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THE LAST KINGDOM 2, Episode 5

Posted on May 16, 2017 by Patricia

THE DEAD SPEAK

Three years have passed since the rescue of Thyra and the banishing of Sigefrid and Erik. Ragnar and Brida are in Dunholm (Durham), Guthred rules at Eoferwic (Jorvik/York), Guthrum/Athelstan) is sitting like an old hen in East Anglia, Æthelred is Lord of Mercia, and Uhtred is an ealdorman and is living at Coccham (Cookham). The action has moved south now. Want a map? Here.

Map from THE PRICE OF BLOOD by Patricia Bracewell

Map from THE PRICE OF BLOOD by Patricia Bracewell

The first scene, of Uhtred’s attack on some ravaging Danes, is wonderfully faithful to the Prologue of SWORD SONG, the book that is the basis for this episode and for those that will follow. Uhtred is protecting his land and the nearby villages from Danish raids. As ealdorman, that is his responsibility – protect the people, maintain bridges and roads, keep the peace, punish offenders. As you can see on the map, Cookham is on the Thames and not far from Watling Street, which is the border between Saxon Mercia and the Danelaw – called the Danelaw because those living there were governed by Danish laws, not Saxon laws. Alfred reprimands Uhtred, at one point in this episode, for following the wrong law. We are west of Watling Street, Alfred snaps. Also, remember that London, at this point, is part of the Danelaw. Alfred’s royal city was Winchester, not London.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Uhtred is now a family man, married to Gisela, with two lovely children – his son Uhtred and his baby daughter Stiorra.
Cookham itself is Uhtred’s holding, but it is also a settlement and, somewhere, there’s a burh. A burh is a large, fortified enclosure where the people can go for safety/defense in case of attack. They were a defensive network that Alfred built all across England, and many of them eventually became towns. We don’t see the burh, but at one point we’re told that that’s where Uhtred is.

And I’m getting ahead of myself again because… Æthelwold! He’s waiting to see Uhtred to give him a message that is, essentially: I’ve been told by a dead man that I’m to be king. He wants to talk to you because you’re going to be a king, too.

Now, just when we thought that maybe Æthelwold was showing some promise, he slips back into stupidity. I don’t mean the talking dead. The Anglo-Saxons believed in ghosts, as did the Danes, the Celts – heck, everybody in the 9th century, pagans and Christians, believed in supernatural beings, both benevolent and evil. No, I mean, Æthelwold has been colluding with Danes. He’s gone into the Danelaw – forbidden territory – and we know that Alfred is keeping him on a short leash and he’s been very naughty. Uhtred knows it too, so he’s in no hurry to go talk to the Danish dead. Alfred would not be happy about it, and Gisela warns him probably 3 times in this episode not to get on Alfred’s bad side.

Next thing you know, Alfred arrives at Cookham, and we have a couple of scenes in which the discussions range from Æthelflæd’s upcoming marriage (Odda: The purpose of marriage is not to be happy); to Æthelwold’s naughty excursion into the Danelaw (Uhtred: Put him on trial, lord, and then kill him. Just saying.); to the Viking threat at the mouth of the Thames that should be Guthrum/Athelstan’s problem but about which he is doing nothing (Uhtred: Guthrum won’t stop them, lord. Send ships and men to Benfleet before they find a leader and become an army).

Alfred doesn’t like Uhtred’s suggestion about Benfleet because he doesn’t want to break the peace that he has worked so hard to build. He is not a preemptive strike kind of guy. But before the episode’s end, Æthelwold will observe that Alfred’s peace is already over, and early on we are given the reason why. Erik, brother of Sigefrid, arrives at Cookham while the king is there (I don’t know why Uhtred isn’t more nervous about this) and makes nice with Uhtred for a few minutes, letting him know that the power structure in southern England is about to change.

Sigefrid, Erik says, is bringing 19 ships (that’s 500 men) from Frankia to the fort that the Danes have built at Benfleet. They are not going to stay at Benfleet but will make bold inroads on Wessex. It’s clear that Erik wants Uhtred to join them. Well, we’ll see.

In this episode we meet, at last, Fr. Pyrlig (Cavan Clerkin), a Welsh priest who appeared in the books much earlier. Alfred sends him to East Anglia to goose Guthrum/Athelstan into action against the Danes in Benfleet. He’ll be back. (Which reminds me, what’s happened to Brother Asser? He was Uhtred’s bane last season, but he seems to have disappeared.)

In Winchester preparations for Æthelflaed’s marriage to Æthelred are under way, and Alfred tears himself away from his work for a moment to look fondly upon his daughter in her wedding finery before going back to his parchments. Alfred is definitely a Type A personality.

Æthelflæd, who already looked 22 three years ago when she was 11, hasn’t aged a bit. She still looks 22, but now she’s 15. Nobody else has aged either, certainly not Uhtred. Apparently, I’m the only one who has aged since the last episode.

Æthelflæd’s intended, Æthelred, is bad-mouthed by just about everyone. Ælswith, who rarely has a good thing to say about anyone, thinks he’s a little too fond of himself. Someone else calls him a peacock while Alfred tries to convince himself that Æthelred is a good and godly man. (He’s wrong.)

Regarding the upcoming nuptials, Gisela observes that a peace cow is just a whore in a wedding gown. Peaceweaver is the Anglo-Saxon term, but Cornwell uses peace cow and I’m glad that writer Stephen Butchard managed to work that in.

Father Beocca, though, has found love with Thyra. In the book this happened much sooner, and they already had children by this time. I was afraid that Stephen Butchard was going to cut this relationship, but I need not have worried. Priests, by the way, could marry in 9th century England, but the stunned reaction of the royal family to Beocca’s announcement is hilarious. And we need some hilarity because things are about to get dark.

Uhtred finally decides to go visit the ghost. He heads into the Danelaw with Æthelwold, and when Alfred learns of it he puts a guard on Gisela. I feel the need to defend Alfred here. He’s a worried man. Danes are traveling through Mercia to hit Saxon villages; Lord Æthelred, in Mercia, is ambitious and has his eye on Alfred’s throne (his reason for marrying the king’s daughter, duh); there are Danes gathering at Benfleet but Guthrum/Athelstan is doing nothing to stop them; Æthelwold thinks he is the rightful king and is apparently plotting with powerful Danish warlords; Uhtred is married to a Dane, has a powerful Danish brother in the north, and now is hanging with Æthelwold and his Danish buddies. Alfred is, like the king on that Tæfl board last episode, surrounded by enemies and does not know who he can really trust.

And then there’s Dead Bjorn. Uhtred and company arrive at Eilaf’s hall, and the dead guy couldn’t possibly be any scarier than these thugs hanging out with Eilaf. Haesten is there – Uhtred saved his life at Eoferwic – and the lead-up to the meeting with the undead is appropriately creepy. Now, Uhtred himself has played an undead horseman, so he’s appropriately skeptical. He orders Sihtric to hide and keep an eye on what happens after the meeting with the dead guy is over. Sihtric, the ninny, will get scared and run away. But they are all scared, Finan probably most of all because, hey, he’s Irish and probably more superstitious than anyone. Things get under way when a man is killed to beckon the Dead Bjorn, and, yes, that was gross, but he was a thief and by Danish law he was doomed, so no one bats an eye except Æthelwold who is a dweeb. Dead Bjorn is remarkably eloquent in his prophecy: Tonight, London’s streets are red with Saxon blood. And Uhtred, he says, will one day be the Mercian king of both Saxons and Danes.

And so we anticipate that London – beautiful London – had better look out.

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THE LAST KINGDOM 2, Episode 4

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Patricia

WE ARE HERE TO DO ALFRED’S BIDDING

The title I’ve given this episode distills, I think, the moving force – not only in this episode, but in the entire series. Uhtred is the hero of the story, but the larger background is the history of England and the character of King Alfred.

At the end of Episode 3, Uhtred had been freed from slavery, and had once again sworn his oath to Alfred as his king. You may recall that Uhtred’s earlier pledges to the king were for a specific period of time or to accomplish a specific task. But this oath, made under duress to keep the king from punishing Ragnar for a murder that Uhtred committed, appears to be open-ended. Uhtred is now Alfred’s man. Period.

Ragnar, who had expected that Uhtred would help him rescue their sister from Dunholm, is resentful, claiming that in making that oath, Uhtred has made himself a slave again; he is not free to follow his own aims. This is a very Viking way of looking at the matter. The Scandinavians had no kings at this time – only war lords whose goals were to achieve wealth and fame for themselves and their followers by preying upon others. Men might bind themselves to such a lord, but only for as long as he was a worthy warrior and ring giver, and sometimes only for a specific campaign or season. And, if the leader couldn’t provide the expected rewards, they could turn to someone stronger and more successful. The brothers Erik and Sigefrid represent this type of leader; they have no wish to settle and rule, only to prey upon those weaker and unprotected. It is why Alfred wants them out of England. Later in this episode, Brida speaks for the Danes when she complains that Guthred – whom Alfred supports as king in Northumbria – is weak, and that the Danes won’t fight for him against Erik and Sigefrid.

This difference between the Viking view of a man’s bargain with his lord and the Saxon view of his oath to a king is at play throughout this episode. It begins with Ragnar’s quip that Uhtred is a slave. Then Odda refers to it when he warns Alfred that Uhtred’s desire to regain Bebbanburg may have a greater hold on him than his oath to Wessex. Alfred’s response is that, should Uhtred disobey him and try to claim Northumbria, Steapa has been instructed to kill him. That sounds very cold-blooded, but Alfred has a grandiose plan and Uhtred as king of the north is not part of it. Uhtred is too pagan and too strong, unlike Guthred who, although a Dane, is also a Christian and, just as important, a weak leader who will not turn on Wessex.

Interestingly, it is Æthelwold, Alfred’s disinherited nephew, who articulates Uhtred’s role in Alfred’s plan: Uhtred, you more than anyone, will bring about Alfred’s dream of England. He wants Guthred to be the lord of the north, and you will make that happen. Then he adds, I see it as a king sees it.

And that is to remind us that Æthelwold, too, has a stake in this game: Alfred is a sick man and Æthelwold sees himself as the rightful king of Wessex and hopefully Alfred’s successor. Æthelwold also believes that Alfred is sending him north with Uhtred in the hope that Æthelwold will get killed, thus ridding Alfred of an inconvenient relative. Whether this is in fact Alfred’s plan, we do not know. Alfred himself claims that Æthelwold has proven himself in battle and in the witan, and that this assignment is recognition and reward.

We are given insight into Alfred’s mind when he is playing Tæfl with Æthelflæd. There is a lot going on in that scene, so let’s unpack it.

First, there is the game of Tæfl itself, which is, essentially, a war game of this period played on a board similar to a chessboard. It is a precursor of chess, and the ivory pieces used in play are similar to the late 12th century Lewis Chessmen.

Photo Credit: The Lewis Chessmen by James Robinson, The British Museum Press, 2004.

Photo Credit: The Lewis Chessmen by James Robinson, The British Museum Press, 2004.

Alfred is teaching his daughter war strategy, and here writer Sophie Petzal is foreshadowing Æthelflæd’s role in the distant future as the Lady of the Mercians. That Alfred compliments her on making a bold move in the game is a really nice touch, for she will be bold and she will command warriors.

The insight into Alfred’s mind comes when he explains to her that the king is placed in the center of the board, surrounded by his enemies. Now, I do not know how to play Tæfl or if this is how the game actually begins, but you can see how Alfred perceives himself – as a king surrounded by his enemies. The camera immediately goes to Æthelwold, who is watching. He hears this and gives Alfred a penetrating look because Æthelwold is aware that, as a man with a claim to the throne, he is a threat to the king. It’s why he thinks Alfred is sending him north – to get him out of the way and put him in peril. But Æthelwold will remember the set-up of that Tæfl board in a later scene, and will give Uhtred advice on where, amid the tents of the Danes, their leader will be found: in the center. Again, it’s a nice touch.

Then Alfred gives Æthelwold a token – a symbol of Alfred’s kingship – to indicate Æthelwold’s authority. I squealed when I saw what the token was: the Alfred Jewel.

Well, a facsimile anyway. This object was discovered in Somerset in 1693, and it has an inscription in Old English around the central crystal that says, in gold, ‘Alfred ordered me to be made’. It’s actually believed to be the handle of an æstel, which is a manuscript pointer used in formal readings and in teaching from manuscripts, and it would have been very valuable.

The Alfred Jewel. Photo Credit: The Ashmolean Museum.

The Alfred Jewel. Photo Credit: The Ashmolean Museum.

Like the Tæfl game and like the scored candles of the previous episode, the Alfred Jewel is a distinct reference to the Anglo-Saxon world of Alfred the Great. And the presence of these items is so wonderful that I am willing to overlook the gown that Gisela is wearing which is neither Danish nor Anglo-Saxon nor 9th century. She does look lovely in red, though.

Gisela’s brother Guthred gets the chance to say “Sorry” to Uhtred for selling him into slavery, and Uhtred gets to slap him. In the book Uhtred calls him a bastard, an earsling and a piece of weasel-shit, and then forgives him. The two men actually like each other. I kind of like that Uhtred, here, hits him. He should have hit him harder though.

The episode is all about how Uhtred manages to boot Sigefrid and Erik from Northumbria per Alfred’s instructions, and also manages to help Ragnar rescue Thyra and punish Kjartan. Ragnar’s berserker savagery toward Kjartan shocks everyone, but remember that Kjartan murdered Ragnar’s father, mother and grandfather, and drove his sister to near madness. In the novel, Thyra is much worse off than we see her in the series. In the book she is naked except for a deerskin cloak; her body is covered with scars and sores; her hair is matted, greasy and tangled; her fingernails are long as knife blades, and she is like something out of a nightmare. In both series and book, it is Beocca who calms her, who pulls her back from insanity. Good old Beocca!

Missions accomplished, Uhtred returns to Winchester where Gisela is waiting. He leaves Northumbria to Ragnar, Brida and Guthred. But Alfred, too, is waiting in Winchester, and because Uhtred is Alfred’s man, we can be pretty sure that his work is not yet done. And besides, there are four more episodes!

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THE LAST KINGDOM 2, Episode 3

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Patricia

PULL, YOU BASTARDS!

Beware! Spoilers ahead, big time. DO NOT read this if you have not seen Episode 3 of Season 2. Even if you’ve read the book, this episode differs enough from the novel that I don’t want to spoil it for you, so proceed at your peril. Go watch the episode, but don’t forget to come back.

Guthred made a bargain with Uhtred’s Uncle Ælfric to trade Uhtred’s freedom in return for 200 armed warriors. Too bad for Guthred that the fine print specified that Ælfric wanted Uhtred’s head, and selling him to a slaver wasn’t good enough.

So right away we have everyone pissed at Guthred, especially Ælfric. Ælfric, the Viking brothers Sigefrid and Erik, and even Gisela desert Guthred. His plan to lay siege to Kjartan at Dunholm was likely to fail in any case. So, the vikings run amok through his kingdom, with Sigefrid gleefully calling himself the Lord of Chaos. Guthred is helpless without Uhtred’s sword and cleverness. He’s left with no friends but Abbot Eadred and Brother Trew, and the three of them deserve each other. Before she leaves, Gisela gives Sihtric (Kjartan’s bastard son who is sworn to Uhtred) a note to give to Hild, trusting that the nun will eventually return to Eoforwic. Presumably it has the name of the slaver who has taken Uhtred.

In Winchester, Alfred and Æthelflæd are looking at a map (I love maps) as a way of bringing up the idea of a marriage alliance with Mercia.

If you have never seen the Gough Map, you should take a look at it. I think it may have been the model for the one we see here. Æthelflaed, of course, is prepared to do her duty in the marriage market, which makes her the exact opposite of Gisela who balks at any mention of marriage, although Abbot Eadred is clearly leaning toward such an alliance with Ælfric.

Every so often in this episode we check in with Uhtred and Hallig and their new friend Finan (Mark Rowley). We see them rowing. We see them baling to keep their feet from rotting. We see them shivering violently in rain and snow. We see them whipped. There is nothing on the ship in the way of comfort or sanitation or even room to move. We see them growing more and more physically wretched and mentally/emotionally damaged.

According to Paddy Griffith’s The Viking Art of War, an extended voyage on a longship (they go to Iceland!) was an endurance test, even if you weren’t a slave. If you were clothed for bad weather, in skins or wool that had been treated with fish oil to repel water, you would still have gotten soaked. And baling in rough weather was not only a matter of keeping your feet dry, but of keeping the ship afloat. Uhtred and his friends are not dressed for the weather and they are clearly ill treated, underfed, suffering, and barely clinging to hope. The show did a darned good job of portraying the abject misery of the slave crew’s plight. The shipmaster is a horribly inhuman creature, and although the writers cannot duplicate what occurs in the novel, they invent a particularly heart-wrenching incident to get the point across.

In Winchester Alfred gives a feast for Ceolwulf (David Gant). This is not in the novel, and it is a wonderful addition, wonderfully written and acted. Ceolwulf was the ruler of Western Mercia, and in this scene he is yammering about wanting men to fight the Danes while Alfred is trying to nudge him toward an alliance. We are one, Alfred says gently. We are not one! Ceolwulf barks. I want warriors to help me against the Danes, and you want to make Mercia an appendage of Wessex. He’s right. That is exactly what Alfred wants.

The fact that Ceolwulf is even in the story is awesome because his reputation has been one of a puppet king put in place by the Danes; but two years ago a coin hoard was found that seems to indicate that Ceolwulf was much more significant than has been thought, and that Alfred and his chroniclers have, until this discovery, pretty much rubbed him out of history. So the writers are really digging into the actual history of the period to add depth to the show. And then Ceowulf keels over dead, and for the first time, we see a stunned, speechless Alfred. It’s priceless. Oh, and we meet Æthelred (Toby Regbo), who will soon be pledged to wed Æthelflæd, and he is gently bullied by her parents into offering a bride price that involves land. Alfred is all about the land.

What did you think of Æthelred? In the novels he is Uhtred’s cousin on his mother’s side, and Uhtred calls him a “bumptious little shit”. (Æthelwold now – Alfred’s nephew – he’s a bumptious little shit. He hasn’t said much so far, but whatever he does say is always pissy.) We haven’t seen much of Æthelred yet, so the jury is still out, but I’m wondering if they’ll make him as bad as he appears in the books. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself, and poor Uhtred is still on that boat.

When Uhtred is finally freed (it’s been a year!) there is a tender moment with Ragnar, and then an even more tender scene with Hild. It is set in Northumbria instead of in Hild’s Winchester convent, but this works just as well.

Now there are two strings still left hanging: Gisela, and Ragnar’s oath to return Uhtred to Alfred. Gisela has taken refuge in a convent but Abbot Eadred finds her and proxy marries her to Ælfric. What happens next plays out pretty much as in the novel, except that Hild is there. And the shocked look on Hild’s face as she watches Uhtred’s savage attack on the abbot will likely lead to the convent that, in the novel, she founds in Winchester.

And then Uhtred goes to Winchester to see Alfred, who is messing with candles.

Yes, Alfred – along with everything else he did – was a kind of inventor. He experimented with candles until he found the exact candle height, width and weight that would burn for four hours. He scored the candle at approximately one hour intervals so that he could gauge the passing of each hour.

He also designed the horn lantern to protect his candle by inserting pieces of thinly sliced horn into a wooden frame around it so that a stray breeze would not affect the burn rate.

Where was I? Oh yes. In Winchester canny Alfred uses Uhtred’s murder of Eadred to force Uhtred into his service again. Kings can do that, and Alfred does it while he is messing with his candles. I love this show!

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THE LAST KINGDOM 2, Episode Two

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Patricia

UHTRED RAGNARSSON IS MINE!

Our Uhtred is many things: a Saxon, a sometime-Dane, a pagan, a baptized Christian (well, not really), a canny warrior, a lady’s man (Beocca: ‘even his scars are handsome’), and sometimes a downright fool. Gotta love the guy.

In this episode he is all of the above and, unfortunately for Uhtred, the foolishness comes at the episode’s end. But, to begin…

We are again in Cumbraland. Where, you may ask, is Cumbraland? Well, it’s near the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. Bernard Cornwell calls it Caer Ligualid, or Carlisle. It was on the border of Saxon controlled land, and everything west of it, all the way down to Chester, was controlled by Scandinavians (Danes or Norse, take your pick).

So, in lovely Cumbraland Guthred is king and Uhtred is Guthred’s war leader and he is making friendly with the king’s sister Gisela.

A big fellow named Clapa (Magnus Samuelsson) is helping Uhtred train his troops, and here comes Tekil with 6 friends to offer their swords to Guthred. Really, though, they’ve been sent by Kjartan to capture and maim Uhtred. They might have succeeded but for Hallig, Hild and Clapa who come to the rescue. The thugs are dispatched, but it turns out that one of them is Kjartan’s bastard son, Sihtric (Arnas Fedarvicius), and when he begs to swear allegiance to Uhtred, Uhtred takes him on. Does Uhtred really trust Sihtric? Apparently. Do we? We are not altogether sure.

Much of this episode is pulled straight from Cornwell’s Lords of the North, but once again, Stephen Butchard has had to condense or collapse events and combine several characters into one. For example, the Danish war leader Ivarr, grandson of Ragnar Lothbrok, has been replaced by the brothers Sigefrid & Erik who first appear in the following novel, Sword Song. This works, at least so far. Also, Abbot Eadred seems to be doing triple duty as Uhtred’s religious nemesis without any help from the novel’s creepy monks Jænberht & Ida, and he does just fine all by himself. He badmouths Uhtred to Guthred every chance he gets and schemes against him in secret. The abbot definitely has the king’s ear, which worries Uhtred, but not as much as it should. Nice habit, he’s wearing. I quite like the colorful trim, and we know that the Anglo-Saxons were fond of bright colors.

Hild’s role is a bit more martial than it was in the novel. In exchange for a butchery lesson conducted on one of Kjartan’s dead Danes, (eww) she nabs herself a byrnie. She chooses one that is combo chain mail and leather. It certainly has a nice, lacey look to it, and is probably much lighter than a chain mail byrnie (even a small one weights 25 lbs), but will it stop a sword? Hild! Fashion isn’t the key consideration here!

Despite the changes and substitutions, though, the bones of the story are the same. Uhtred gives Guthred good advice, but Guthred listens instead to the sly, serpent-tongued abbot who secretly sends an offer to Uhtred’s nasty uncle Æfric up in his Bebbanburg fortress. Ælfric, I have to say, is looking quite natty in his handsome new tunic. He’s clean and quite good looking. He actually reminds me a little of Alfred. Too bad he’s a bad guy.

Speaking of Alfred, he is down in Winchester standing with his wife, Ælswith, watching his daughter Æthelflaed practice her sword skills with Steapa. Steapa (Adrian Bouchet) is a significant character. Keep an eye on him. Alfred remarks fondly that he does not wish to see his daughter wed. Practical Ælswith says that she must be wed and in any case,

“Steapa would kill any man who dared to harm her. Even a husband. He’s as much her man as he is yours.”

And then Alfred – pious, intense, serious Alfred the Great – makes a joke! Even Ælswith can barely believe it.

We need a little levity right about now because back up north Uhtred is putting the severed heads of Tekla and his men to good use. I’m sorry that the writers did not have Uhtred describe himself as a shadow walker, a sceadugengan, because I’d love to hear that word said out loud. How do you pronounce it again? However you say it, a sceadugengan is what he is, and when Kjartan and his men find those severed heads the background music is a total creep out. Uhtred, disguised as the dead horseman, rides again, and even though Kjartan shouts that he knows it’s Uhtred, the cry comes back, “I’ll have your soul!”

And then it’s time for Uhtred to be a darned fool by making a bid for Gisela’s hand in marriage. He does this by explaining to his friend Guthred that he, Uhtred, is a lord of the north just like Sigeferth; that he might easily become Guthred’s rival. He says this half in jest, half in earnest, and really it’s his timing that is so horrible because he has just unwittingly (Uhtred, you dimwit) played into the hands of Abbot Eadred who’s been hissing to Guthred that Uhtred wants to be king.

So, in the final scenes, Guthred turns on his friend like a snake, turns on the man who saved him from slavery and who was responsible for making him king. He trades Uhtred for 200 of Ælfric’s warriors so he can defeat Kjartan by besieging Dunholm. Sure, he knows it’s wrong and he feels some guilt. But, let’s face it: all the grit in Guthred’s bloodline went to his sister.

All is not lost, though, because Hild has gone to Alfred for help. She covers the 200+ miles to Winchester in practically the blink of an eye, and although there are some there who are pretty eager to say it would be impossible to save Uhtred so why even try? – I’m looking at you, Ælswith – and although Alfred can’t imagine how to go about finding our sold-into-slavery hero, good old Odda the Elder has a brilliant suggestion. Way to go Odda!

But help for Uhtred and his trusty companion Hallig is, of course, a long way away, and we’re left with a lovely cliffhanger of an ending until the next episode. Oh, well done!

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THE LAST KINGDOM HISTORICAL NOTES

Posted on May 6, 2017 by Patricia

Events came at us thick and fast in Episode 1 of Season Two, The Last Kingdom, so I thought I would offer a few historical tidbits.

GUTHRED: The 10th century History of St. Cuthbert says that a Dane named Guthred was raised to kingship from a Viking army through the visionary intercession of the saint.

To show his thanks, Guthred granted St. Cuthbert’s community control over all the lands between the Rivers Tyne and Wear. Take away the element of miracles and visions, and we have a Viking warleader acknowledging the power and authority of this community of monks. In return, they offer him allegiance and St. Cuthbert’s approval of Guthred’s kingship. His sister, Gisela, is a character invented by Bernard Cornwell for his novels.

ST. CUTHBERT: He was as a 7th century bishop of Lindisfarne, the holy island off the east coast of Northumbria. He was inspired by a vision in his youth to become a monk. He lived at several different abbeys until, in the 670’s he joined the community at Lindisfarne. He was a hermit for a while, living outside the abbey on the remote island of Farne until he was persuaded to become a bishop. He returned to Farne in 687, which was where he wanted to be buried. When he died a few months later, though, he was buried first at Lindisfarne, and then his remains were placed in a wooden chest above the original burial ground so pilgrims could see his casket. The body was found to be incorrupt – a sign of his holiness. But Lindisfarne’s position off the eastern coast was exposed to continued Viking raids, and the community moved all their treasures, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and St. Cuthbert. He was taken first to Norham-upon-Tweed, then to Chester-le-Street and finally he was laid to rest at Durham, where you can see his shrine today at Durham Cathedral. It’s possible that he traveled more in death than in life.

Fenwick Lawson's sculpture: St. Cuthbert's Journey. Photo: David Hawgood, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13832521

Fenwick Lawson’s sculpture: St. Cuthbert’s Journey. Photo: David Hawgood, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13832521

WHAT IS PHYSICALLY WRONG WITH KING ALFRED? He has to be careful about what he eats, and he is frequently in pain. In an article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1991, G. Craig postulates from Asser’s description of his symptoms that Alfred suffered from inflammatory bowel disease, probably Crohn’s Disease from the time he was 19. Although this disease is chronic, the sufferer experiences periods of remission followed by relapses. The symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and sometimes fever. It is an indication of Alfred’s fame (or of his desperate efforts to find a cure) that the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Elias, sent the king remedies that were intended to ease his symptoms.

NORTHUMBRIA: Most of the action in the first episode takes place north of the Humber, and the written records for Northumbria at that time are pretty scanty. When Guthrum was baptized (at the end of last season), he took the name Athelstan and settled in East Anglia. But there were still plenty of invaders attacking the island of Britain: crossing the Channel from France after the Franks had paid them off or kicked them out, sailing the North Sea from Scandinavia, and hopping across the Irish Sea from Ireland, not to mention the Scots. The northern end of Britain was a mess! So Alfred is trying to not only protect his borders, but also gain some control over his out-of-control neighbors in Mercia and Northumbria. Guthred – who is a Christian Dane – would be someone that he would perceive as perhaps able to help keep Northumbria peaceful.

HORSES: Jamie Jeffers at The British History Podcast reminded me that the horses in Anglo-Saxon England would have been much smaller than those in the show.

What I noticed, too, was that there were no saddles – or if there were, they were so heavily covered by fleeces that they couldn’t be seen. Saddles and stirrups did exist by this time. No sidesaddles, though.

GISELA’S GOWN: Gisela was dressed in Danish style, very different from what Aelswith is wearing back in Winchester.

Also, she didn’t drop to her knees when St. Cuthbert was carried in. So, she is a Dane and a pagan – and Uhtred definitely notices. His kind of girl!

Sources:
Craig, G. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 84, May 1991, pg. 303
Lapidge, Michael, ed. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, Blackwell Publishing, 2001
Higham, N. J. and Ryan, M. J. The Anglo-Saxon World, Yale University Press, 2013.

History the way it is meant to be heard

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THE LAST KINGDOM 2, Episode One

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Patricia

THE PATH NORTH

Uhtred is back! The eight episodes of THE LAST KINGDOM Season 2 must cover events in two of Bernard Cornwell’s novels – Lords of the North and Sword Song, so screenwriter Stephen Butchard has a lot of ground to cover. He throws us immediately into the year A.D. 878 and deftly introduces us to the major players.

Twelve of these characters we met last season; another eleven are introduced in this episode. I’m going to mention every single one of them, so try to keep up.

After a brief look at events in the life of Uhtred as portrayed in Season One, we are swept into Winchester and the court of King Alfred (David Dawson). His daughter Æthelflæd (Millie Brady) has grown into a dark-haired young woman and is practicing her sword skills. If, as in the books, she is only 14, she is a VERY MATURE 14. I suspect she has been cast quite a bit older here because her father and Ealdorman Odda (Simon Kunz) are discussing a husband for her, and although the Anglo-Saxons had no qualms about marrying off their 14 year old daughters, modern audiences might balk. So Æthelflæd has been given at least 3 extra years and a sword. Nice touch, that sword. One day she will lead armies, but that’s in the future.

Alfred introduces the theme of this entire season during a meeting with his witan, warning that there are Danish troublemakers, Sigefrid (Bjorn Bengtsson) and Erik (Christian Hillborg), up north and that a day of reckoning is to come. His nephew Æthelwold (Harry McEntire), who resents his position as Not-the-King listens attentively. Moments later Brother Beocca (Ian Hart) – Uhtred’s friend and former teacher – introduces Brother Trew (Peter McDonald) from Cumbraland who reveals that St. Cuthbert has told his abbot Eadred in a dream that Cumbraland’s heir to the throne, Guthred, has been enslaved by the Danes and must be rescued. Please help.

Alfred, who is already thinking about the troublesome north, instantly agrees, and a few scenes later he will speak of his hopes for (designs on) Eoforwic to his wife Ælswith (Eliza Butterworth), who, I must say, looks quite fetchingly sexy in this scene and comes on to her husband a bit like Lady Macbeth. Ælswith! You naughty!

Historical fact: Alfred sired 6 children, one of them illegitimate – so we are seeing, in this scene, another side to the rather pious Alfred.

Meanwhile, our hero Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) has been traveling north with two companions – the nun Hild (Eva Birthistle) and the young man Halig (Gerard Kearns). (And no, Halig was not in the novels.) Hild has replaced Brida as Uhtred’s Voice-of-Reason, and although he would like to see her in his bed as well, in this tv version she keeps him at arm’s distance. She goads him out of drinking and whoring, and sets him on the path to Dunholm, to rescue his sister Thyra and avenge his adoptive father, Ragnar Ravnson.

They soon arrive in Eoforwic where the Saxons, led by the firebrand Fr. Hrothweard (Richard Rankin), have taken advantage of the temporary departure of those Danish troublemakers Sigefrid and Erik to murder every Dane they can catch. Uhtred rescues the Danish warlord they have tied up and are tormenting – Haesten (Jeppe Beck Laursen) – and sets him free. (He’ll be back.)

And, oh look! Beocca and Brother Trew, sent north by Alfred to rescue Guthred, just happen to already be in Eoforwic, and Uhtred’s turning up there saves them having to go look for him. Alfred wants Uhtred to help them free Guthred, and when Uhtred learns that the young man is being held on the lands of Uhtred’s old enemy Kjartan, he sees fate at work and agrees to help. If this seems a bit coincidental, well, it is. It didn’t happen quite this way in the book, but Butchard only has 8 episodes to tell the story. Give the guy a break! Besides, it’s logical that Beocca would start looking for news of Uhtred in Eoforwic, so I quite happily bought this fortuitous meeting of the rescue team.

In the book Uhtred drives away the slavers who hold Guthred and who are working for his old enemy, Kjartan’s son, Sven-the-One-Eyed (Ole Christoffer Ertvaag) by disguising himself as a leper. Butchard riffs on it by setting it at night, adding a creepy wolf’s skull to Uhtred’s disguise, and tossing in some real lepers. (About that skull. I thought it was a horse skull, but a keen-eyed reader and zooarchaeologist informs me it is a large dog or wolf skull…thank you!)

It works beautifully, and I especially liked Beocca’s enthusiastic role playing to assist Uhtred. The priest has hidden depths we have yet to see.

Uhtred as a phantom horse lord sends Sven into the wilderness, hands bound, to relate his horrifying experience to papa Kjartan (Alexandre Willaume). It’s there, in Dunholm, that we get our first glimpse of Thyra (Julia Bache-Wiig), looking like a cross between Miss Havisham and mad Ophelia.

She is living in a cell below ground, surrounded by fierce hounds that appear to be under her control, so Sven keeps his distance. Clearly, she has not had a happy time in captivity, but she’s found a way to cope.

Then Uhtred and Guthred (Thure Lindhardt) arrive in Cumbraland to be greeted by Abbot Eadred (David Schofield) who, despite the vision of Guthred sent him by St. Cuthbert, mistakes the far better garbed Uhtred for the king and then hates Uhtred for making him look a fool. Calls him a pretender and snarls that he is someone to be watched. Poor Uhtred just can’t seem to get the clergy on his side. But he’s far more interested in Guthred’s sister, Gisela (Peri Baumeister), anyway.

Ahem: Uhtred ♥ Brida Mildreth Iseult Hild Gisela. Just sayin’.

I was very excited when St. Cuthbert’s coffin was carried in and they opened it up! I was searching for the gospel book that was buried with him – the one that I saw at the British Library a few years back. But alas, it wasn’t there. St. Cuthbert’s Corpse (Corpse) was there, though. Luckily for Alexander Dreymon they skipped the part where Uhtred had to kiss the saint’s lips. And I’m sorry, Abbot, but that saint looked pretty corrupted to ME!

While Guthred is being crowned in Cumbraland, Alfred is in Winchester having a little talk with the hostages Brida (Emily Cox) and Ragnar (Tobias Santelmann) that hints that the king is planning something involving them – set up for a future episode, surely. I love how, when he gestures to them to sit in some very nice, comfy chairs, Brida hooks her leg over the chair’s arm, reminding Alfred – lest he forget – that she’s no lady; she’s a Dane, dammit!

And in Dunholm Kjartan discovers that Uhtred has hooked up with Guthred, so he orders his man Tekil (Marc Rissman) to join Guthred’s army, kill the king and “bring me Uhtred!” More set up for what’s to come.

So there you have it: 23 significant characters and a breathtaking first episode. Bet you can’t watch just one…

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The Modern Medieval: Day 5

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Patricia

ModernMedieval
A street called Distaflane appears on my City of London map from the year 1270. Today the street sign looks like this:

DistaffDistaff is an Anglo-Saxon word for a very ancient tool. It was a staff on which wool or flax was wound in the process of spinning. It was held under the left arm, and the fibres of the material were drawn from it through the fingers of the left hand, and twisted spirally by the forefinger and thumb of the right, with the aid of the drop spindle, round which the thread, as it was twisted or spun, was wound. I’ve tried this. It is not easy!!!

And apparently, as we see in this manuscript drawing, medieval women found other uses for the distaff as well.

DistaffMs1At any rate, in medieval London, if you were looking for someone to spin wool, Distaff Lane was the place to go.

Probably one of the most recognized street names from the Anglo-Saxon period is this one:

WatlingStreet
It was a road built by the Romans that ran from Dover to Wroxeter, and in the late 9th century it appears as Wæclingastræt. It was significant for the Anglo-Saxons because, from the time of King Alfred its diagonal path from London northward separated the Anglo-Saxons from the Danes who settled in England. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, it ran from Dover only as far as the Thames, then picked up again on the other side of London. There was no Watling Street that ran through the city. The Watling Street that is there now was originally called Æthelingstrete. An ætheling was a royal son, and this Old English term meant throne-worthy. The late Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred II had several grown sons, all æthelings. And I would bet money that one or more of them had a residence on Æthelingstrete – now Watling Street – at some time in the 11th century. Today the street looks like this, and there’s a nice pub on the corner to commemorate the Legions.

WatlingView1 OldWatling1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed the posts this week, and that perhaps they will inspire you to think about the history behind the street names where you live because, as William Faulkner reminds us:

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

 

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The Modern Medieval: Day 4

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Patricia

ModernMedievalWhile walking from London’s Tower to St. Paul’s one evening, I started to pay close attention to the street signs that evoked London’s Anglo-Saxon past, and right away I spotted this:

CheapsideAnyone who walks through Cheapside today is passing through the heart of Anglo-Saxon London. The name comes from the Old English word ceap, pronounced cheap. It means market. Today you’ll still find street names that evoke the goods sold in the old Anglo-Saxon ceap: Wood St., Milk St., Honey Lane and of course:

BreadStreet1
Then we come to more ecclesiastical street names, like this one:

RoodLane1The word rood is Old English for the cross on which Christ died. The Dream of the Rood, for example, is an Old English religious poem, and some passages from it are carved in runes into the 8th century Ruthwell Cross in Scotland. The town of Ruthwell itself gets its name from the Old English words rood and wella (cross by a spring). Rudston in Yorkshire takes its name from its own stone cross. In London, on Rood Lane, there was once – surprise! – a cross. It stood in the churchyard of St. Margaret Pattens until 1538.

Walking further west we run into our old friend from Winchester:

St.Swithins
St. Swithin was a 9th century Anglo-Saxon bishop  of Winchester whose tomb at the old minster in that city was a site of pilgrimage. A kind of popular cult formed around this saint, although we really know very little about him. There are still many churches in England dedicated to St. Swithin, and London’s church dedicated to him stood at the corner of Vicus Sancti Swithin and Candelwryhttstrate as far back as the 13th century. It was destroyed in the fire of 1666, but a new St. Swithin’s designed by Christopher Wren took its place. The church, alas, did not survive the bombs of WWII. At war’s end only the pulpit was salvageable, and the church’s ruins were finally demolished in 1962. But the name of the beloved Anglo-Saxon saint, Swithin, is still remembered in St. Swithin’s Lane.

Tomorrow: Another look at London

The Modern Medieval Day 3
The Modern Medieval Day 2
The Modern Medieval Day 1

 

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The Modern Medieval: Day 3

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Patricia

ModernMedievalStreet names in London are endlessly fascinating and many of them date from Medieval times, from St. Mary Axe* to Houndsditch** to The Barbican.***

But of more interest just now is this one:

PuddingLane

You could be forgiven if that name conjures up something that looks like this:

Spotted DickYou would be wrong, of course. I’ve read two different explanations for the name Pudding Lane, both of them unsavory. The first one has to do with fertilizer: Way back before flushing toilets, Londoners had to somehow periodically dispose of their – well, waste. Hauling it out of the city was a big business apparently, because it could be sold and used as fertilizer. The waste that was collected resembled a kind of pudding, and it was hauled down Pudding Lane to the Thames for transport.

In case you’re still reading, here is the second explanation: The term pudding originally meant offal. You know, animal innards. There were butcher shops along Pudding Lane, and the offal was tossed into this steeply pitched street where, after a time, it too would end up at the Thames.

I don’t know which is correct – possibly both? In any case, Pudding Lane would have been a good place to avoid. The street’s other claim to fame is that it was where the Great Fire of 1666 started – in a baker’s shop. If he was steaming a pudding at the time, there is no record of it.

*St. Mary Axe took the name of the church of St. Mary Axe which reputedly contained an axe used by the Huns to martyr virgins, which seems an odd kind of relic, but okay. Or maybe the church was called that because it was next to a tavern called The Axe – although it’s more likely the tavern was named after the church. Or maybe the church was given the Axe appendage because the Worshipful Company of Skinners patronized St. Mary’s and supposedly skinners used axes, but I think this one’s a stretch. It seems to me that a skinner would use a tool more like a knife or scalpel than an axe. Anyway, the street was named after the church.

**Houndsditch was originally a ditch where dead dogs were tossed.

***A Barbican is an extra defensive fort, tower or gate for a city, and London’s Barbican was just outside the Crepelgate, which is where The Barbican still is today.

Tomorrow: London’s Anglo-Saxon past.

The Modern Medieval Day 2
The Modern Medieval Day 1

 

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The Modern Medieval: Day 2

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Patricia

ModernMedievalI have met residents of Shrewsbury who pronounce the city’s name like this: shrowsbry. I have met residents of Shrewsbury who pronounce the city’s name like this: shroosbry. I think this is a conspiracy to confuse and frustrate Yanks, and I cannot tell you which is the correct pronunciation. Both? The city’s Old English name isn’t much help: Scrobbesbyrig, which means “Fortified place of the scrubland region” from the Old English word scrobb, which is pronounced either shrob or  – oh, never mind.

The ‘byrig’ part of Shrewsbury’s name would be the fort that occupied the north end of the medieval town.

Shrewsbury fortifications, post 1066.

Shrewsbury fortifications, post 1066

Fans of the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books and t.v. series will recall that our favorite monkish sleuth lived in Shrewsbury at St. Peter’s Abbey, which looks like this today.

Cadfael's abbey, St. Peter's, Shrewsbury.

Cadfael’s abbey, St. Peter’s, Shrewsbury.

Like Winchester, medieval Shrewsbury had street names that were related to the activities that went on there, and so we have names like Corn Chopynge Street, Glover Row, Old Fish Street and Hound Street (where one could, presumably, purchase a hound.) But there was one narrow street where certain undercover activities were conducted, and the street name is still there. I feel certain that it once had a second syllable because there was a street of that name in London. I’ll let you figure out for yourself what it was.

No caption necessary.

No caption necessary.

Tomorrow: London!

The Modern Medieval Day 1

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