[A:TW AAR] Seaxan Dægrēd [Updated: 21/11/2013]

[McScottish]

"Fear the Saxon, for he is cunning, fierce in battle and smells of the pigs!"

I do not believe I have ever been without two AAR's going at one time, for quite some time. So my thinking here is, why stop now? That's not really my thinking, but I shall explain!

My Gothic AAR (Fabulis Gothorum) is a fancy of mine, for I do love the Germanic peoples so, and especially those of which so little is known (more artistic licence/freedom). What I do not feel so much with that AAR is a sense of 'closeness', my AAR's usually taking place when I am in the 'mood' for the subject matter. Those such as my Thrakian AAR, or my AAR about a Thespian hoplite and his Mediterranean adventures. Anyway, for those that don't know, I am a half-Scottish Englishman, black-haired and pale-skinned, and have always been especially interested in the history of this wonderful isle and its peoples.


To cut a very long introduction short, I am going to play a 'slow-burn' Angle campaign on VH/VH in the year 481 A.D. onwards. I intend to make this a very slow-burn AAR, focusing a lot more on characters and the like than, I believe, my other AAR's have in the past and do even now. Think 'The Slightly Lost Legion' by SeniorBatavianHorse.


Welcome to Seaxan Dægrēd - Saxon Daybreak/Dawn.


EDIT/P.S.:


I have changed the mod to Arthurian: Total War, I believe this will give a better all-round AAR-ness but also allows you to get deep into the excrement of the Dark Ages as well. There is a chance that the game may well crash, and I may not be able to continue playing. If this is indeed the case, then I shall inform everyone so as not to worry you.

- McScottish

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Ah, time to warm up the fire and open a bottle of Shiraz in anticipation . . .

[Merula]

Oooohh yay another 'McScottish' I love the history of Britain, this should be awesome

[Ganbarenippon]

Nice. You handle the start of the Saxon age and I'll deal with the end! I look forward to this.

[Justinian Australis]

Crikey, you are an AAR writing machine!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

He is better than a machine - he is a superhero AARtist!

By the way, I have noticed several AARs have an 'updated' date in the thread title. How on earth does one do that???

[Justinian Australis]

Simple...you can either edit your first post in your AAR and just adjust the title accordingly or you can double click next to AAR title whilst veiwing the Era's AAR forum and this will open up the title to editing. Easy!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks - but when I double click it opens and then whisks me off the first post before I can edit it!

NM - got it and thanks!

[McScottish]

Please check back later, and ignore this post.

[Derbiean]

Woooo another McScottish tale subscribed and +rep when i've whored it around enough to get back to you

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Great opening setting the scene and character! looking forward to more. Will rep when able!

[McScottish]

Please check original post for edited information.

[McScottish]

Land of the Lindisfaran Angles, Solmonath, 481 A.D.

“Then Arminius set his men loose upon the unwary Romans, believing themselves to be in the territory of friends and companions. This was a mistake that would cost them their lives, three legions of Roman soldiers, some thirty-six thousand men and their auxiliaries, were torn apart like dried leaves in your fist. The Romans would never recover from this defeat, what they called 'Germania' would never fall fully into their hands, and nor would we.”

My father, Frithnoth, an iron-worker in the lands of our tribe, the Lindisfaran of the AngelÞeōd or Angel peoples, always told me such wonderful stories. I, a young whelp at ten-and-six years old, along with my young sister, would stare wide-eyed at his long and overshadowed face, illuminated only by the light of our central fire-pit, my mind trying to understand how gathering thirty-two thousand men together was even possible at all. At times I believed he was simply creating stories out of thin air, imagining them all in his head, our own dryht, that is warband, only numbering in the hundreds and only in times of great peril. Nonetheless I listened, and listened well, eager to hear of the past and the history of our people, each night after he has finished at his anvil pestering him for more tales of far away lands and legends-made-flesh.

“You wish to know where we come from?” He asked one night, knowing that I would say yes, a twinkle in his eyes and smirk on his face, “settle down then.” I did, moving some more rushes about my feet and crossing my legs one over the other, before gazing back up at the man who looked to me like a God.

“The lands of Angeln, from where our people take their name, lie across the waters to the east. A land not unlike our own, full of rolling hills, marshes and bogland, waterways and channels, except perhaps with a little less rain. Our people, called Anglii by the Romans, are known from the ancient times when their empire still help Bryten in its grasp and Germania was much like Bryten is in this day. Warring tribes fought one another for supremacy, others were massacred by their enemies and disappeared from existence, others were sacrificed to the Gods as offerings for having bought them victory. Like us, they too fought in small bands of men, mixing horsemen with their infantry, noble lords gathering about them the greatest warriors they could, the comitatus of a tribal leader.”

For all my fathers tales, he did not speak, read or write any Lǣden or Grēc. He was a simple smith, uneducated in refined arts such as languages but never shy with a hammer and a sheet of metal, his knowledge of the runic alphabet, the fuþorc, as high as any. It was with these symbols that he would mark his work, or enhance a trait of a weapon, perhaps giving it strength or truer aim than other blades or byrne of mail.

What education I gleaned from him, as I was his second son and so not privy to the secrets of smithery until my elder brother no longer lived, was limited to his tales and the knowledge of runes in all their forms. Some I knew could be used to heal, others to hurt, some as instruments to write and communicate with and, if the time and place were right, as messages to and from the Gods if they were willing to speak. Such castings of the runes I had only seen once or twice, but each time I had felt uneasy, for there was surely something...otherworldly when one consulted a direct link to Wōden and his family.

In my heart, even then, I knew that I wished to be a warrior. My brother Grimulf had already began receiving instruction from an old Frisan named Ese, a local fighter known to be able to trace his lineage back to the first auxiliaries bought from his homeland to garrison the northern wall of Adriānus against the marauding pihtas warriors. These same warriors, with their blue dye and light and swift feet, that still ravage the northern Brittisc chiefdoms. He is known to be an expert spearman and wrǣstlere, and only by exchanging his services for a finely forged helmet could my father persuade him to train my brother.

This did not help to cease my jealousy, my eyes always wandering from the runes to where the two of them trained in the open grassland near our firm hāmsteall or timber and thatch, the bottom being half-submerged into the ground and the door able to be locked from within in case of outside attack. Something that was part of life for all those in Bryten. It was for this reason, along with the fame, glory and wealth that could be acquired, that I wished to be a warrior. This island, on which I had been born and grown, was the ideal ground for testing your mettle against others in a battle of skill and fury, and it was my dream to gain a place in that battle.

Our cyning Eomer, and his son Icel, both chosen to lead us by the most powerful and wealthy men in our lands, were already at war with the Brittisc kingdoms of Elmet and Ebruac. These former Roman lands, part of Ebruac even settled by Seaxan mercenaries, did not like having a Germanic people so close to their borders and the bloodshed had not ceased since all before I was born.

As I lay down to sleep that night, my small head lifted off the floor by a series of rolled tunics tucked under my head, I silently moved my lips in prayer to Wōden, Tīw and Thūnor and asked them with all my heart to allow my wishes to become fulfilled.

In a land like Bryten I should have been able to divine that war, death and pestilence where never far from your door, but I was young and foolish and I knew not truly for what I asked.

[andrew.murphy1]

Interesting AAR

it got me reading the "Old English" (language) page on wikipedia, where it said this:

Thomas Spencer Baynes claimed in 1856 that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in the Somerset dialect.

apparently you are the closest thing we have to a living, breathing anglo-saxon in today's world

edit: also, when you say "Lindisfaran", is that Lindisfarne (sp?), which has/had one of the first monasteries to be raided by the norse?

[McScottish]

Interesting AAR

apparently you are the closest thing we have to a living, breathing anglo-saxon in today's world

edit: also, when you say "Lindisfaran", is that Lindisfarne (sp?), which has/had one of the first monasteries to be raided by the norse?

Indeed, the dialects of the Westcountry are said to be the closest to the original Old English in terms of sound, use of words and arrangement. For example, "where is it to?" Would have been perfectly acceptable in 'Ye Olde Englande', as would the way in which various words such as "'ark at 'ee!" and more.

So, yes, as the 'Celts' of Kernow like to claim, we are probably the closest to the Englisc that you're likely to get in this day and age.

As for your second question, I imagined that someone would ask that eventually. The answer, surprisingly even to myself, is a resounding no. The Lindisfaran I.E. tribe of Lindesfaras, were in fact an Angle (not Saxon or Jute) tribe which settled in what is now Lincoln in England.

However:

Lindisfarne in Northumbria derived its name, according to one place-name authority, from the Lindisfaras, so having the meaning "island [of the] travellers from Lindsey", indicating that the island was settled from Lindsey, or possibly that its inhabitants travelled there.

It was here that, later, the short-lived Kingdom of Lindsey would be built.

For more information, see here.

Its all good and interesting stuff, and I'm glad you're taking an interest.

[McScottish]

Land of the Lindisfaran Angles, Solmonath, 481 A.D.

“Pay attention, Grimulf!” spoken the Frisan in his slow and cumbersome dialect, the words of the Angle tongue sounding tightly squeezed from his mouth and coughed from his throat, “why, you are more of a dreamer than your brother! Will you never take your training with any manner of seriousness?”

Grimulf, my older brother, four years my senior to be exact, and although he was as good of a warrior as I have ever seen, what Ese scolded him for was correct. He was tall, lithe and possessed of a sinewy strength that also leant him speed in his bouts with my fathers hired soldier. It was ill therefore that Grimulf had been taught the arts of working iron by my father before Ese had arrived, his mind always thinking of other things and his dream to work metal and craft wondrous items of iron, gold and silver. It was as if our roles should have been exchanged, and often times I would wish that they had been, he to his forge and me to my spear and shield.

As to myself, I sat atop a smooth stone, one of many amongst the crumbling ruins of the Roman shore-fort which had been built to keep my people from this island. The Romans had left Bryten only one-and-seventy years before this day, taking their legions of glittering soldiers with them, and leaving the Brittisc to see to their own defences. Of course, by now there were none who knew how or had the skill to maintain such forts as this one, large enough to encompass an entire Angle village and with walls still strong enough to see off any attacker. Here, much like our tribal centre of Lindisfaras, known to the Romans and Brittisc as Lindum, and as all over this island, were signs of a people that many of us believed had never even existed.

So I sat, dressed in only a rough tunic and a rough cloak large enough for the young man that I was, my feet dangling over the edge of the stone as I watched Ese and his charge exchange blows with shield and sword. Ese, pale-skinned and formed like a bull, had never struck me as a great warrior, but when he took up his weapon and began to wield it even I could see that he was truly little else.

“Gyric, come here,” it was my brothers voice, like two rocks rubbed against one another, his wide mouth which was too large for his angular face filling with teeth as he smiled and beckoned me over to the centre of the fort, “come. Take the sword. I wish to see you train.”

“But father said I am too young to hold a sword,” I whined as I got nearer, complaining but not stopping for a moment, my heart thumping in my breast, “and indeed you are, little brother,” he chuckled, “so you shall train with a spear instead.”

My face wrinkled as Ese held out the weapon to me, a simple ash-wood shaft of about six-foot in length tipped with a blunted end of iron. In my mind, the mind of a youthful and prideful boy, son of a blacksmith who was counted amongst those able to be called up for the levy, it seemed like some stick wielded by those of a simple mind. Blinded by such foolishness, even as I took the shaft of the offered weapon, I did not realise how wrong I was to be proven.

Ese made the first movement before I was even prepared, swinging his sword across his body at me from the right, also with a blunted blade so that it would not cut but still long and heavy enough to break bone, my body jerking and my hands fumbling to use the shaft of my spear to take the cut instead of my body. When his sword hit the mid-point of the shaft it sent a numbing feeling up my arms and forced me to take a step back.

“No!” Bellowed Ese, hitting the same spot again and again, “if this were a true blade I would have cut through your weapon and hewn you in two!” A foot lashed out then, something I was even more surprised at, kicking me straight in the stomach and doubling me over in pain and shock, “how is it that you expect to become a warrior...do you yield?” I could feel the cool metal of the sword at my throat and gasped in a breath, “I yield,” I managed to wheeze at him, “I do yield.”

This moment, though I was defeated easily, was the first moment of my journey to becoming greater than I was. I had never been struck before, by fist or blade, the surprise and pain of it sending me into a stupor of depression for the rest of the afternoon, my feet no longer kicking the air but dangling limply from where I had perched myself once more. My eyes looking down at the earth and my face a mask of boiling inner anger and even of hot tears which stung my face.

“Listen to me, boy,” spoke the Frisan when he had sent my brother away, sweeping his arm around the shore-fort like a lord showing his lands to his honoured guests, “take a look around you and what do you see?”

I considered it a idiots question, but answered anyway.

“I see ruins, just ruins.”

“Yes, ruins. Ruins of a civilisation who ruled the world, who moved people from place to place like they were nothing more than pieces on a board. Like they themselves were Gods. They took my forebears and told them to garrison their wall against northern 'barbarians', took men from all lands and thought that by using savages against others that it would help them.”

“What are you trying to tell me, spit it out by Wōden.”

“Why do you think their empire crumbled, why it was torn apart?”

“Because they let too many of us live?” My eyes finally lifted from the ground just in time for a slap to the back of my head, Ese cursing in his own tongue, “no...it is because of their arrogance, their pride, their underestimation of all others. It is the same with you. You have heard so many tales about heroes and such that you think the sword in a magnificent thing and the only weapon of a true warrior, is this not so?” I nodded my head but did not speak, curious about what he would say next, “you disdain the spear, but I shall tell you something. The spear is the weapon of a warrior, it is the weapon of Wōden himself and has all the advantages over a man swinging about a large piece of metal! Length, dexterity, thrusting strength which a sword can never hope to match.”

Taking me by the hand, his grip light and even gentle, he lead me over to a smaller ruin within the confines of the forts walls. Its foundation were square in nature, the wall about it standing roofless and only coming up to the height of my shoulders, no door blocking our passing into the building which was but a single room.

“This was once a shrine to the Roman Gods, to the soldiers in this place, see here...” we stopped a few steps away from a white-stoned construct, the stone veined with blue, a marble altar inscribed with chiselled letters of the Roman script. The top of the altar was missing, the place where the sacrifices would have been placed and blooded, but the stump of the sacred object remained with its writing, some lichen already growing about the sides, “what does it say?”

Kneeling down, Ese ran his fingers over the letters and translated them, it never having occurred to me that he may know the Roman tongue, “it is a dedication and reads; this altar is dedicated to the Capitoline Gods and the divine spirit of the emperor, by the soldiers of the the German tribesmen from Tuihantis of the Cuneus Frisiorum,” at this point his turned his eyes on me with a smile, “they were men of the Tubantes, my own people, who would later come across the water with your own.”

Standing once again, he slid his hadseax from his belt and passed it to me, “cut your palm, carefully, and place it against the stone. Dedicate yourself to the way of the spear, and to whichever deity you see fit.”

Nervously I took the offered knife, wincing with pain as I slit a small part of my palm and held the still-bleeding hand to the cold stone, “I Gyric, son of Frithnoth the Smith, place myself under the eye of Ese and dedicate myself to the way of the spear. I do this in the name of Wōden, called Allfather.”

As if the God himself had heard it began to rain, thunder bellowing loud in the sky and lightning streaking the heavens, my hand torn away from the stone and my eyes looking upward, droplets of rain running down my face and throat and the salty tang resting on my lips.

“Come, let us get back to your father. You need not worry about your life any more, it is in the hands of Wōden now.”

[Ybbon]

A different feel than the Goths, told from a different perspective of course. Incidentally, how old is he? 16, you said 10 and 6 years and then say about small head and starting to train, but at 16 wouldn't he already be in training? Also, so his older brother is the apprentice smith yet also doing warrior training, would they do that? not have one the apprentice and younger sons as more expendable and thus warriors? Been reading too many conflicting books so just curious really how that would work?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Very dramatic and a vivid evocation of period and setting - you've raised the bar again, McScottish!

[McScottish]

A different feel than the Goths, told from a different perspective of course. Incidentally, how old is he? 16, you said 10 and 6 years and then say about small head and starting to train, but at 16 wouldn't he already be in training? Also, so his older brother is the apprentice smith yet also doing warrior training, would they do that? not have one the apprentice and younger sons as more expendable and thus warriors? Been reading too many conflicting books so just curious really how that would work?

He is sixteen years old, yes. Part of the ceorl/churl class, basically a freedman's son, and therefore not noble hence does not begin any form of structural training when he hits sixteen. His older brother is the apprentice simply because he was born first and thus 'got there' first, but since there's a guy around to teach him then why not do so?

More opportunism than anything else.

Gyric, as the younger, is more expendable, but the thing about Anglo-Saxon society is that only the upper-crust/class were actually 'professional' warriors. The rest were craftsmen, farmers and the like, men who may not have ever received any training in their entire lives but probably had some sort of basic handling knowledge of a seax or spear.

There was really no set 'course' or 'drill' that was carried out regularly by the entire tribe to train them up or put them 'in training' as it were, it was a case of you trained when you could, where you could, with who you could unless you were of the 'warrior class' I.E. members of a lords comitatus/retinue, of noble birth, a hired-sword/mercenary and so on.

As a smith, Frithnoth would probably have little spare time to teach his son anything that he knew about warfare, though Gyric may be able to whip a sling or cut with a knife, it is doubtful that he would ever have held a spear, shield or sword.

He'd likely have spent more time working a field or hunting really.

Remember, by this time the Anglo-Saxons have established a beach-head, there are now various 'waves' coming in from the Jutland peninsula with civilians and families (and some warriors), rather than the initial spearhead which would likely have been made up of only those men who knew how to fight.

There are certainly war-bands and raiding parties, amongst both the Anglo-Saxons and the Britons, but these are warriors who have seen action and been trained to fight and most probably owing allegiance to a specific lord who would allow them/pay them to train and fight for him rather than till the soil of the fields and harvest the crops.

I hope that all makes sense, and feel free to ask any more questions!

As to my own question, what books have you been reading, may I ask?


P.S.


To answer a little further, and just for complete clarity, the year is 481 A.D. so circa 5th century, those institutions we know of later, about 7th century, had not yet been implemented. Things like the well-known Saxon Fyrd, an actual quite organised Saxon military, and so forth. The Saxons, and Angles etc, were more like those Germans in Tacitus' Germania, usually loyal retainers about a central warlord/chief figure.

This can, and does, cause quite a bit of confusion to people, but during the 5th century, also known as the early Anglo-Saxon period, one should expect to see war-bands of thirty-forty men clashing with those of a similar size. Anything of a few hundred was considered to be an army, a much larger threat. During the Dark Ages the Saxons still based their society on raiding mixed with agriculture, they were not Romans and so had no real 'military' to speak of, this is the sort of society you should be thinking of when reading this.

Very dramatic and a vivid evocation of period and setting - you've raised the bar again, McScottish!

Thank you again, SBH, I do hope I can continue to do so until, one day, I can match your own.

[Derbiean]

I like the depth of the character so far, it feels like he will begin a journey which will mature him in time