Who Was Bishop of Winchester in 990?

Ælfheah (also spelled Alphage oe Alfege) became Bishop of Winchester in 984 only leaving this position to be consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1006. He was largely responsible for development of a cult of St. Dunstan, and due to his own deep sanctity and his martyrdom in 1012 was canonized in 1075 by Pope Gregory VII. It was he to whom Thomas á Becket was praying when he was murdered by four of Henry II's barons.

He was born in Somerset to a noble family in 954. He became a monk and later an anchorite (a type of hermit) but was elected abbot of Bath Abbey. As Bishop of Winchester he helped initiate the building of an organ so large that it could be heard more than a mile away. He built and stregthened churches in the city. In 994 when Vikings raided the area, he met with the famous Leader Olaf Tryggveson and persuaded him not only to agree to a truce and to convert to Christianity.

Ælfheah's holiness was so well known that it was inevitable that he would be chosen to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. His accomplishments as Archbishop include a journey to Rome, on which he was robbed, the writing of a life of St. Dunstan, a change in the Church liturgy, and he brought St. Swithin's head to Canterbury as a relic. He was a strong proponent of education, establishing the monastic school at Cerne Abbey. Ælfheah was present at the council of May 1008 where Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York preached his sermon Sermo Lupi ad Anglos or The Sermon of the Wolf to the English, which castigated the English for their moral failings and blamed those failings for the tribulations that were afflicting the country.

In 1011 Danes invaded England again and laid siege to Canterbury. They captured Ælfheah and on April 19, 1012, killed him. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle describes his death as follows:

. . . for there was wine brought them from the south. Then took they the bishop . . . on the eve of the Sunday after Easter . . . They overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk downwards with the blow; and his holy blood fell on the earth, whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of God.

As a result, his feast day is April 19, and he is the patron saint of kidnap victims.

The image above is a painted carving of the death of Ælfheah and can be found at Canterbury Cathedral.

"You Expect Me to Pay $27.99 For Your Book?"

Um, yeah... or rather, my publisher does. Think of it this way. Would you spend thirty bucks to go out to dinner? Well, An Involuntary King will please you for a considerably longer time and stay with you much longer than whatever you eat. And it has no calories!

What I really wanted to say here is that my novel, reviews of which you can see at the links I provide at the right under the picture of my book cover, is available for a variety of prices from a number of different sources. I even have autographed copies available under the "new and used" links on the Amazon.com page, for $19.

King County Library System now has five copies and these will be available via Interlibrary Loan when their database is updated.

It may be a difficult economy, but whether I am talking about my own novel or not, a book is an investment well made.

Read my novel. It's long, it's a great story, its characters are vivid and compelling.. and you will be making me very happy.

An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England
By Nan Hawthorne
See where you can get it.
ISBN 1-4196-5669-4

For every copy sold, I will donate one unclipped silver penny to Veterans of the Battle of Hastings! (I jokes.)

An Excellent Mystery, by Ellis Peters

An Excellent Mystery: The Eleventh Chronicle of Brother Cadfael
By Ellis Peters

If I have been feeling the surfeit of Cadfaels lately, this wonderful if somewhat obscure example dispelled that neatly. An Excellent Mystery, with its seemingly prosaic title, just moved into first place as my favorite of the Brother Cadfael mysteries. It is such a warm and loving story, with characters even more vivid and compelling than the many others, I can't but recommend it with all my heart.

During the period when Empress Maud is trapped in Winchester by King Stephen's queen's armies, two monks whose abbey there has been burned to the ground arrive seeking shelter at Shrewsbury. One is a former crusader, Brother Humilus, who has entered the cloister as a result of a devastating wound, and a mute companion, Brother Fidelis, young and devoted. The title, An Excellent Mystery, refers to a line in The Book of Common Prayer refers to marriage, and it is the "marriage" of Humilus and Fidelis that the story dramatizes so gently and with such eloquence. Though homosexuality is a theme of this novel, it is one of several which blend into a remarkably complex bit of poetry.

Humilus has been betrothed to a young woman named Julian since before he left for the Holy Land. She was only six years old when the betrothal was made, and now that he is, as they say, only a shadow of man due to his injuries, he has freed her and told her and her family of his decision to enter a monastery. Julian chooses to enter a convent herself, but when the Crusader's squire, Nicholas, smitten by her, goes to make sure she is well and truly dedicated to her vows, he discovers she never made it to the nunnery. The mystery begins, to discover what happened to her. Hugh Beringar, Cadfael and Nicholas all fear that one of her attendants on the journey robbed and killed her, and the evidence stacks up to support this fear. In the meantime, Humilus grows more and more ill. Cadfaael is impressed with Brother Fidelis's devotion to the older man. Another monk, who has forsworn the life of the body because of a painful betrayal buy a woman, finds his passions coming out for a couple of the young brothers, in particular Fidelis, and he threatens to reveal a secret if the young monk if he does not comply with his advances..

I figured out the mystery of what happened to Julian about halfway through the book, and I will not spoil it for you in this review. But I will say it only enhanced my pleasure in the reading knowing the truth. More than one marriage lends it goldenness, not only the one mentioned above, but Hugh Beringar's, Nicholas's longed-for with the missing Julian, and even the sad one that torments the blackmailing monk. The secret behind Fidelis's faithful devotion is what makes this book so moving however. I don't think I have ever read a sweeter love story. You will just have to read it to see what I mean. It is, indeed, an excellent mystery.

Why I Am Not Nuts About Ursula BlaNchard Mysteries

I currently find only a half dozen or so little green boxes on my bookshelf. Those boxes contain audio cassettes from the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. Though not my only means of reading novels, it is my main one. A dozen or so books may not seem few, but looking at them this morning, having finished a Brother Cadfael just yesterday -- see That's All She Read -- I found myself generously supplied with more Brother Cadfaels and a couple Ursula Blanchards and nothing else. I don't have any text files of books ready to read as mp3s so the choice is these. The choice between an old Welsh ex-Crusader monk and an Elizabethan lady of the presence chamber who has just learned to pick locks.

The trouble is, I just don't grok with Ursula. No offense, Fiona Buckley, you are a lovely writer. but I just can't get into a heroine who spends her time describing her and other women's clothing. It's not that I want wanton masculinity .. well, I do, but not in this context -- as the fact that I prefer Cadfael should prove. I just don't enjoy girliness. I really don't care what color silk embroidery the amber velvet sports or what style of lace ruff the woman is wearing. I don't even care if the man who just caught Ursula's eye is in a splendid doublet of brocade.

I am sure there are plenty of women and men who enjoy this sort of thing, but I am not one of them. Maybe that is one reason I like the early Saxon era.. they seem more practical. There was silk then, and other fancy fabrics, but good old homespun linen and wool was good enough for Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. Maybe this is also one of the reasons I prefer -- despite appearances -- to write about and read about less-than-royal characters.

Unfortunately WTBBL keeps sending me Cadfaels and Blanchards. I may have to take both Fiona Buckley and Ellis Peters off my preferred authors list. I love them, but then I also love licorice, and even with licorice, there is such a thing as a surfeit. King John died of a surfeit of cold water and peaches, while my fate may involve a surfeit of peach silk with fawn embroidery -- and girliness.

Elerde of Brittany Gloats

I can see him there, the king, that hulking fellow, perplexed,. annoyed, uncertain what he can do about it. I smile my supercilious smile and drive him that much further to madness. It seems the reviewers like me, the villain, more than he. Were I a kind man I would reassure him. Villains, especially sexy ones, are almost always the favorites. But I am not kind. That is part of my charm.

Look at him, standing there in his Aragornian splendour. For all that, one reviewer judges him dull. I cannot keep a chuckle from erupting from my lips. The lady, my heart's desire, was promised him by her father. She did not choose him. He thinks she will choose him now and forever. If that is true it is because she likes how safe he is. That other, the Ulsterman, the bard that plays at being a catamite, is safe but mayhap too much so. Under her chill exterior there beats a heart full of lust, of longing for the dangerous, for a fierce Breton mercenary who will fulfill her every submerged fantasy. Just you wait and see.

You may think the rivalry is at an end, your grace, but you may be mistaken. I am not so easily dismissed. Unlike you, my liege, who must remain tethered to your land, I am free to wander the round world, and thus may I turn my steps back to your land, your fortress, your lady. Be aware, my king, that everything in life is but held by a silken thread. She will become tired of you, sirrah. It will take far less than my sword to sever that tie between you.

Why do they find you boring when your doting creatrix did not design you so? You are too human. You are strong but your feet threaten to become clay. You are impulsive and make mistakes. You are, I suppose glad of it, not the melodramatic oaf of the Old Stories, banishing yourself for killing my predecessor/twin, or lying foolishly on your sword and wounding yourself, or being enchanted by that sorceress and killing her in your delusion. Mayhap the reviewers would have liked you better thus. The creatrix made you less puerile but even your badness leaves then cold. You tried to kill me, I tried to kil you, but I have all the points on my side. You are too good, too kind, too just, and make them weary and wish to turn vack to me. How long will it be before like them, your lady, your queen, does the same?

It seems that I am capable of no end of perfidy yet I am absolved. I court a woman who is wed to the king I serve. I betray my position and help a wicked friend elude the very law I am charged with maintaining. I join with him and the most iniquitous of men to despoil the very homeland of the woman I love. I take arms against her kin. I join with a blackguard to destroy your lord and do not move to protect your brother until it is almost too late. I send my servant to murder your husband in cold blood. I put your children through a hell of fear and misery. Yet not only do the reviewers love me, you, you my Josephina, allow me to take you away where your larhe Saxon husband with his big cow eyes shall never find you. If that does not prove I am the better man, then what shall?

So go on puzzling, O Great and Oafish King, for your creatrix may care for you, but few others do. Do not bother to try to think of a way to be more interesting. You haven't the imagination.

Cretrix's Note: Don't forget, Elerde. I get the last word... literally.

Eloquence Unmet

Listening, as most of us did, to today's Presidential inauguration and the many, many observations leading up to it, I was struck by a contrast in eloquence. Here we have a new president who is well-spoken, intelligent, and about as unlikely to say "nucular" or "strategery" as anyone could be, but few, if any,. able to boice what is so significant about today. I am used to the news media tripping over their own tongues as they are more taken with their own boices than with what they say. I will mention a glaring instance of this below. But thanks to telebision we have documented in the sound of cheering and chanting what I just am not hearing articulated more clearly: what we are all so astounded by and grateful for.

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning one of the repoorters interviewed a woman from Sweden who reported that with the election of Barack Obama she has decided to become an American citizen. She said she had not found any reason to before. I was on the edge of my seat when she answered the question why Obama had changed her mind. At last, I thought, someone will say it. But she did not. She stumbled around sentiments about change and respect overseas and my heart bled for her. She was no more articulate than I had heard before. And it was clear from the anchor's and reporter's questions that they did not get it either.

It is my conviction that what knocks us all off our feet on a day like today is that our country actually did something we truly did not think it could or would. We not only elected an African American president, but a man whose middle name is Hussein. 9/11 is only seven and a half years ago. Does this reveal a nation more tolerant, more inclusive, more discerning than I thought it was? I find myself thinking, with jubilation, "We did it! We actually acted on our best qualities! I am impressed not only by what we did, but that we did it at all.

The new president's speech was excellent, I thought. I was impressed that when he listed all the religious views in our culture, he actually mentioned non-believers! If that ain't enlightened, I don't know what is.

The one down moment of the coverage this morning came when, obsercving that former VP Dick Cheney had had an accident and had to use a wheelchair to attend the festivities, Brian Williams said Cheney probably regretted looking like Dr. Strangelove. To be honest, I thought "Mr. Potter" but beyond that, the new president's call for inclusion was blasted by this comment. If you don't understand why, imagine if Williams had compared YoYo Ma to Charlie Chan or Itzhask Perlman to Fagin It meant that someone who used a wheelchair could only be compared to the negative, forgetting that long before an African American stood up there on the steps of the CVapitol, a disabled man did. If the wicked alluysion is the best we can do in 2009. maybe it is just as well Franklin Roosevelt hid his disability. He might still have to. How much more approopriate if Cheney had called to Williams' mind that famous wheelchair user.

So I see this country as having taken a leap forward in maturity, but nothing worthwhile is ever without a need for improvement. Our new president calls on us all to embody the values of reaching for the common good. How about we start with media shallowness.

The End of the House of Niccolo

I am taking today off. No one who has just finished reading Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo eight volume series should be expected to have any brain cells no less any heart to do anything else creative right away.

You can read my comments on the last volume, Gemini, and the whole series at That's All She Read.