PG
To the Bearsgard Academy from Chipsa, Queen of the New Kingdom
The following fragment is a new discovery in the Latin archives of Brother Bede – he is speaking in the first person.
I was recently talking to my apprentice and started to think about the Other World. I will jot down these thoughts for me to read again in my old age.
When I was a boy I would sit by the fire with Grandpa in the evening and work on my lessons in the Welsh language. Once I reached the age of nine I was able to write letters for Grandpa. After I finished a letter, I would write out a second copy and keep it for him. When I would read him a copy of a letter written several months earlier, he would be amazed at how accurate it was. The first time I showed him writing in Welsh, he was crestfallen.
“That looks like English or Latin,” he said, “doesn’t Welsh have its own alphabet?”
“I think there was a Welsh alphabet in ancient times,” I replied, “but it was forgotten.”
Grandpa slapped his knee and said, “That is just what I always say – the Welsh come last. All we have are steep hillsides and narrow valleys and they can’t even leave us alone.”
“Don’t worry, Grandpa,” I said, “Dad and I will stick up for Wales. We know Greek and Latin better than those stupid old bishops.”
“Well,” said Grandpa, “teach our men how to fight like the Roman legions and then I’ll be happy.”
My Welsh mother christened me “Huw” and my Norman and English relatives spelled it “Hugh” so everyone was happy. As a boy around the farm, I was called “Roy” – short for “Fitzroy.” Someone told my Welsh family that “Roy” meant “King” and this amused them tremendously. I didn’t mind the teasing and laughed along with everyone else.
I was one year younger than my cousin Rowena in Cheddar, England, and we would exchange letters twice a year as soon as we were old enough to write.
At age eight, Rowena wrote that she was learning Greek, Latin, French, and English. I wrote back that I was learning Greek, Latin, French, English, and Welsh. Rowena would ask me polite questions about the Welsh language but did not try to learn it herself.
I wrote back that I was going to drop French – French was the language of the Royal Court and I did not approve of the monarchy that had mistreated the Welsh so badly. My Welsh family applauded this decision and doubled my lessons in Welsh. Rowena said that she would also give up French – it was hard to learn French and Latin at the same time because of the similarities. Her new friend Rachel Arnold did not like the Royal Court either.
When bad news would come from London, Rowena’s father would give a speech to the assembled household about the evils of our times. These speeches were always in Greek, which no-one else in the village could understand. If the Greek went too fast for Rowena, she would raise her hand and her Dad would whisper an explanation to her.
At age fourteen I became a postulant at a Benedictine abbey in Wales. At age eighteen I became a novice and the abbey sent me on a trip to Rome with some documents. At age twenty I took my vows and chose the name “Brother Bede.”
Benedictine monks do not have possessions, but the books I was taking to Oxford included one that I have treasured here in the Land of Nye. It is a Bible that went on a crusade with an individual who later took vows under the name “Brother Cadfael.” He was a Welsh monk who lived in an abbey in Shropshire in the twelfth century. The twelfth century was a very unhappy era. I wish he could be with me here in the Land of Nye. What a time we could have!
When I arrived in the Land of Nye, I was twenty-four years old and my cousin Rowena was twenty-five.