Loaf Eater

In which I mine my source material to unearth the building blocks of my short story.

The characters

On the day appointed the Lord Abbot and some of the most active and prudent monks, attended by the sturdiest loaf-eaters of the abbey, all well armed, set out on their journey to steal the body of the saint.

‘Loaf-eaters’ just jumped out at me. What the heck is a loaf eater? Let’s ask Professor Google.

Old English hlafæta "household servant," literally "loaf-eater."

In other news…

‘Old English hlaford (lord)… literally "one who guards the loaves," Compare hlafdige (lady) literally "bread-kneader".

Lo and behold. The world has ever been divided into makers and takers.

So, there’s my protagonist: a sturdy loaf-eater. Bonded to the Abbot of Ely. As a protagonist, his job is to change. I sense a simple arc: from loyal self-righteous certainty to doubt, dilemma, and previously unthinkable action.

The antagonist will be the avaricious Lord Abbot. He seems like a real piece of work. The Manor of East Dereham has been bestowed on the Abbey of Ely because the town has been put to fire and sword by the Danes. The inhabitants are traumatised. Their church is the heart of their community and it’s in ruins. They’re grateful that the Abbot has pledged to come and rebuild it. Instead he’s going to get them drunk and dispossess them of the one thing the Danes left untouched: the foundation of the community’s identity and economy. As an antagonist the Lord Abbot’s job is to not change: instead he has to double down so callously that he pushes our loaf-eater to reflect, question, then act.

Finally, I’m interested in how I can depict the body of the saint.

Although she had been dead nearly 300 years the virgin princess with all her clothing was as fresh as ever and her limbs flexible, and so bashful was she at being looked at by the men, that when one of the monks ventured to touch her flesh a rosy blush suffused her cheeks.

I suffer contrarian impulses, so the first thing I think when reading that miraculous account is “how old was she when she died?” The story of her life is scant, but she doesn’t seem to have died in the flower of her youth. Yet the passage above suggests a sleeping beauty in her mid-twenties. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, or too little, or all wrong. But I’m a playwright, so that’s my joy and privilege.

Notwithstanding this Withburga appears to have been neglected at Ely… the location of her tomb was eventually forgotten.

Something clearly happened to change the Ely people’s view of St. Withburga. At the start of this story, an armed gang of them are ready to risk life and limb to steal her body. Not long after that, so little value will be ascribed to it that she will be misplaced. This neglect manifested itself over the course of several hundred years, but I’m going to assert my artistic license to compress time.

Thanks history. And myth. And patchy memory. You’ve presented me with all the elements I need to have a lot of fun.

The style

I’ve just finished C.J. Sansom’s Tombland - about the 1549 peasant rebellion in and around Norwich. Sansom reminded me that I can paint a compelling picture of another era without using archaic language and sentence construction. In fact, that kind of cleverness can soak up a lot of writing time just to erect hurdles for readers. I consider the way my characters speak to be a translation. I’ll also have to find relatable ways to depict/translate values, concerns and a material world that are unfamiliar us, but ultimately easy to navigate thanks to that ever-constant: human nature. I reckon that’s why I get so much pleasure from reading and writing: it’s time travel and body swapping all rolled into one.

Now I’m off to wright this thing. I’ll publish the result as soon as it’s ready.

Arthur

Dereham, Norfolk.