Breaking Bread: A Tale of the Dark Ages

As we approach Lammas, 1st August, a poem set in the dark ages. Christianity is starting to take root, but the Vikings are raiding the coasts, and the old blessed ways are still venerated, and have not been entirely forgotten in some villages.

Breaking Bread: A Tale of the Dark Ages

That year there was a frost and bitter cold:
I tell this tale while I can, I now am old;
I remember well, that year the river froze;
I remember the frisky lambs, such joy
To me, a mere stripling, a young boyl
We were happy, yet who truly knows
What fates have in store, and disclose
To us poor mortals. And off the coast,
Through the mist, on sea like a ghost,
Came the Viking ship, as they came
For monkish treasure theirs to claim;
The monastery burned that day and night,
And we did not escape this blight:
Our wooden huts, our village in flame;
Some fought and died, but to our shame,
We ran away, my mother, and I, a lad;
But I was alive. Alive! And so very glad!
With but one loaf, just what we wore,
As we fled this strange and evil war;
Each day we broke bread, ate and drank
From fresh streams, and always thank
Lugh for the gift of corn and bread,
While we trudged on so full of dread;
Inland we made, across the forest glade,
Past where ancestors tombs had made
Of earthen banks, and mighty stones,
Laid the grave goods, laid their bones;
We left there a morsel of our bread,
To honour the ancestors, the noble dead;
And now our bread was old and stale,
And I grew ever sickly, weak and pale;
My mother feared the gods, their wrath,
As we stumbled down a beaten path;
The weather poor: gales, wind, rain:
How we prayed to the god of grain;
Then prayers answered, storm ceased,
And as we turned gaze to the east,
Was a village, so in rags we walked:
Welcomed in our native tongue. We talked,
Told the elders and druid of our quest,
To find shelter in Logres, the true west,
Among our people, our kith, our kin,
Homecoming, to be welcomed in;
And here we were, my mother and I:
We had just survived, we did not die;
But invited to the feast, a ballad sung:
The old songs in our own fair tongue;
At time of first harvest, Lugh be praised:
We quaffed our ale, and beakers raised
For welcome, hospitality to the stranger,
Sanctuary and hope, away from danger;
This Lammas day, corn dollies at the cairn,
When hope once lost, returned again;
How kind fates mended broken thread:
And gather round the fire, broke bread.