A Walk Through The Village

It's a misty morning with the glistening dew still lingering on the grass, and a few people are up in the village. Before long, other sleepy bodies come out of their tents and soon there is a smell of woodsmoke and bacon cooking over the fire. Traders are busy setting up their craft shops and wooden plates are being washed ready for the meal to be served later in the day. The children start to run around, playing with wooden swords and fleece or leather balls. A woman shouts, telling a child to go and play away from the fire .

Opposite the weaving tent sits Elswith.

She is busy assembling her fine hand-crafted necklaces and bracelets. Nearby, her husband Sven sits heating up her small forge ready to melt glass for beads before moving away to the camp fire to continue polishing his weapons and thinking up new training maneuvres for the settlement's company of Mercenaries.

Further along, we meet Hrolf.     This highly-skilled leatherworker is already tapping away at the tooled leather for the fine belt pouch for King Gorm the Old of Denmark that he has been working on for the last three weeks.

Rowena his wife was up at dawn and is still away in the nearby woods hunting for herbs, fungi and other plant material, ready to prepare ointments and dye some of the hanks of wool that she has spun by hand.

Thorfinn Gunnarsson,  merchant sea captain, occupies the next tent.

The Icelander is always on the lookout for someone to tell a tall story to. These stories tell of trips, trading, adventures and the Norse gods, and are made more interesting by Thorfinn having many fascinating artifacts to hand.

Many times Hrolf and Thorfinn will sit chatting while Thorfinn prepares the trading manifest for the next trip of the knarr Thorr's Lady and Hrolf puts the finishing touches to some fine piece of leatherwork which will fetch a pretty penny amongst the nobles of England and Scandinavia. 

Don't be surprised if you hear Thorfinn relate his unusual use for monks, as he is a staunch pagan!

Sigurd and his wife Fearn greet you as you pass by their home.     

Fearn has just been sitting by their tent sewing, but rises to say hello in the best tradition of dark age hospitality.  Sigurd holds Dahrg's Raven Banner, finely embroidered by his wife at Jarl Olaf's request.  Their son Bjorn is looking smartly-dressed and well-behaved, but he has just seen off several children twice his age plus two large dogs with a fine hazel broom!  Rumour has it that Sven has his eyes on Bjorn as a future berserk!

Sigurd is getting ready to make some fine pottery to sell on the next trade run of Thorr's Lady, but before he sets to work he has some business with Sven, something to do with a horn of mead and a basket of mushrooms...

Lady Ragnhild is busy instructing her personal thrall Lech the Breekless.

It is his task this morning to prepare the breakfast for the entire encampment, no mean feat as there are some real trenchermen in the company of Dahrg de Belne!

When she is sure he has his instructions for the day, Lady Ragnhild Sigmundsdottir, who is wife of Jarl Olaf Haroldson, will tour the village to see that all is running smoothly before returning to her large hand loom, where she will continue to weave the fine cloth for which Dahrg de Belne is justly famous.

Jarl Olaf Haroldson is being elusive this morning...  But as we wander past the magnificent tent which serves him and his lady as their home from home, we hear a deafening snore from behind the pavilion, and there he lies, sleeping it off from last night's banquet at the local inn, The Raven and Entrail.  There was a brawl there just after midnight, and everyone wondered where he had gone afterwards.  Now we know!

The last tent in our street used to be where Brother Stephan, the local Christian priest, held his pious services. Jarl Olaf is a great patron of his, as he is a converted Christian, and a strong believer in the new God and his Son.  The fact that being a Christian is good for business in Saxon England has nothing to do with it of course... 

But for now there is nothing left of the tent but a pile of burnt sticks and fragments of charred cloth, since the brawl that last night started after Brother Stephan upbraided Thorfinn in The Raven and Entrail about carving a valknot, the symbol of Odin, on the back of a pew...  The rest, as they say, is history!

Perhaps in a thousand years, Christian and Heathen will live together in peace.... until then, don't be surprised at some of the arguments in our village!

Thank you gentle reader, for joining us in a walk through our village...

With all of the noise and the smells, it is very easy to get into the atmospheric feel of our encampment. Sudden outbursts from the people in the street make it sometimes difficult to remember that you are in a field, on a castle site or even in a park with a fair ground at the other end.

But if all of a sudden a bunch of burly, bewhiskered marauders run past you and head off to slay a few foemen, don't forget - it is all just re-enacted, living history.  Or is it...?  

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