him I’ve come looking for peace from a war that isn’t here. I am no enemy here.  I bring only logs for warmth and peace.”

         I hear her searching words for this exchange. She uses the word I know for warmth from my own gaulish tribe, “heit.” Footnote:   He answers probably asking if that means “thrall?”

         She asks me if I am someone’s slave. “I am a free man.”

         Now I have a name that he can call me, “Heit-man,” and my gift of fire logs is accepted. Behind the gift comes my strange and unknowable notion of “peace.”  But I know when I am trusted, it might be considered an acceptable gift, maybe as acceptable as logs for a fire.

         Dear God, strengthen my persistence in peace and in love. Amen.

Footnote: Footnote: Roland Schuhmann. 2009. Old High German vocabulary. In: Haspelmath, Martin & Tadmor, Uri (eds.)
World Loanword Database.
Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 1258entries.
(Available online at http://wold.clld.org/vocabulary/11, Accessed on 2024-04-17.)

(Continues Tuesday, December 24, 2024)

#63.8, Weds., Dec. 18, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land
 

         It’s late in the day when the men I follow arrive at their village.  Here, the houses are clustered together, with a wall of wood planks and the doors facing the sea. The other ends of the houses are nearly buried in the berm of earth. Mosses and wintering grasses show at the edges from under the light snowfall lingering. The threads of smoke rising speak of several families clustered here – walls shared — but not shared home fires.

         I watch as the two men with the sled stop beside this cluster and are greeted at the first door by an older woman – likely mother to these sons. One returns to the sled and drags the logs into the house.  They leave the thrall fettered, hidden in the sled. I can so easily go and set her free right now. I lay down my pack of firewood, and creep across the snow to the sled, and I whisper to her.

         “Mara, I’ve followed to see where they were bringing you. Do you want me to break your chains, and take you away?”

         She stares at me with a clenched jaw and wild eyes, like a captured creature. She tells me to go away or she will call for help. We share a language. I know what she says, and I do understand that with all that has happened to her, losing those she loves and with her village destroyed she finds more safety now in being enslaved. She pays the price for some kind of security by giving herself over to brutality.

         Watching again, from hiding I see the wet logs added to that fire, the waft of smoke from that first house is broad and billowing, releasing enough sparks from the roof opening to rival the sunset.  I return back into the wood, as one of the men comes out to get the thrall. He sees my tracks in the snow and he knows his thrall has made the choice to stay a slave. May he find no reason for brutality, as though cruelty was ever reasonable. He chooses not to follow me.

         From another doorway a milk maid takes a torch and her pail into the early darkness and treks to an animal shed attached to the houses.  I watch from the edge of the wood into the night. Some houses have opened shutters, with candles for light.

(Continues tomorrow) 

#63.7, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land
 

         I’m keeping my distance following the sled and the men who are transporting a captured woman and the spoils of an attack on the village that was once her home. She is to be a slave, a thrall. She told me all the men of her village were slain and the women captured.

         I stay hidden from them as I follow the sled while they move northward staying close to the trees.

         Here in the depths of this forest is an uncountable abundance of hardwood trees, like pillars rising from earth into the heavens. It is like an oaken promenade through a temple for a Greek goddess. But a forest is no work done by any human mason.  Trees, even these giants, are life from seed – Creator’s masterworks. Even with all my years I am still in awe of trees. I gaze up one of the straight trunks– staring into the woven canopy of winter branches– still dense — even in this season of letting go.

         The blanket of leaves underfoot would surely alert everyone to my presence here with every step, but I’m careful to move slowly, and stir the leaves with a soft and continuing swath of sound as though it is only the wind sweeping through. Swishing the fallen leaves, I’m also finding lots of dry pieces of oak perfect for firewood. And now the hide I use for a pack is weighty with firewood while the men are slowly scrounging the seashore for a few heavy pieces of water-soaked driftwood.

         The sled they drive is too large to fit between the forest trees so they have to search the beach. I think this is one of those conundrums of need and greed. The sled is too big to be useful. 

         I’m hoping that the bundle of wood I have over my shoulder will be a welcome gift once we come to a place with more people. Maybe, despite my dearth of language, I can speak peace by delivering something that is needed. Already I have more wood than I can carry, so I keep exchanging small logs for large to make a better gift. And all the while the sled I follow carries so little wood now.  Maybe we will reach their village today. I’d like nothing more than to deliver my logs to a great hearth with a stew pot already smoldering, and find a welcoming supper. I haven’t had anything to eat in a very long time.

(Continues tomorrow)

#63.6, Thurs., Dec. 12, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         I watch from this distance hiding in the brush as the marauders rescue their chain and lay it limp and lifeless back in the sled. Now Mara is dragged to the sled.  How can it be that it was Mara that called out to tell them I had escaped? We were both in the same situation and yet she took their side by shouting to them rather than choosing to come along with me into freedom.  I watch as they throw her unto the sled like a rag doll with no regard for her as a human being. They heap the logs I stacked by their fire ring onto her legs keeping her pinned in the sled. Then they spread the coals around to extinguish the fire before they follow my tracks to the creek. They almost seem relieved that I eluded them and they don’t really search for me.

         I can see all this so easily from this place so near them where I huddle under my deer skin nearly in plain sight as this skin once hid a deer.

         Why is it, thrall and captor so easily accept their roles, when neither is free? The woman — weak and weary, a widow now, maybe always was “owned” by a man in the Merovingian style of family – I can, in a way, understand her fears of the freedom I offered.

         But what of the captors? Surely, they must have noticed I brought them wood and stirred their night fire while they slept this morning. And yet, they didn’t want to find me. They seemed satisfied just collecting up the chain I had freed.

         So now, I am following the sled tracks again as they push their way northward edging the woodlands and following the sea. All along the way they gather up more logs and wood and throw it into the sled. Sometimes sticks are thrown right onto Mara. This careless treatment of her surely must be leaving her bruised and suffering all the more.

         What I learn of them, besides their curse words, is that they value the gifts of the forest, the wood for shelter and the logs for fire and warmth. Also, they perceive a man as a threat to be feared and a woman as a necessary possession. What hungers haunt this land that make the thrall and the fallen logs more useful than living trees and a helpful companion?

         Dear God, let me keep my vision clear. Amen.

(Continues Tuesday, December 17, 2024)

#63.5, Weds., Dec. 11, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

            Dawn edges between the board slates of this shelter. It is a rosy red streaked morning and foreboding of a stormy winter’s day.

         I don’t know what I will do with this freedom I’ve gained by loosening the chain. I’m tired and starving and find myself in a hostile, but still, sleeping world.

         The sled trail I was following ends with these men who chose to capture me and whose language I don’t understand. I would be safer here if they didn’t fear me. Their way of camp, sleeping in the open around the fire is just as I found their last campsite, abandoned, yesterday.  They seem to select their campsites to be near clean water. And yes, I find a sweet little spring running down into a creek. After a long quenching of my thirst, I’m renewed and more thoughtful.

         Thank you, God. May I soon find good food and peaceful human company.

         I could walk in this creek to hide my tracks so no one would follow me as I escape, but my feet would be near freezing, wet, and still, I would have no way to find any peaceful human company. So, I gather some wood and stir their fire while the two marauders sleep. I find my own deerskin in the sled. Now I make a little shelter of it hidden in the thatch of brush on the other side of the creek where I can watch this camp while also, hiding from them. Yesterday, these two discovered me following them. Today, I will stay well-hidden but always watching them. When they wake and find my deerskin gone and the chain laying limp, they will find my tracks to the creek and hopefully will assume I have escaped by walking the creek. So today, I will be the watcher of them.

         Sheltered here in the deer skin, I am snoozing when the sleety rain awakens the marauders. They are roaring curses in a language of words I don’t know, but curses are recognizable in any language. They are already bad tempered.  What will they do when they find their heavy chain has been set free of me?

         It is Mara, calling from inside the thrall hovel that alerts the men to my escape. She is calling for help in my language fearing that I am a lurking danger to her now that I am loose. Why does she fear me?

(Continues tomorrow)

#63.4, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         Considering the chain — The chain is undoubtedly more valuable to my captors than am I. It’s simply the only proof they had that I’d been captured. Maybe the chain was a prize in a raid. Or maybe it was made by their own smiths, a valued possession, or the anchor chain for some large galley rowing an army of marauders to a foreign shore to kill its men and market its women.

         I wasn’t conscious when I was wrapped in this. I’m sure if I were, it would have been dizzying. Maybe they stretched out the chain on the beach, then I was rolled up in it, like a hidden dagger rolled up in a fleece. I do have sand in my beard.

         This chain isn’t fastened, it’s just wrapped. It seems if I had the power to move, I could eventually unroll myself and be free of it. At least I can see the value in my strength returning. And as I can move a little despite the chain, I must always remember only to turn in the direction opposite the winding which seems to be to the right. Maybe in that way, little-by-little, I can loosen the chain. The more uncomfortable it is to lay on the chain, the more I muster the strength to move, and the more I move, the more the chain is loosened.

         This is a worthy project.

         Mara says what we both know.

         “The men have made their camp near-by. They keep watch on everything here.”

          We can hear them, talking, arguing, gathering wood and undoubtedly eating spoiled meat also. We can hear they are also sickened from the meat. Mara is terrified now. If this one still starving man wrapped in chain is fearsome to her, how much more dangerous are two who are free and angry and have already killed her family and captured her?

         We hear them moaning and groaning and puking. It is a long night with no tender sleeping for anyone – no whispers of consolation – only isolated fears. Everyone is alone in wakefulness, pretending sleep.

         For me, it is lots of slow turns with chains bruising. I turn the last, to release myself from the chain. When it is a formless heap of links under me, these steel links still keep the coldness of night.  But now, this chain is a limp nothing without purpose or connection.  So, what will I do with my freedom?

(Continues tomorrow)

#63.3, Thurs., Dec. 5, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         This woman in shackles speaks in the comfortable language of Frankish Gaul. She tells me men are most often killed when they are captured and the women are taken as slaves. So, she says, I should be fortunate they only wrapped me in heavy chains. I guess I am fortunate but the chains are cold and debilitating. It is better than death. I know. I’ve tried both death and life and I choose life. Her only shackles are on her ankles. Dirty and bruised, her long, colorless strings of hair are tangled and matted with a patch of black dried blood. Her bruises tell of a violent capture.

         “My sons and my husband were slaughtered.”

         So, in her tears and howls I hear the unfairness of the grace that these captors let me, a man, live. I ask her name.

         “That is only for my husband to know and now he’s gone.”

         “So, I will call you Mara, the name in Ruth Naomi gave herself in her sorrow. [Ruth 1:20]”

         “So, you are Christian?” Mara asks.

         “Yes. Are you?”

         “I’m guessing there are better gods. I only asked because you mentioned a Christian story.”

         “It is older than Christian. Ruth is an old Jewish story.” And I ask her, how long she’s been here.

         “Longer than the others, because I was wailing and I couldn’t be sold. No one wanted to buy a weeping slave? I don’t know if I am better off here but here is where I am.  The good thing is when they dropped you here, they came with firewood.”

         So, I guess for her, I have some sort of goodness. But she’s too frail to lift the log into the embers.

         “I can help you if you release my chains.”

         “Why would I do that?”

         “So, I can lift the logs and help you cook this venison.”

         “You would just eat all the meat yourself and then rape me.”

         “No, Mara. I won’t hurt you.”

         She succeeds at placing the log without my help. And she lays the meat next to the new flame. I’ve been having it raw in these times. And here it will be burnt all through, a hard greasy crust of meat it will be. But now, cooking, it stinks of rot.

         “We shouldn’t eat that, Mara.”

         She doesn’t answer me because she is devouring the char of meat and she is immediately sick.

         I can’t even offer her comfort while wrapped up in chains.

(Continues Tuesday, December 10, 2024)

#63.2, Weds., Dec. 4, 2024

Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land

         An apprehension shadows me as I walk toward the sunset unprepared for nightfall. I feel like I’m being stalked.  I no longer fear wolves or any sort of wild thing seeking prey. And how often is this feeling of another presence discovered to be the comfort of answered prayer for God’s closeness?

         But maybe this isn’t a feeling of someone near so much as it is little hints I can sense – a waft of a human scent — a vibration of footsteps through the snow coated sand — a little stirring among leaves caught side-sighted. But why would a person hide from me? I’m nothing to fear. I have no weapons. I’m dressed only in deer skins. I have no torque or breastplate, no armor.

         “Hello? Is someone out there?”

         I Catch a glint of steel shining orange in reflection of the sinking sun.

         “Who’s there?”

         I awaken in the dark, chained on a sled along with supplies of firewood, venison and hides. We are sliding through the darkness, leaving that sled trail I had hoped would take me to humankind. Men are shouting in a language I don’t know. It sounds like grunts and curses more than growls or words. Every syllable has a hard edge. These words start with a breath but end with a cough.  Not knowing of this language, it seems wise not to call out in my own. So, I am silent for a long ride.  We end at a hovel made with boards laid on arches of saplings, with hides laid over for a roof to cover a  door. It takes both hefty men to toss me into this place while I’m still bound in heavy chains, then the men leave with the sled.

         Here, there’s a rock hardly a hearthstone, but on it, a fire burning with only a few glowing ashes. The smoke rising is released through gaps between the boards. In the smokey cold of this little space I see someone else also here.

         “You are a thrall?” a voice of woman asks me in my own language, but I don’t know what that means.

         “Thrall?”

         “Trael is their word for it. You are a slave?”

         “Judging by these chains I can guess that is so.”

         “Mostly they kill the men when they capture a people. They sack the cities and kill the men, and make the women thrall.”

         “Who are they?” I ask.

(Continues tomorrow)