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    The Icknield Way: The Story of England After the Romans Left (412 AD - 460 AD)
    The Icknield Way: The Story of England After the Romans Left (412 AD - 460 AD)
    The Icknield Way: The Story of England After the Romans Left (412 AD - 460 AD)
    Ebook322 pages5 hours

    The Icknield Way: The Story of England After the Romans Left (412 AD - 460 AD)

    By N. Beetham Stark

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    About this ebook

    Eivin settles with his family in England on land recently vacated by the Romans ((450 AD). Life takes him up and down the ancient pathway known as ‘The Icknield Way’. He falls in love but is imprisoned before he can claim his lady. His brother, Ans, is the devil’s novice and he hates him. Eivin is taken prisoner by the Celts and is forced to work as a farmer and later a bronzesmith. When there is no ore to work, he is sent off to mine. On his return his gift to his overlord is mistaken for stolen goods and he is again imprisoned. After an adventure on far-off Isle Royale, he returns to seek revenge on his brother Ans. When he returns to his original home next the North Sea, a series of surprises await him.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherN. Beetham Stark
    Release dateFeb 24, 2014
    ISBN9780984631681
    The Icknield Way: The Story of England After the Romans Left (412 AD - 460 AD)
    Author

    N. Beetham Stark

    Nellie Beetham Stark was born November 20, 1933, in Norwich, Connecticut to Theodore and Dorothy Pendleton Beetham. She attended the Norwich Free Academy and later Connecticut College in New London, CT before graduating with a MA and a Ph.D. degree in Botany (Ecology) from Duke University.Stark worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a botanist for six years and then joined the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada where she worked on desert and forest ecology and later tropical nutrient cycling. She has consulted in many countries, working for some time in Russia, Australia and South America. She developed the theory that explains why tropical white sand soils cannot grow good food crops and described the decline processes of soils. She has also developed a science of surethology, or survival behavior which describes how humans must adapt to their environments if they hope to survive long term. She has 96 professional publications and has published in four languages.Her life long hobby has been English history, with emphasis on naval history. Her family came originally from Tristan Da Cunha in the South Atlantic in the early 1900’s. Her grandfather was a whale ship captain for a time which spurred her interest in naval history. She also paints pictures of sailing ships which she has used as covers for her historical novels. She has built several scale models of sailing ships and does extensive research on ships and naval history, traveling to England once yearly.Stark was awarded the Connecticut Medal by Connecticut College in 1986 and the Distinguished Native Daughter Award for South Eastern Connecticut in 1985. She was named outstanding Forestry Professor three times by the students of the University of Montana, School of Forestry.Today she writes historical novels, mostly set in England. She has published some 21 novels in the past twenty years, mostly on the internet. She lives on a farm in Oregon and raises hay and cows.Stark's two most popular book series are:Early Irish-English History1. The Twins of Torsh, 44 A.D. to 90 A.D.1. Rolf "The Red" MacCanna, 796-8462. An Irishman's Revenge, 1066-11124. Brothers 4, 1180-12165. Edward's Right Hand, 1272-13076. We Three Kings, 1377-1422The Napoleonic Wars at Sea (Benjamin Rundel)1. Humble Launching - A Story of a Little Boy Growing Up at Sea, 17872. Midshipman Rundel - The Wandering Midshipman, 17953. Mediterranean Madness - The Luckless Leftenant Rundel, 17974. The Adventures of Leftenant Rundel, 1797-17995. Forever Leftenant Rundel, 1800-18036. Captain Rundel I – Trafalgar and Beyond, 1803-18067. Captain Rundel II – Give Me a Fair Wind, 1806-18098. Captain Rundel III – Bend Me a Sail, 1810-18139. Admiral Rundel – 1814-1846

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      Book preview

      The Icknield Way - N. Beetham Stark

      The Icknield Way

      The Story of England After the Romans Left

      412 AD - 460 AD

      by N. Beetham Stark

      Published by N. Beetham Stark at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2002 by T.T. Green

      Published in The United States of America

      ISBN # 978-0-9846316-8-1 0-9846316-8-2

      All rights are reserved by the author. No part of this book may be copied or printed without the written permission of the author or her agent. Paid downloads are acceptable. This story is largely fictional, but is based on events which occurred during the early Dark Ages. Any resemblance of persons or places is coincidental.

      Copyright 2014. The Stark Press.

      History is the bitter pill which humans must swallow in order to avoid making the same mistakes in each generation. Cross the bridge to the past and you will come to understand the meaning of life.

      All artwork is credited to the author. English spelling is used.

      This book is dedicated to Tarsie, Picotso and Kaputchkie for the love they gave me during the writing.

      Table of Contents

      Ch 1 Exodus

      Ch 2 Settling In

      Ch 3 Eivin and The Icknield Way

      Ch 4 Calleva Again

      Ch 5 A Brutal Winter

      Ch 6 Gone Missing

      Ch 7 Copper, Tin and Gold

      Ch 8 The End of Land

      Ch 9 Failed Experiment

      Ch 10 The Famine and The Scotti

      Ch 11 Yet Again A Slave

      Ch 12 Trapped Again

      Ch 13 Run

      Ch 14 A King’s Island

      Ch 15 Home

      The Icknield Way (IKE-NELD)

      The Icknield Way was, sometimes spelled Ickneald Way, was an ancient bronze age trading route that went from somewhere near present day Holme- Next-The -Sea on the North Sea, angled around the fen lands and then headed southwest to the English channel with many side trails. The early peoples used it, the Romans used it and sometimes superimposed their roads on the old trail. Bits and pieces of the trail can still be found today. I have walked some of the remaining trail.

      This story is fiction, but it is based on research into the lives of the early Angles and Saxons who came to England and the Romano-British population that already lived there. The people of England had remnants of the original hunter gatherer peoples, the Celts and other peoples, including some Romans and Romano-Celtic folk. This story is that of an early Angle family that moved to the North Sea and when their boat began to sink, they had to settle there. Gutfrid was ahead of the major influx of Angles who followed in the next fifty years. He was a man who hated people and crowding, which is what drove him from his home near what is today Schleswig. He settles near Blakeney, but the story is really about his son, Eivin. Eivin sets out to help the family by selling or trading salt and salted and smoked fish to people in the interior. Things go wrong and he is taken prisoner for most of his life.

      He serves as a slave to the Celts first as a farmer, then as a stone builder, then as smith, and finally as a miner. His trade is really that of jeweler and when his skills are noticed, he is sent to Wales to mine silver to use in making the equal arm brooches that he loves to make. Men from Ireland called the ’Scotti’ come to raid his village taking him prisoner once again. He is sent to Ireland to work at gold mining. He escapes and returns to his original home only to find that the elder of the tribe has died. His son does not like Eivin and accused dead overlord. The son takes Eivin’s gold for himself and imprisons Eivin.

      By this time, Eivin is tired of being a slave and finds a way to escape. He is driven to find his brother, Ans, who he believes has stolen his cart and is now making money trading salt for goods which he sells elsewhere. In his driven state to find his brother, Eivin manages to get aboard a ship that is about to sale to the Saint Lawrence and Isle Royale in search of pure copper for making bronze. Apparently the Isle Royale copper deposits were found as early as the Minoans and had been exploited for high purity copper for hundreds of years. He returns to England and faces many challenges when he returns to his original home near Blakeney.

      Eivin’s story requires some 20 characters to come to fulfillment. These people come from all walks of life and provide a balanced view of life in the early Dark Ages. These people fight the Picts from the north, the Scotti from Ireland, they starve together through famines and suffer from the attacks of wolves and bears. This is a time of great superstition and fear of the unknown because for a very long time, there was much that was unknown to them and hence, threatening. These were truly people thrust into darkness by the recall of Roman troops. Then the influx of a new people with quite different languages, manners and values stressed the locals even more. The influx of the Angles and Saxons forced new and old inhabitants to set upon themselves to find a new way in their dark and dreary world with no one to lead them. When the Romans left, their law tended to weaken and for a time there was no recognized law for the country which was known as Britannia. Thus we have at least three or perhaps four different peoples trying to build new lives for themselves and not yet ready to unite as one. Each group tended to follow their old laws, but much of the time there was no law at all. Their differences provide Eivin with ongoing challenges as he fights his way out of slavery.

      There is a mystery about Badbury. The map that I have which pictures England in the 400’s shows a Badbury in Wiltshire and one close to the Isle of Wight in or close to Dorset. It made for an interesting twist to the story to include both Badburys, but it is hard to believe that two such villages existed and not that far apart.

      The Scotti were Irish originally and a wild band given to raiding and traveling about in search of plunder. Eventually the Irish tribes got sick of them and booted them out. We can assume that is what happened, but they may have just decided on their own to move into northern England and make a permanent home for themselves. We cannot be sure which is true. At any rate, they became the Scotch people of Scotland. By moving into northern England, they displaced and absorbed the Pictish peoples, highly painted folk who were equally fierce warriors and who often fought naked. Today there are probably remnants of both the Pictish peoples and the Scotti living in Scotland. When crime visits their village, the overlord dictates a new set of laws and sets up a justice system. He falls victim to his own plans when his son is one of the early men to be tried by his new system. The result is devastating to the new justice system and points to the predictable frailty of humans. The trip to Isle Royale is a bit fanciful, but there is evidence that people as early as the Phoenicians and others actually sailed to north America in search of high quality copper ore, which they found on the modern Isle Royale. Travel over the open ocean would have been challenging.

      Chapter 1 Exodus

      Get off my land! Go! Now! yelled Gutfrid. He waved his arms in the air, threatening the man who knelt on the ground, a deer antler in his hand. He was obviously digging a hole for a post in preparation for putting up a daub and wattle hut. He already had two posts standing upright and his intentions were very clear. Gutfrid could see a woman by the edge of the forest and three ragged children raced about in his oat field trampling his crop into the dirt. He shook his head in despair.

      He yelled, You are destroying my crops. What will I feed my family this winter? Go now, Go!

      But the man paid him no heed and continued to dig. He shouted back, I have no shelter for my family. No one lives here. See, the field is empty. There is no house. I must find shelter before winter for my children.

      Gutfrid, now beside himself with anger, said, This is my field. My house is just there as he pointed to a group of trees. Leave or I will have to kill you. He shook his fist in the air. Then he picked up a stout oak branch and headed towards the man, waving the stick as he walked.

      You go or I will kill you! as he brandished the stick over the man’s head. But the man shouted back at him in his guttural Teutonic language. There is not a field anywhere near here where a man can build his house. I will not leave."

      Gutfrid had endured all he could take. This was the third squatter in a week. He swung his oak branch with great force and hit the man squarely in the head. Blood shot from his mouth and he fell over, lying, kicking like a fly about to die. His woman screamed so loudly that she could be heard for over a mile around. She called her wild children to her and sheltered them with her skirts, screaming and crying all at once. Gutfrid pulled his knife from his boot and stabbed the man until he lay quite still. Then he arose, wiped his bloody hands and knife on the grass and looked to the woman. Go now while you still can, before I am angered again and cannot control myself. He motioned with his hand for her to leave. She, still sniveling, gathered her little ones and headed off to the south.

      Gutfrid walked to his hut, his hands trembling, muttering to himself, and grimacing. Three times now in a moon and I have to drive men from my fields. I cannot endure this any longer! He pushed aside the hide at his door and stepped into the hut, small, stinking and warm. He was a dark man, squat with a wrinkled face that looked as if it had never smiled. His beard fell to his breast in a disorderly fashion and he flexed his huge hands in frustration. His wife. Gerda, sat by her wall loom feeding wool onto a spindle. Three young boys sat on the pallet where they slept on fir branches. The room was tiny, perhaps three men’s height wide and the same long. There was a smoldering fire ring in the middle and smoke made its way lazily out through a small hole in the thatched roof. A table stood near the fire ring and there was a small chest against the far wall where the sleeping pallet for the parents stood. There was stunned silence as the family saw Gutfrid’s blood stained hands.

      What have you been doing, husband that you are so bloody? Surely you have not wrestled a hart to its death for our supper, said Gerda.

      No wife. I have driven off some more squatters from our oat field. We cannot see the oat field from here, so others think that it belongs to no one. They think it is safe to settle there. They have trampled our oats into the ground and we will be hungry this winter. The worst is that this is the third group of squatters that I have had to drive off in a single moon!

      What can we do? We cannot build a high wall around the field. Perhaps the next time we build a new hut it should be closer to the field?

      Hush woman. You know not of what you speak. We will build no more huts in this crowded valley. I hate people and I hate crowds! We must go elsewhere.

      Gutfrid, you have always had itchy feet ever since I first met you. I don’t know why I agreed to marry you except that it was our parent’s will.

      Then she added, Come eat your supper lest the gruel get cold.

      They ate in silence but it was clear that Gutfrid was deep in thought. Everyone was lost in deep thought, trying to understand what was happening to them and to their country. They all knew that they were preparing for some major change in their lives.

      His sons sat unusually quiet for once. They were less brothers than enemies. Eivin, the oldest at 12, was strong, squat built like his father and already had large hands. All that he seemed to share with his two brothers was a shock of unruly brown hair. The next oldest was Ans who was 10. From early childhood, he showed a tendency towards evil. He loved to torture animals and imprison them and then watch them starve to death. He refused to skin out a deer when his father brought one home and he steadfastly refused to do any work. He even refused to play with Eivin. He seemed to think that he was better than his brothers and did not engage in pranks with them. Ans was smaller in frame and not as strong, but he was a formidable fighter all the same. When he and Eivin did anything together, it was likely to be a wrestling match on the earthen floor of their hut. Eivin usually won, but Gutfrid would intervene if he was present and send the boys off to work. The village folk said that Ans was sired by a devil, not an Angle because of his love of battle.

      Seth was only 8 and an entirely different sort. He tended to be fat and was mentally deficient. His eyes did not seem to focus where they should and he waddled like an old lady. Some days he could carry on a fair conversation, but others he seemed to be off in some far away place where he could not hear or see any living being. He had no real contact with either of his brothers. His mental state required much of Gerda’s time to care for him. She thought of him as gifted by the gods and in some way special.

      The next morning at breakfast, Gutfrid said, I am tired of these squatters. They try to take what is mine and I must continually fight them. I was brought up by the sea and my family fished for a living. I yearn for the sea. There a man can always catch his supper. Here in this valley all of the deer and other game have been killed off. There is nothing for us here. I hate people and will not force myself to live in such crowded places any longer.

      Gerda replied, So where will you go? The forest is dark and cold. No man can live there for long, and that is all that is left for us.

      No woman. Again I know more than you. My brother, Rosco has just returned from serving with the Roman army as a mercenary. I spoke with him just a few days ago. He was on a big island to the north and west of us. He called it ‘Britannia’. He said that all of the Roman soldiers have been recalled to Gaul and to Roma to fight off barbarians there. That leaves many fine fertile fields and villas open and free for any one to take! We could have a fine house with a heated bath. Don’t you want that my Gerda?

      Who has ever had a heated bath? We do fine with a dunk in the Elbe once a year.

      There is no argument. We go. My brother says that if I build a small boat we can sail down close to the land by the Frisian Islands and avoid the open sea. When we reach a place called ‘Calais’ we can cross a narrow sea and land on the island. It will be easy and more rewarding than staying here and starving. You have seen how little grain we have for the winter and you know how hard I have worked to grow grain. I am not a farmer. i am a fisherman and an island with ocean all around is where I belong.

      I hate open boats and the sea. What if we drown? What can you do then?

      We will not drown. I will build a good cart this winter which can be altered to make a small boat. Eivin and Ans will help me. They will help hunt for game to feed us since much of our oats are ruined. I have given it much thought. You, Gerda, will make woolen garments on your loom so we can be warm by the sea. And I will make as many equal arm brooches as I can when the weather is bad. We can trade brooches for food as we go to the coast.

      But husband, I have not even enough wool here to finish the cloth that I am now weaving. How can I make clothes with no wool?

      We have eight sheep and one lamb. We can harvest the eight sheep this winter for food. You can use the wool for your cloth.

      Eivin piped up. But papa, do not kill Baa the lamb. He is my pet.

      Gutfrid had expected some resistance to killing the sheep, one at a time as they needed meat, but he had thought that the lamb would be the pet of all three boys, not just one, but the other two boys said nothing in defense of Baa.

      Gutfrid continued. We can let Baa follow behind the wagon. Bruiser the ox will pull the wagon for us and the goat, Gus, can follow as well. We will need animals in our new home.

      How long will this voyage take? asked Eivin.

      It is hard to say because we do not know about the weather. Rosco says we should remain on shore until the sea is calm and there are no clouds in the sky. Apparently the waters around our island can become very rough if there is a storm. We will have much work to do this winter so we need to pray to Nertha for an easy winter with not much snow. We will leave as soon as the snow melts in the spring.

      It was not truly agreed that they should leave, but then no one argued with father.

      That winter was busy. Eivin helped his father split rails to make wood for the cart. It would be small, but then they had little to take with them. When Ans was told to help, he shrugged his shoulders and ran away. He was not a member of the family in his mind, just a boarder who was about to be taken where he did not want to go. Eivin helped clean deer hides and set them to dry around a frame. Gutfrid wanted to cover the cart with deer hide to keep the rain and sea out. They cut strips of deer hide to fasten the wheels together. Making the wheels round took many days of arduous work, and Gutfrid was thankful for Eivin’s help. Seth sat and watched his mother spin and weave and could do little else. He did like to draw interesting designs on the earthen floor of the hit. His father noticed his artistic abilities, but had no way to use them. He would often say, If Seth could only make this wheel round. I should be a happy man.

      Ans was usually off in the forest seeking some evil thing to do, but when he was at home, Gerda watched their food most carefully because he liked to put disgusting things in the food. He seemed to get much pleasure out of seeing his family vomit and grimace in disgust at his handiwork.

      Gutfrid insisted that they should have a spare wheel should one of theirs come to a bad end. Eivin laboured with the bronze splitting wedge, their only bronze ax and a bronze hammer, but most of the work was done with iron blades that Rosco had brought from the Romans. Eivin had his own blade and made a place to stow it in his boot. Ans had one too. But Seth could not be trusted with a knife. The extra knife went to Gerda to use in preparing their meals.

      When the weather was bad, Gutfrid sat by the fire ring and worked on chip carving brooches. He was a talented jeweler and was known for his fine brooches. As he made them, he wrapped them in bits of Gerda’s wool and laid them aside for the long voyage.

      One February day, Ans thought that he would like to own one of his father’s brooches. He knew that only men of importance got to wear brooches as fine as his fathers. He stole one from Gerda’s work box where they were stored and ran off with it. By the time that Gutfrid discovered the theft, it was too late to save the piece. It had been used to torture birds that Ans had captured with a net made of plant fibers and was no longer a thing to be worn with pride. It was Ans who cut the threads on Gerda’s loom so that she lost the entire piece and had to respool all of the yarn. She was fit to kill him and if he could not have outrun his parents, he would have lain dead in the field. He had destroyed many hours of hard work in the dim hut and had cost his parents much lost time.

      As he worked, Gutfrid taught Eivin how to chip carve and how to work metal. Eivin took to metal work easily and soon showed considerable skill. He often worked with his uncle who had a forge and made tools of iron. But Gutfrid did not waste his time teaching his other two sons to chip carve. There was no hope for Seth and the father had written off Ans as ‘bad seed’ long ago. There was naught that he or Gerda could do with the lad, but they were responsible enough to keep him with them until he could care for himself.

      When finally the winds ceased to blow so forcefully out of the north and the snow was nearly melted, Gutfrid announced that they would set out for their new home. He readied the cart, checking his harness for Bruiser carefully. Then he loaded Gerda’s wall loom, her workbox, a few pots and pans of bronze, flints, his splitting wedge, ax, flencing tool, bow and quiver of arrows, a small bundle of wool and whatever grain they had left. He built a small box at the rear of the cart so that they could stow away their most valued goods like the yeast pot. The winter had been cold and there was little grain left. The cover of the cart was of deer hide and kept the contents dry. He hitched the goat and Baa to the rear of the cart and put Bruiser in the harness to pull. When the father was not looking, Ans stepped into the cart and removed Gerda’s work box and hid it behind a stump. Gutfrid would never have noticed that it was missing until they were long down the trail had he not gone to the stump to relieve himself. He raged at Ans, but it did little good. The child ran off to the wood and disappeared. Good riddance! said Gutfrid. Gerda looked bewildered by all this, but she lifted her skirts and followed along. Ans refused to return, so they took off without him. Eivin was handling the reins of the ox and was proud to be of importance. Seth followed along, bleary eyed and lost to the world. A few hours later, when it was time to eat, Ans appeared looking for his supper.

      They left in April and made it to the sea by late May. The track was muddy and they spent many hours trying to get the cart free of the mud. Meals were a challenge since they had to build a fire each night. They stopped once a week to try to bake dumper bread in a large pot, but it soon lost one leg and tended to burn the bread. They ate mostly one meal a day. Gutfrid shot a deer on the way, but quite often he had to stop at small villages and barter one of his brooches for some grain or cheese. Eivin was hungry much of the time and not happy because his parents fought most of the time. Gerda did not believe that her husband could force her to move to a new home and so far away from her family and over a fierce sea as well. She was not afraid to complain, but Eivin could say nothing or he would feel a firm fist on his jaw.

      In one dense stand of trees, Gutfrid spotted a bear. He took out his bow and notched an arrow. It was a lucky shot because the animal was well hidden behind some ferns. He saw the bear rear up, bellowing in pain and dispatched him with another arrow. He was food for several days. Gerda took the hide and sat in the cart, working it to soften it. She managed to make a fine warm coat with sleeves for Eivin. The lad was delighted with his new coat. It was stiff and heavy but it would keep out all of the vicious rain and snow.

      On their way to the coast, Ans removed the stones from in front of the cart wheels causing it to roll down the hill and crash into a small tree. Fortunately, no harm was done and Gutfrid was able to restore the cart to use. He would frequently say to Ans, Go, leave if you wish. We will never miss you.

      When they reached the sea, Gutfrid found a spot where he could watch the sea, fish and get timbers for his boat. He began to drag in small logs for Eivin to split. He was curious how his father could turn a farm cart into a boat, but he soon found that Gutfrid was extremely creative. First he added a small rudder to the rear of the cart and a keel to the bottom. With the wheels removed and stowed in the cart, he began to hew boards to fit a short prow on the front of the cart. Then he grooved the boards so they could be pegged together with pegs that expanded when the wood became wet. He carved oars and fashioned an anchor of stone. Gerda sat and looked at the wild water and shivered at the thought of putting their lives upon those rollicking waves.

      Gutfrid and Eivin fished each day and kept them in food, but by the autumn, Eivin was tired of eating fish. Even Gerda complained that she did not know any way to make fish taste better. Mostly she cooked by putting hot stones in a pot with water until the water boiled. Then she dropped the food in to be cooked by the boiling water. Sometimes she cooked over the coals of their fire. Ans was given the job of hauling wood in for the fire, but he simply sat and scowled at the fire. No matter how hard Gutfrid beat him or how much Gerda complained and screamed at him, he was unmoved. His parents thought that he was terribly lazy and would soon die on his own. They could not wait for him to grow up.

      Seth was a comfort on the trip. He did haul firewood that his brother would not touch. He was extremely fond of animals and loved old Bruiser dearly. He would go out into the fields and lie in the grass with the ox and babble to him. Strangely, the animal seemed to enjoy Seth’s company. He would accompany Seth when he went to gather wood and allowed the child to put bundles of sticks on his back. Some animals have a way of sensing when another is sick or disturbed. Bruiser must have known something about Seth that the boy did not know himself because he became his trusted friend, following him everywhere. Gutfrid did not need to tie Bruiser in a pasture. He knew that when the animal was needed, he could send Seth to bring him home and ox and boy would appear with a sheepish grin on their faces as if they had been hiding on purpose.

      It took several months to build the ship and then Gutfrid had his doubts about its ability to stay afloat. They had collected pitch from conifer trees for many days and Gutfrid plastered every possible hole and crack with warm pitch. He decided to take it out for a day and see how it handled with the small rudder. Eivin went with him and they soon learned that the craft was unwieldy and hard to handle. One stiff blow and she will be riding sideways on the waves, said Gutfrid. They returned to shore to do more work on the boat, making corrections to the rudder and raising the freeboard. While they were working one day, Eivin said to his father, What about Bruiser? He would hardly fit in this tiny boat and he is very heavy. There would be no room for the rest of us.

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