This story was the final project for my Old English Rediscovered class first semester this year; we had to create an Anglo-Saxon character and write a short story. I drew on a variety of works which we had read, and also tried (however un/successfully) to incorporate a little bit of the feel which I got from the style and tone of Anglo-Saxon poetry in general. And now, I figured I’d post it and open it up to the wolves, so to speak. They were a big problem back when people still spoke Old English, wolves. Anyhow, to begin…

All in One

The brothers also, both of them together,

I winced as my own brother, Maegenraed, plucked another foul note on my harp as he accompanied himself over in the corner of the room. He wasn’t bad, exactly, just… inexperienced. To be fair, though, I had only begun teaching him recently, and he still sang the songs nicely, better than I ever would.

The King and the Atheling, came away to their own,

I settled more comfortably onto my stool and tipped my tankard back to my mouth again, enjoying the taste of the mead; it had been a while since I had drunk this well. I watched Maegenraed with vague interest and finished the cup.

The West-Saxon land, in war-triumph.

As Maegenraed finished the next line, this time without trouble from the harp, the man seated beside me spoke up again, his third or fourth comment to me that evening. “Will that drink be helping you to get up and sing in a moment? He looks like he’s working hard over there.”

“I don’t sing,” I replied reflexively, not taking my eyes from Maegenraed as I tried to picture myself in his place, performing. It wasn’t that hard. He was a few years younger, but we didn’t look too different—although I did like to think I displayed more confidence when I was playing.

“But you’re a minstrel. How don’t you sing?”

Annoying man. I knew where this was invariably, inexorably moving. “Maegenraed does that for me.”

“Why don’t you? The scops are supposed to pass on the tales.”

I knew the tales—that was immaterial. “I don’t sing well.” Not to mention that I was hardly a scop; I had been given but one ring in my lifetime… although…

“Don’t sing well?” The man snorted, not without humor. “Another Caedmon, are you?”

I stood up, stretched, set my tankard casually on the stool which I had vacated; by the stains of the surface, it was well-accustomed to such use. “Amusing. No one has ever brought the likeness to my attention before.” Whether he believed the lie or not, I didn’t care. And if I was Caedmon, all of humanity was certainly condemned to the deofol. “I’m going to go play again now. Good evening.”

“God keep you.”

He received no reply from me. I had already turned my back and begun to move over to Maegenraed, who was just finishing his recitation as I wove through the last of the tavern’s patrons. “Well done,” I murmured, plucking the harp from his hands with my right, with the left, waving him away from the seat. He nodded and scooted aside, taking up his more usual standing post. But he had misunderstood, as I had changed my mind—I bent to reach for the stout cloth stack in which I generally carried my harp. “Your attention has been appreciated.” I addressed the tavern at large as I straightened and began to arrange the instrument in its bag. “We have been asked to play for Lord Garulf tomorrow evening at his hall, and I feel that we should get our rest. We don’t want to fail him with the quality of our performance.” I was not tired at all, actually, but I could not be so sure about Maegenraed, who did, after all, sleep and rise earlier than I.

“Up at the hall?” It was my evening’s companion again, looking at the two of us not without interest.

“Indeed so. If I might be so bold, your great lord has equally great judgment concerning music.”

“It is typical of him, yes.” His tone was odd, I later recognized, but I confess at the time I had been rendered rather less sharp than was usual for me by the most excellent mead of the place. Now, I merely nodded and made towards the tavern door.

One of the other men murmured something as we went by, although I caught only a name, Aelfhere. I looked at him, curious, but he only smiled, waving me on my way.

“Cutha?” A hand on my shoulder accompanied the voice. Not Maegenraed’s, a woman’s, old. “Cutha, your brother’s waiting for you outside.”

“Outside for what?” I mumbled into the blanket I’d bundled beneath my head. It was early summer, well warm enough to have no need of it over the rest of my body.

“There’s a holy man, a monk, come here today. Maegenraed says he’s going to see him.”

“What’s he need me for, then?” I had still not yet opened my eyes. Furthermore, I had no desire to do so anywhere in the immediate future.

“He wants you to come along, I do believe.” The voice of the widow who had, for a few songs, put us up since we’d arrived here in Gallowshill got fainter with the end of the sentence, accompanied by the sound of footsteps. “I’ll get him for you, but he’s full impatient.”

I took advantage of the few intervening moments of silence to sink back down to the very brink of sleep before being roused again by my brother’s voice, more excited, and it was not simply the energy of youth. “Cutha! I let you sleep as long as you could, but it’s getting late!”

“For what? We don’t play until the evening!”

“But there’s a—”

“—monk, I heard. You’re welcome to go see him.” Better him than I; I had little use now for holy men.

“You must come, though—”

I made the swift decision to end this before it went any further and I would be absolutely unable to return to the blissful realms of sleep. “I don’t feel well.”

This brought a pause. Maegenraed was clearly pondering this, or at least his voice indicated this was so when it came again. “But Cutha—it’s Brother Hnaef.”

It was now my turn to consider this. What Hnaef was doing here, I could only imagine, although surely he was on a mission for the monastery back at home, and not gone in disgrace. For he, the man who had acted as our father, the one who’d taught us the songs, the stories, that we now shared for our livelihood, could only be doing good in the world. “I’ll come.”

We left the house. Despite Maegenraed’s earlier comment concerning my sleep, the morning was still quite young, the sun working to evaporate the mist which hung heavily over the land, and more so over the hill which dominated the small cluster of houses, reducing the lord’s great hall to an imposing shadow squatting on the mound’s crown. Maegenraed immediately began walking along at a good pace, his soft gillies stirring up small dust clouds from the dirt. I followed slightly more slowly, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and yawning widely. The yawn turned into a random tune, then from there to one with which I was growing increasingly familiar even as I developed it. Maegenraed gave me a look over his shoulder. “What’s that you’re singing?”

I shrugged. “Just… another of my songs.”

He gave me a broad smile. “I like your compositions. Can you sing it for me?”

I shook my head. “You know I don’t like singing. And I haven’t finished the words yet.” It was actually true here. Most of the time I simply did not wish to share, at least not with Maegenraed. His preferences in song tended to run rather contradictory to my own, and why he thought he enjoyed my work when I had barely ever sung him any, was beyond my capacity to understand.

“As you wish… When you are done with it, then?”

An abrupt change of subject seemed best at this point. A sight nearby caught my eye and brought other words floating to mind. I grinned wickedly and picked up my pace to match my brother’s. “I’ve a riddle for you.” And I could be reasonably certain he hadn’t heard this one before; I might have made it up myself, for all I remembered, or had just forgotten learning it in the first place.

The young man came over to the corner

Where he knew she stood. He stepped up,

Eager and agile, lifted his tunic

With hard hands, thrust through her girdle

Something stiff, worked on the standing

One his will. Both swayed and shook.

The young man hurried, was sometimes useful,

Served well, but always tired

Sooner than she, weary of the work.

Under her girdle began to grow

A hero’s reward for laying on dough.

“Can you tell me what I speak of there?”

Maegenraed was gifted at riddling, I knew that well; still, his instincts never ceased to astound me. “A butter churn, is it not?” he asked after a few moments’ thought.

I gave him a look, the meaning of which he did not seem to catch either. “Yes,” I replied drily, “that’s exactly what I had in mind.”

It happened then. I saw two men approaching us from the other direction, one of whom—short, broad, darker-haired than most—I recognized as my companion of last night. The other was taller and more slender, probably ten winters or so my senior; both wore grim expressions. I put a hand on Maegenraed’s shoulder, and while we did not stop moving forwards, I steered him towards the other side of the road, such as it was. “They don’t look too happy,” I murmured by way of explanation. “Too much mead can lead to problems, especially a nasty temper on the next day...” This, I knew from experience.

But the two moved to follow us. “You are the bards.” It held, perhaps, the hint of a question, but not really. The man from the tavern nodded in answer to his companion’s statement, then, just as Maegenraed and I did so too. “And you think you have such great skill.”

“Well…” I began cautiously; I wasn’t stupid. I also moved just in front of Maegenraed, not sure if trouble was coming, but not willing to take chances where he was concerned.

“To dare sing at the hall!” And he lunged.

I was a brawler by nature. It was for that reason, that and drink, for which I’d been made to leave some number of years before, why Maegenraed was not in a monastery where he belonged by nature. So I dodged the fist with ease and retaliated by driving my shoulder into his now-exposed side, putting the full weight of my body—such as it is—behind the blow. He grunted, stumbled backwards, hitting his companion, even as I straightened up with a horn-handled dagger, wrenched from its sheath at my belt, in my fist. The two looked at this, at my face, and decided, for their own reasons, that that was too much, turned on their heels, and retreated the way they’d come.

“Bastards!” I spat, glaring after them and sheathing the dagger with a furious motion. “What in the name of all holiness did they—Maegenraed?” I stopped at an odd sound from behind me, half-cough, half-choking, a gurgle. I turned.

Maegenraed had dropped to his knees, supporting himself with one hand on the ground, the other at his throat as he coughed. I knelt down beside him. “What’s wrong? What happened?” But he gave no reply, but shook his head, breathing hard and hoarsely.

And it did not take long for my mind to reconstruct the recent—oh unfortunate!—turn of events. The man, whoever in the deofol’s name he was, had hit Maegenraed rather than me—and in his throat. “Are you all right? Speak, Maegenraed, please!”

He only shook his head again.

We did not, of course, see Hnaef that day, although he remained in the area for several days and we were able to meet with the good old man before we each once more went on our ways. I took Maegenraed immediately back to the widow’s house, where she tended him, gave him mead, put him into the bed I’d recently vacated. But he could not seem to regain his speech. The worst part came, however, as the widow brought out the noontime meal for herself and I—Maegenraed had made quite clear that he did not feel himself up to eating that day.

“So, will you go by yourself to grace the hall with song?” she asked as she placed the foodstuffs before me at the table.

I froze. In my concern for Maegenraed, I had forgotten about our noble invitation for the evening. I swore. The widow gave me a reproachful look. I ignored it. Maegenraed, too, was now staring in my direction; his eyes were wider than normal, and questioning. “What should I do?” I murmured to him, not with real hope of reply.

It was the stories I loved, the heroic tales. Those I knew by heart, and had since I had been very young. But if I were to base my repertoire on that which Maegenraed usually performed on the more important occasions (all four of them we’d been to), then I knew very few of the ones which people would actually want to hear. I knew of the Rood but could not recite it; I’d never taken the time to commit the Phoenix to memory. But it seemed that these were the ones people most wanted to hear; the old tales, Beowulf, Waldere, those were dying, the very poems I tried to keep alive. Only for myself, though. I meant it when I said that I could not sing—granted, it was Maegenraed, my sweet-voiced brother, to whom I’d compared myself all my life, but I maintained my position. The stories were mine alone, the harp’s soft, buzzing tunes what I shared.

But that makes for no performance.

I put my face in my hands, trying to think, sort things out. Reject Garulf’s most welcome invitation? It was an impossibility. Pray to God to grant Maegenraed a miraculous recovery? Even more so. He had never cared before, and why should he now? We hadn’t done anything to deserve whatever help he could give…

And we hadn’t deserved this either. It was my natural reaction, with no other solution presenting itself—I lifted my face from my hands and turned my eyes on the widow, now bending over Maegenraed in the bed. “Who,” I inquired, my voice flatly calm, forced so by a tremendous feat of will, “might a man be, who is tall, thin… fair-haired, with a sallow face, dark eyes… dressed in handsome clothes, not like a lord’s, but well-woven…?” It came out in pieces as I recalled the man’s image to my mind’s eye.

She turned to give me a curious look. “Who? A man like that? Here?”

“Yes.”

She considered. “Aelfhere,” was her reply at last.

“And who’s he?”

“Garulf’s scop. He is a fine singer.”

And it made sense.

Of myself in this regard I shall say this only:

that in the hall of the Heodenings I held long the makarship,

lived dear to my prince, Deor my name;

many winters I held this happy place

and my lord was kind. Then came Heorrenda,

whose lays were skilful; the lord of fighting-men

settled on him the estate bestowed once on me.

That went by; this may too.

Unbidden, the words floated into my head, recited in the voice of Hnaef now, as I had first learned them. Just as I was Caedmon to some, here I was Heorrenda, ousting some jealous scop from his place at his lord’s side, threatening to force him from the hall where he had made his home! As if it were really so. I was a wanderer, not some high-born minstrel living only to praise kings. Bloody fool, this Aelfhere…

I stood. “Indeed. Well, I wish to have words with him. Where can I find him?”

Maegenraed knew me too well, knew of my temper, although even I myself was not at this point sure what I was intending to do. From the bed, he spoke, if it could be called that, a hoarse rasping, painful to hear. “Cutha… Don’t.”

“I’m just going to see him! You, rest.”

The widow was looking concerned. Maegenraed persevered. “You won’t… make it better.”

“It’s not good for you to talk.” I faced the widow again. “Where might Aelfhere be?”

The hall was no Heorot, and the company inside no Geatish warriors; in fact, it was essentially empty, with its inhabitants handling affairs elsewhere. But he was there.

At first, I controlled myself, barely, as did he. As we spoke, though, it became easier; I learned quickly enough that he, well… had acted as I would have done in his place. He never apologized for earlier, although he offered his opinion (for what it was worth) that Maegenraed would recover himself in due time. Unfortunately, it would not be for the evening. I explained to him that we were not here to stay; he said he knew this, and said no more of it. And then it was here, to my surprise, that he offered me council.

Cattle die, kinsmen die,

oneself dies the same.

I know one thing that does not die;

the reputation of the dead.

“A scop is meant to glorify. His lord above all, but it is a tradition which crosses back through the ages, and so any time we praise, we praise all, all who have come before us, and give the memories to those who will come after, giving them the legacy of that glory. My friend, who saw you play last evening, said that you do not sing. Then you are no bard. We should not leave these things to the monks to record in their books, but pass them on, with skill or without. If you can play the harp, you can recite along with it, and it will create what is necessary of you.”

“But what am I to sing?”

“Does it matter? It is all of ours. It has shaped this world up ‘til now; use it.”

The excerpts of poetry in this story are not my own translations; I give thanks to Michael Alexander for the passagse from Brunanburh and Deor, to Craig Williamson for the riddle, and to Craig R. Davis for the final poem.