Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [210]
The whole company seemed to be in high good humour, and if some of the hoots of laughter from the far table came from the fact that Aelfstan was giving a perfect imitation of Edith the nun’s consternation that morning, both the thane and Port were fortunately unaware of it.
More than once at that gathering however, the eyes of the men had turned away from the high table where the thane sat, towards his daughter, as she and her mother, performing their proper duties as the wife and daughter of a hospitable lord, moved about the hall, offering delicacies and mead to their guests and speaking a few kind words to each. For the tomboy Aelfgifu this evening had been transformed. She was dressed in a long, red, embroidered gown with billowing cuffs of silk. On her feet were slim, elegant shoes of soft red leather. Around her neck on a golden chain hung a pendant of gold and garnets, and from her girdle hung the long silver hooks in the shape of keys that were the Saxon symbols of womanhood. Her magnificent golden hair was worn loose and spread in waves down her back, and her athletic figure stood out proudly. Suddenly the flashing eyes and laughing good humour that had made her a tomboy companion for her brothers now made her seem an even more splendid young woman.
“She’s worth a thane’s morgengifu,” the men murmured. This was the gift the bridegroom had to pay to his new bride on the morning after the marriage was consummated.
“For a night with her,” one churl replied, “I’d pay any price.”
“If you weren’t already dead with exhaustion,” his companions told him laughingly.
When the company had eaten, it was time for the entertainments, and for these, a stout young man with a clean shaven face stepped into the space between the tables, accompanied by a youth who carried a small harp.
For a few minutes, they sang some bawdy songs that set the listeners laughing; and these were quickly followed by riddles, most of which were familiar to the guests, but to which the stout young man had added two or three of his own. He sang them tunefully but slowly, with a formal measure, enticing the audience’s concentration.
Silent my dress when I step on the shore
Stay in my lodge, or stir the stream.
Or my trailing gown and the wild wind
Lift me high, over the living:
There with the clouds, I can sweep and soar
Over the land-bound. Then my white wings
Echo so loudly, ring and moan,
Sing to your ear; when I’m not sleeping
On the soil, or sailing on the still water:
Like a ship, like a wandering spirit.
I am. What am I?
“A swan,” the audience cried, and the young man bowed. For all were familiar with the stately swans that moved above on the five rivers of Sarum.
The riddles were followed by songs about the old Germanic gods: Thunor the thunderer, Tiw, the god of death, great Woden, the battle god, and the mythical ancestor of the royal house of Wessex. At the end of each song, the men hammered on the table with their goblets and applauded.
Although for many generations the Ango-Saxons of England had been Christian, the memory of the pagan past was alive, an accepted part of everyday life which no church could attempt to stifle. Were not the gods still celebrated in the days of the week, like Wodensday? Did not the code of honour that made a man loyal to his lord, the law of blood feud and wergild, and the songs and poetry they loved all come from pagan times? Aelfwald the thane did not try to cudgel his brains over the fact that the Saxon culture he loved and the Christian religion he believed in were logically incompatible. He was an Anglo-Saxon Christian: and he was content.
Now, at a nod from his companion, the youth strummed three times on the harp and the reciter announced:
“Beowulf.”
And now the hall became silent. For no poem was better known or more highly prized than Beowulf; and though it had been