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The Magic Sword that is England
[ 7 minute read ]
Fiction based on some much adulterated facts
According to 'The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland', [1985] (1992), Cambridge University Press, p. 78, 'By the eleventh century, Anglo-Saxon England was a rich country and her people were better fed and taller on average than for many centuries to come.'
Ooh er! French food must have been really quite nutritious or were there less people to feed? Well, apparently the rest of Britain was largely unaffected by England's increased trade across the North Sea and the Channel. So, having Scandinavian and Normandy heritage seems to have been a good thing. Yet there is still a North/South divide that needs to be 'levelled up'. There still seems, in my mind, to be an undying battle between Vikings and Normans that simply won't die.
Both York and London were major players in decision-making. The Vikings lived in York and the Normans lived wherever the land was especially profitable as was proved before 1066 and the Battle of Hastings by the recently evicted farmers. With York and the land thereabouts harried by King Harold, it won't be much of a surprise to consider that the South and East of England had a head-start on the North of England, and that with better weather to boot.
'Why does your wheat grow taller than mine?'
'Oh, my parents speak French.'
'Can I learn French?'
'Mais oui!'
'Jeg vet ikke.'
'What did he say?'
'Je ne sais pas! I think he is happy.'
'Nescio.' shrugged Brutus. 'Anyway, you can be sure he doesn't have underfloor heating like my Roman ancestors had. Hmmm, If only we had window covering that let enough light through we could make greenhouses and grow some lovely turnips.'
'Can you remember how the underfloor heating worked, Brutus?'
'Far too complicated for a disorganised and motley bunch like us to control, Alfred. Maybe, Sven might know about fire. Sven? On second thoughts, no. The Vikings send fire across the sea on a ship when someone dies. Burying fire isn't something they might want to do.'
In any case, I think the Anglo-Saxon bloodline in the South of England that has a good dash of Norman flavouring in it might be trying to bury the thousand year old hatchet these days. With not being able to rely on the Black Death weeding out the burgeoning population in the South of England any time soon, it might be a good time to colonise the North. Wetherby will become Wetherham and Derby will become Derham to match Nottingham, Rotherham and Durham.
It surprises me that the people in the North of England never realised that there were 'sleeper' towns and cities right in their midst. I mean Manchester is the capital of the north and the Romans liked the local girls there, don't you know?
Yet, let's look closer at the area surrounding Manchester: We find Bolton, Oldham, Warrington, Altrincham, Preston, and a bunch of fords. No Vikings! The Anglo-Saxons might win against both the Romans and the Vikings after all. Good old Andy Burnham. Genetically programmed as an Anglo-Saxon in 1070 to be born 900 years later and awaken in 2026. (I can't find anything interesting for 1026 to make an even 1,000 years).
In 1070, nine hundred years before Andy Burnham was born, magic was thrown over Hereward the Wake by his wife, Torfrida, who was known for her Black Arts, just after he led the last concerted revolt, from the Isle of Ely, against William the Conqueror (Christmas Day was never the same after his coronation).
In the Bruneswald, the forest that went from Brampton, near Huntingdon up to somewhere else that had an Anglo-Saxon name (maybe the settlement near the River Rother), after his loss to William, Hereward licked his wounds and he and Torfrida shared a cunning plan. First, he had to get into the court of William for their plan to work though, so he placed his hands between King William's hands and gave his allegiance. What no-one but Torfrida saw was the spell put into place. It leapt from Hereward into William and from that moment all the Norman influence would die and take with it the pesky Vikings (who might well have been Hereward's parents in Earl Leofric and Lady Godiva, but what the heck, Hereward had already dissed his dad by pretending to be his tax-collector and later raiding Peterborough Cathedral near Bourn, his birthplace). What neither Hereward or Torfrida knew was how long a spell might take to work or how it might come to work.
Neither Hereward or Torfrida knew the North of England must first be brought to its knees thrice; the Americans must kill the Northern sheep with nylon stockings; the French and the Icelandic's would have to steal all the fish from around Britain's shores (there has to be some hidden reason why a woman born in St. Omer hated the Normans, somewhere), and open-fires in houses would be replaced with boilers and immersion heaters. Oh, and Cornwall will shrivel too, but, what the heck; they had always been too much trouble for even the Romans, who unfortunately for them didn't have the benefit of having lunch and dessert in the same pastry-wrapped package. Not having to queue at the camp canteen twice must have been more efficient. Now that the world has their eating secret they can also be colonised, but only with lucky gambling rich people winning houses through lotteries. In any case, no-one really wants Cornwall these days except surfers and the people who never had to learn Latin at school to appease their long-dead masters. Don't you just love nostalgia? Oh those halcyon days of good leadership.
Now, the North of England will finally be conquered and colonised with Anglo-Saxons. The final spear shall be buried into the beating heart and the swelling breast of the long-lived Vikings, those we cautiously call Northerners in the south of England (despite recognising that the 'North People' live in Norfolk). King Alfred will rise from the swamps of Wessex (or Wales or Cornwall).
Never mind Saint George's cross, England's flag shall have a magic sword on it, and the flag shall be called 'Caliber' (we don't want any Latin prefixes, thank you).