The bows and the bow staves arrived as promised by Hereward, so young Raynar began to organize the training. Instead of general training, he focused on what was most important to know for the defense of the island. The channel, at its narrowest point, was some twenty paces across. Forty at its widest. The defenders needed to be able to pierce armour at fifty paces.
He was pleased to find out that some of the women already knew archery. They had small selfbows that they used with long thin arrows to shoot fish, and shorter arrows to shoot birds and rabbits. Unfortunately the selfbows were short range weapons, and did not have the power to shoot the heavy battle arrows.
Even more unfortunate was that Hereward's Welsh bows were too large for boys and women. He could not bring himself to weaken existing bows, so he showed the women how to craft new ones from the staves. They were quicker to learn the shaping than most of the archers he had taught over the last year.
The next problem was the strength in the shoulders. Or rather the lack of strength. Women were not built like men. Try as they might, the arrows from the women's Ywen bows did not have the power to pierce armour at fifty paces. He had them continue practicing hoping the strength would improve. The aim improved. The strength did not.
* * * * *
The harvest began and many of Klaes's men were now staying on or near the island. Everyone was busy with the harvest. The horses and cattle had been moved to trusted Danish estates towards Lincoln, so there was no reason to harvest the hay, but there was corn, oats, barley, rye, turnips, peas and beans to bring in. The village folk worked all hours of the day and then collapsed into their beds at the end of the day.
Those that could not do the heavy work, like Raynar, were set tasks such as cleaning barrels, and chalking them, and then cleaning, drying, and packing the crops into the chalked barrels. Drying was important. In this damp climate, food rotted or grew mushrooms quickly if it was not kept dry.
With so many men now living in the dry village and in the island village, Raynar was able to see the difference between Frisian society and the Saxon society of his father. Almost everything in the village was held in-common except for the huts and what was in the huts. The women claimed the huts for their children and their personal things. When the men were in the village, each woman would invite their current man, or men, into her hut to stay with her and her children.
He did not know what was happening inside the huts between the sexes, but outside the huts there was happiness and friendliness between most men and women. The women talked and flirted shamelessly with any man working close by. The men reached out for women and held them and stroked them in a way that would be considered shameless in Saxon society. In Saxon society, such open friendliness and flirtations would have caused fights between men, and the rejection of the woman by other women.
All were included in the openly physical touching. The children were cherished and hugged. It seemed strange to see the warriors that he had seen beheading Normans and covered in blood and gore, now sitting on the ground and playing silly children's games with the little ones. Even Gerke, the giant axeman, would settle down and gently play with small rag dolls with Inka's daughter Gesa, who was no more than five. After the evening meal, which was cooked, eaten, and cleaned away communally, he watched the children fall asleep in the arms of the men, while the women sang soft songs.
The word 'communal' described most activities in this village. Much more so than the communal activities of other villages in England. There seemed to be no privacy between women, between men, or between men and women. After working in the fields together on in-common crops, the villagers bathed together, ate together, and slept together. If someone stood up and started a chore that needed to be done, they were not alone doing it for very long.
He had been told that the villagers were all originally from one ancient clan, and therefore kin to each other. There certainly was a strong family feeling in how the villagers behaved with each.
Raynar's home in the Peaks was a communal hamlet. A glade hung off a mountain valley. That glade was a special place with mineral spring water, a milder climate than the moors around it, ample venison from the valleys of the Peak forest close by, and a location on the main porterway that connected the lead mines to the lowlands.
The glade was set up, built, and organized as a communal place by the brotherhood of Welsh miners as a place where injured miners could rest and heal, or die. The mines stole men's health from them. Many died too young, of crushed bodies or black lung.
Raynar's hamlet was run by the wives of the sick men, and the widows that had no other kin to go to. Families supported each other, because they had mutual needs. They traded meals and shelter to travelers and porters on the Porterway, for the staples of life. The hamlet glade was run by the women by necessity, because all the men there were injured or dying.
His glade hamlet and this island village were very similar in some ways and very different in others. His glade was poor, while this village was wealthy. The glade's folk often lacked necessities, whereas this village had plenty. The glade's commerce was thin, whereas this village was successful with their herding, and their fishing, and their ships.
The wealth of this village was shown everywhere. The women wore their jewelry openly with no fear of theft or envy. The children were well-clothed and had boots. The women had many changes of clothing, not just what they were wearing. Roas, for instance, despite her youth, had four different cloaks, all in good repair.
Despite their wealth of possessions, their huts and houses were never locked, could not be locked. They were made of local saplings and rushes and sedge and sun-baked clay, with their main purpose to keep things dry, rather than to keep things safe. Because of how he grew up in his glade, Raynar was quick to understand this Fen's village, where the men left for months at a time. He had lived it, though in a poorer, smaller version in his glade in the mining valleys of the Peaks.
He began to understand why Hereward had called it a paradise. It wasn't the island itself. The island was not good land. It was damp and misty and had more than its share of biting flies. But Hereward was the bastard son of the old Earl of Mercia. At his father's estates he would have been envied and pitied and hated, but rarely befriended or accepted by his peers. Hereward had grown up in formal courts and large manors where privacy is kept, and intimacy is private. A society where people plotted, and lied, and cheated for their own betterment.
To Hereward, this open physical friendliness would have been strange and wonderful and desirable. In this village he would have been accepted simply as Hereward, a good man. Here there was no such thing as a bastard. In this village the children all knew who their mothers were, but few knew who their blood fathers were, and it mattered nothing at all to anyone. They were children of the village, and raised by the village.
* * * * *
As the harvest chores wound down, Raynar and Klaes began to spend much time together. Klaes had agreed with Hereward that the island defenses need improving so that the women could hold it with the help of fewer men.
They walked together around the entire island. Raynar was surprised by things he saw. For instance, there was a forge. He was told that in the not-so-far-past the folk of the island had harvested bog iron and smelted it and worked it here. Now the island had the coin to buy the bog iron nails and the ships tools that they needed. Bog Iron was much more valuable to the seafarers of the North Sea than steel because it was so slow to rust. The ships were built using bog iron nails. The fittings were made from bog iron, as were the hooks and pikes and buckles.
Raynar suspected that either the bog iron or the coin or both were actually booty from raids carried out by the ships from this village. He had watched these men fight. It came easily to them, as if they had much practice.
There were larger punts pulled onto the bank at the fen side of the island than were in use beside the bridge. They climbed into one and both he and Klaes took a punting pole. The water was shallower here than in the bridge's channel and they did not need to oar the poles. He was told that these were the punts used to take the men back and forth to their ships.
They headed towards the pool where the ships were moored. It was quite far because they were moored close to the River Glen. The pool was still not tidal, but the channels had to be wide enough and deep enough to float the ships. They finally arrived at a pool surrounded by high bushes. The channel towards the river was concealed with floating live bushes that could be drawn out of the way of the ships. Thus the ships were hidden. Or rather ship, as there was but one moored in the pool.
Klaes shouted a warning to the watch and Gerke's tall frame and wide smile welcomed them aboard. He explained that this was not a standard Danish ship, but a flat bottomed waddenschip which the English called a Frisian Cog. It was designed for coastal trading in the shallow waterways along both sides of the North Sea. The flat bottom allowed them to beach the cog or have it stand upright on mud banks when the tide receded.
Though just a small ship, it fascinated Raynar. He walked its length and touched everything in his curiosity. "How much water does it need to float?" he asked of Gerke. He was always polite to Gerke, after all, they were sort of related through Roas.
"Unloaded, two feet. Fully loaded perhaps four. Sometimes when the river is low we have to jump out and pull it with ropes through the shallows."
"I thought you had three ships."
"We do, but this year we left half the crew ashore to guard against Normans, so there was crew enough for only two to trade," Gerke explained. "The storm season is getting close so they should come home soon. They will send word from the port in Spalding as soon as they arrive there.
Spalding may be smaller than Peterburgh, but it controls the mouth of the Welland river. This stream connects to the Welland near to Spalding so we need the friendship of that town to reach the sea. Luckily the Countess Beatrice of Spalding is a good friend to us. She buys our horses as gifts for her family, and backs some of our trade ventures."
"There is no Norman lord?" asked Raynar.
"Not likely. Her husband is Thorold, the Shirereeve of Lincolnshire, and she is a close cousin to Earls Edwin and Morcar. Thorold is a seasoned diplomat. He keeps the peace for both English and Normans and achieves it with little violence. The King needs the peace, and relies on his wisdom, so he has left him as the Reeve for now. You watch though. Eventually some greedy Norman will replace him as Reeve."
"This countess lives there, in Spalding, with the Shirereeve?" asked Raynar.
"Each of them has many estates. Duty keeps Thorold in Lincoln for most of the time, but this is her family home. She visits Lincoln often, but she prefers raising her daughter, Lucy, in Spalding away from the intrigue and politics. Besides, she likes to be the first at the dock when the trading ships arrive."
On the way back to the island, Klaes showed him the eel pools and the traps the village used to capture the eels. The eels were the original reason that his folk settled here back in the time of the ancients. The eels not only fed the folk with fresh food that made them strong, but eels were also a valuable fish for trading with the wealthy of towns. It was normal for the trading ships to leave Spalding carrying an outbound cargo of barrels of live eels.
It was no wonder that this village lived in plenty. The Fens provide a good life and the ships provide wealth beyond need. With ships they could raid or trade. With the shallow cogs they could trade on rivers or sea, and escape unfriendly ships by running in shallow waters.
Locally there were all the materials needed to build and fix the ships, even the bog iron for the nails. They were more than self sufficient in good food, and food with an easy and ready source. Their diet was healthy, their water clean. You could tell this by the strength of their teeth and the size and health of the children. The women were skilled at making high quality woolen cloth. The men were skilled in breeding high quality animals. The products of these skills were all good earners.
Raynar let his mind work. If a Norman lord was wise, he would leave this village to its peace and prosperity, and in return for peace, collect taxes from them. This village did not even need coin to pay taxes. The well-bred horses, fine cloth, and eels would be welcome as the payment. The thought depressed him because he doubted that any Norman would be so wise. They were wont to choose immediate plunder over long term well being.
His next thought made him feel disloyal to Hereward and to Hereward's brother, who was the closest lord to this village. It would be better if this village ally themselves with a Norman lord, than to fight them. Eventually a Norman lord would claim the dry land fields between the island and the Roman Street. Why not wed an island beauty to that Norman lord, and let him share in the earnings of this village. What lord would not want the fighting skill of these huge Frisians and their ships at his command, and one of the Frisian women warming his bed, and sons that would be handsome, and daughters of beauty?
Raynar shifted his thoughts. Whatever the future of this island village, it would be all the better for a good defense. When he began thinking of defenses, he had another disloyal thought. This island would make some Norman lord a fine fort. It was a natural location for one. Is the future of this village to be cleared and destroyed to make way for a Norman stronghold? He shuddered at the thought.
Klaes was saying something to him and brought him back to the now. He had found a full eel trap and wanted help pulling it into the punt.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright
2010-13