Introduction to the

OVERALL PROCEEDINGS

I NARRATE MY LIFE AND TRAVELS IN THIS YEAR 1097 TO GOOD ISWHL-of-Ilchester with modest aims. At onset I remind all that I am Cuthwin the Fencebuilder, who has striven to build and mend fences along the boisterous coast of Kernowec these past thirty-odd years. I am nothing more than most hard-working freedmen, and certainly not a holy man, never having taken tonsure. I am an honest keeper of our Savior’s words, like most Saxon folk.

And I am indeed Saxon both in kind and tongue which these last nearly forty years diminishes at court, in market, and croft. Fence-building has ruined my hands for writing or much else; hence Iswhl takes my words spoken, and commits them to writing, but admonishes me to read them over carefully, and I do.

Countrymen throughout the hills and shores come to my hermitage and, due to my travels and age, have sought advice on many topics. Since I have knowledge of letters and words, I do my best to share that God-given fortune. Hence, over the years good people have mistakenly attributed age, experience, perhaps wisdom—for holiness. Too often of late I have heard my name uttered in the context of religious gift.

So I write this to impart to all, for I will soon be gone: That I began life as a poor man who lived honestly, and will be taken by God in the same humble circumstances. This is what I desire to pass on to those reading of my life and travels.