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.