Fixing Fenrir

After I cleared my throat he addressed me thus: "Ah, brother, God's blessing it is you who has found me deep in thought and not some miscreant landed from the ships of Fergus mac Urnach." I asked if he waited on a hound which hunted in the forest, but he shook his troubled head. "Brother, do you remember last May eve when Odd Brynjarsson's raiders burned the old church, but one of his men we captured before the rogue put to sea again?"

This was hardly an event that I would soon forget. "And I also remember that the wretch was himself burned to death in imitation of his desecration of God's house," I said, hoping that reminding Eadric of this happy post-script to those events might cheer him. But still his brow remained furrowed. 

"The man was kept secure in my hall before his death," he said, "and I spoke at length with him." Oh, how like Eadric, this! "He felt no guilt or shame for his actions, but rather an impious pride. He told me that he gave no heed to the calamity that awaited his soul on death, as he gave a church as much importance as a milking parlour." Now it was my turn to scowl into the gloom, but Eadric continued. "He told me a great tale, about his gods and their fate, bound for destruction at the hands of a great wolf and a wyrm that encircles the earth." 

"Pagan nonsense, lord," I passed sentence with confidence, but Eadric was of a questing mind and not to be dissuaded by rhetoric when gripped by convoluted thoughts.

"Brother," he said and gestured to the darkness within the forest,"the world is vast and so little of it known. Can anyone say with a certainty what lies within the dark places of the earth? Are we so sure of ourselves that we can say what lurks in the waste places from which such men as Odd Brynjarsson hail?" 

As Eadric's confessor I had no desire to see his mind lead him into falsehoods or apostasy. I gave a silent thanks to God, therefore, for the cast-iron argument I had to dissuade him from his darkening thoughts. "Lord," I said, "such fantastic beasts as you speculate on do not exist, and I say this with absolute certainty. Our own abbot (God send aid for his debilitating pustulence) has calculated with some exactitude the precise and exact measurements of Noah's ark, and having done so we now know that the space afforded in that noble vessel was sufficient only for those creatures with which we are familiar - cattle, swine, deer and such like - and none other. So you see that it is an impossibility for giant wolves or wyrms to exist, as well as those fanciful creatures of the orient the gullible are apt to believe in, such as elephants and hippopotami." 

Eadric gave the matter some thought whilst staring at me. At last he rose and thanked me for my words and said that he was much comforted by them. I must admit I was not convinced by the sincerity of his response and fear still for him - speculations of this sort are not conducive to soundness and quietude of the mind - such peace can only by found in facts and logic."

I bought this giant wolf, sold by Bad Squiddo Games as Fenrir, the great wolf from Norse mythology. Although I spent quite a lot of time trying to get an authentic wolf-like colour scheme on the pelt I made the mistake of shading it afterwards with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink which basically made the whole thing go brown.

I tried to rescue it with drybrushing with only limited success, but at the time I just said, "fuck it," and moved on. However, Australian dark age enthusiast Jack Sarge did a smashing job on his wolves so I was inspired to do a bit of repainting. I painted in a more varied pelt colour and then shaded it with oil washes.

I think he looks a lot better now, but I'm not sure that he's really big enough to swallow Odin whole. 

Thegn Eadric command stand

When trying to recreate the world of St Gurnard's in 28mm tabletop games, there is an implied requirement to provide little metal and plastic (but mainly metal, right?) representations of all the many personages which Osbert's chronicle mentions. Some of these, like the Godwinson brothers and King Edward are well known to us, while others, such as Aeschild and Odd Brynjarsson, are unique in the historical record to Osbert's chronicle.

Someone who features frequently in Osbert's work is his lord, Thegn Eadric, to whom Osbert acted as confessor and in which role he encountered so many of the figures who influenced English history in the C11th. It might seem that having his name and his life so closely detailed might aid with the identification of the physical site of St Gurnard's and corroborate Osbert's narrative. Unfortunately, Eadric is a fairly common Anglo-Saxon name and so this has created more problems rather than less, as over the years different academics have proposed different sites for the Abbey, each fairly plausible but giving rise to many unpleasant scholarly feuds.

This command stand has been my usual tabletop representation of Eadric. He and his banner-bearer were created with leftover bits of Gripping Beast plastic kits. However, it seems to me that his helmet style is slightly out of date for an C11th Thegn who would probably be wearing the latest style of armour.

I've had this Crusader Miniatures version of Harold Godwinson knocking about for a while. I'm not sure about the historicity of the surcoat but I like the figures and it gives me the opportunity to have foot and mounted versions of Eadric. 

So, that's the plan. I will need to rustle up figures to carry his banner, of course. Osbert only mentions in passing that it consisted of a dragon's head so hopefully I can create one which is different enough to the one carried by the old figures that both can be used on the tabletop without confusion.

Who was Brother Osbert?

The earliest surviving manuscript of the history known as De Laude Proelia Anglici (In Praise of the Battles of the English) is currently housed in the library of Trinity College Dublin, and is supposed to be in the hand of the original author; slightly later copies, though in better condition, are in the collections of the Bodleian Library and British Library. 

A loose sheaf from the original Trinity College owned copy.

It details the events of the years immediately preceding the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, as observed by a monk of an abbey dedicated to a now obscure early British saint, Gurnard of Aldestow. It is a favourite among medievalists for the informal and gossipy tone of its text, and the many incidental and characterful details it supplies about the major players in the events leading up to the conquest.  

Its author is anonymous, although tradition ascribes it to a monk named Osbert who narrates his history largely in the first person, although he never names himself in the text. Similarly, the location of the abbey itself has proved difficult to pin down - the abbey does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, which suggests that it was dissolved in the two decades following the Norman invasion, or perhaps destroyed in its immediate aftermath as William the Conqueror sought to crush any English resistance to his rule. 

A recent exhibition of Trinity College's medieval treasures
which included the Osbert manuscript

The narrative of the text ends abruptly soon after the Battle of Hastings, when the English earl of the lands surrounding the abbey is replaced by a Norman adventurer named Guian de Caudebec. Interestingly, we know from the Gesta Francorum that an exiled Anglo-Norman knight called Amis de Caudebec was in the retinue of Bohemond of Taranto during the First Crusade, and died in the assault on Jerusalem in 1099. The family's connection with the holy land did not end there, as a Lanfranc de Caudebec was one of the nine founders of the Knights Templar, but was excommunicated in 1121 and is supposed to have then returned to his family's lands in England.

I first encountered Osbert's history while researching my MA in Dublin where the Trinity College copy is on display in the main library. There's an appealing incongruity between the scratchy, impatient Latin text and the fine binding it has acquired at some point in its history. 

The ornate, probably early Victorian, binding of the manuscript

Some years later, as a miniature wargamer, my interest in the content of the work was rekindled as a way to add some context to the Anglo-Saxon army I had begun collecting. Now, having gotten hold of the lovely old Penguin translation (sadly OOP at the time of writing) the plan is to use the Abbey of St Gurnard as the locus of a miniature recreation of England just prior to the fateful events of 1066....

God save you, noble Sir!

"...At the Abbey we are engaged in many works designed to glorify the name of God, but such are costly and our funds are slim. If only some lord, being both wealthy and pious, and seeking to gain the favour of God with his generosity, might act as our patron! Know you of any such, my lord...?"

Welcome to the abbey of St. Gurnard, a saint greatly venerated in C11th England but having fallen somewhat into obscurity in the centuries since. The abbey which housed his relics was once a great centre of pilgrimage, but this popularity, and rumours of its consequent riches, ensured it became a target for raiders of many persuasions – jealous Anglo-Saxon lords, pagan Northmen, untrustworthy Irish and sly Welsh – not to mention the odious Scotch. 

The exact location of the abbey, prey to attacks from over the Irish and the North seas both, the mountains of Cymru and the heathlands of Alba, is a subject which vexes historians and archaeologists of the present day, and many candidates have been proposed in the academic literature without firm conclusion. Perhaps, like Camelot, it more properly belongs to the world of legend....