Chapter 3 - The Rood | Chapter Review

People:

 Offa: Julius’s descendant, ricola’s husband, poked elder with pin.

 Ricola: offas wife, accused of witchcraft,

 Cerdic: elfigiva’s husband, a rich slave trader and trader, never broke his word,

 Elfgiva: noblewoman, Cerdic’s wife, proud, she married below her,

 Wistan: elfgivas most loyal son who loved her the most

 Mellitus: the bishop

Plot:

 Many tribes such as the Saxons, Franks, lombards, and slavs came and strated

occupying the areas around the citizens so the people had to be careful.

 Angles, Saxons and jutes came to England

 Elfgiva went to east anglia to visit her old town and father’s grave to take a break

from her husband( north territory of the angles)

 Her great grandfather was the youngest of a royal line so she was royal too.

 Royals all claimed decendence of woden

 Her husband(cerdic) demanded that she became Christian.

 Ricola was going to be drowned in a sack of rocks with an adder(snake) because

she was accused of withcraft

 They were trying to get back at the village elder because he tried to rape ricola so

offa stuck a pin into the elder which was a form of witchcraft for some reason

 Offa was going to be banished. This was almost worse than death because most

people would not take him in when he is banished.

 Elfgiva came out of the woods where offa and his wife were and elfgiva bought

them as slaves and saved them because she thought it was what she was meant to

do

 The village elder kind of wanted to see the naked girl die in the bag with the

snake but when elfgiva pulled out a gold coin(the Saxons did not have gold coins)

he sold them.

 They were now heading to the trading post, lundenwic.

 Cerdic was a rich trader and slave trader but he is still 3rd class

 Cerdic never broke his word and never changed his mind

 Convert the king and the rest will follow

 The king of kent was Christian and they were trying to spread Christianity and

convert all the kings

 They’re building a church/cathedral at lundenwic, the king personally put his trust

into Cerdic to help the bishop and convert himself and his family.

 Offa and ricola originally were planning on running away and living off the land

 Cerdic owns bocton: bull

 If elfgiva did not convert he was going to find another wife

 Offa was lucky that the mistress had bought him or else they would be sold

immediately

 His sons did not want to convert because: the king of essex’s sons would not and

they heard that the new god let himself be nail to a tree. They said what kind of

god is that.

 Offa saw a meadow, pasture and gentle slopes past the marsh so he thought that

they would run to there and live.

 Ricola realized that it was not so  bad being a slave so she did not want to run

away and live in the woods forever

 Londinium is now a ruined citadel. He could see it from the fishing spot that

jutted out into the thames

 Offa knows from his descendents passed down that there is gold in the western

hill of Londinium(grandfather)

 Thames had risen 2 and a half feet because of north pole melting from the time of

Julius

 Ricola took a real liking to elfgiva and she observed elfgive because she was the

first 1st class person ricola had seen

 Elfgiva showed ricola how she wove(weavings).

 Ricola figured if they got elfgiva to like them enough then they would give them

their freedom

 Elfgiva wanted to have another child or to get more time to stall the bishop from

coming so soon

 While offa was on the western hill looking for the gold he met the people(bishop)

that were building the cathedral and they were building it right on top of the hill!

 The church would be called st. pauls.

 The bishop was staying with Cerdic

 After Cerdic was baptized elfgiva told her 4 sons to do as their father did so they

all went up and the oldest demanded for the “magic bread” then he tried to take it

from the bishop. The bishop was angry

 In the end when Cerdic came back the bishop was angry and the sons said that

elfgiva had instructed them to go up and get the magic bread. So Cerdic blamed

elfgiva for it all and struck her across the face and said “I see you no longer wish

to be my wife”.

 His four sons were baptized in the end anyways

 Elfgiva was not baptized yet and was in the halls crying while her sons were

being baptized

 She was crying because none of her sons stood up for her when he hit her. It

showed they feared Cerdic more than they loved her.

 The youngest had come up to elfgiva later and was extremely mad at his father for

what he did and he could not accept it so elfgiva realized that he did still love her

a lot. He was 16

 The youngest, wistan, got in cerdics way and demanded to talk to him about

elfgiva but Cerdic push him aside but in his mind thought that that boy was the

best of the lot

 Wistan went to cerdic’s to-be wife and told her not to come because he wanted to

save his mother and she understood

 When Cerdic found out what wistan had done he whipped him but luckily wistan

fled before too much damage had been done

 Cerdic gave elfgiva another chance and said that if she got baptized now he

wouldn’t get a new wife but she refused and he was extremely mad

 Wistan begged for his mom to get baptized after what he had done for her.

 Ricola had come up with a plan to save elfgiva and she told offa about it

 The birthday of the Persian go mithras was also December 25 so people thought it

had been converted to the Christian god too.

 many former pagans went to the opening church day and the church appealed to

them because the bishop spoke anglo-saxon English when addressing them

  offa was fascinated by the service

 normal people could now have an afterlife with this new religion even if they

didn’t die in battle

 rood = cross. When the bishop told about Christ dying for our sins he was amazed

and felt “wonderful”

 after the service many people were being baptized and this was elfgiva’s chance.

She did not want to because it would be surrender to Cerdic but in her heart she

accepted the new religion and liked it

 the bishop(mellitus) would not baptize elfgiva until her heart accepted it. But he

did not know that it already had but she did not want to because she would be

surrendering to her husband.

 Ricola’s plan was to get Cerdic to pursue her and then when offa got elfgiva to

come outside to “help” ricola and see her with Cerdic and then elfgiva would get

the push she needed to pursue Cerdic

 The plan failed and elfgiva did not leave the feast to help ricola but eventually

Cerdic got her to come but elfgiva felt betrayed and thought that ricola was trying

to steal Cerdic.” If you wont have him others will”

 Elfgiva turned back to the feast and left them there. The ricola had to sleep with

Cerdic

 Now offa was starting to doubt this new god because not everything worked out

 It was later that elfgiva decided to take control of her marriage but since she felt

betrayed by her slaves that she decided to have them shipped off

 Ricola was pregnant with offa’s child

 Elfgiva was happy from being with her husband that she took pity on ricola and

her husband when she heard that she was pregnant

 She then set ricola and offa free to go wherever they wanted

 When elfgiva was baptized her name was changed from “gift of the fairies” to gift

of god (godiva)

 Every month or two offa and his several children would check the western mound

for the gold.