Almost noon local time. You did your
forty minutes of exercises and had a relaxing bath. Nothing from BookBaby so
you are thinking you misunderstood once again. – Amorella
1149 hours. I am but I’ve pestered
those people enough. Besides I am working on chapter three. I do need to set up
a genealogy from Criteria and Renaldo on. The original concept is to parallel
the Biblical traditional genealogy from Abraham to modern times. There is a set
of twins and one set of descendents end up in Ireland, Scotland and England and
the other line come up through Ancient Greece and into France. This is of
course excluding the possible genealogy of Jesus also coming up in either
France/England.
Since
Carol and I share a common grandfather from the eleventh or twelfth centuries
(probable though DNA research from Oxford for Carol’s Uncle John and myself)
then I thought I would set up the same for Robert/Richard and Connie/Cyndi. In
that they do not realize that they also share common great-plus grandparents. That
was the idea. So, specifically from Criteria and Renaldo I have to have the
generations at least accounted for and the Grandma stories from here on out are
ghost stories of incidents and connections in their bloodlines.
This
has a lot of detail in the first Merlyn series. Here is an example I find in
Grandma’s story 3 which I cannot use in this book. The trouble I am having is
taking a relevant incident here and setting it into less than 800 words. For me
this is a fun challenge it gives my mind something to do.
** **
A selection of Grandma 3 in near final draft from
Running Through parts of which may or may not be use in Grandma 3 of GMG.Two
This last dinner is taking place
on the first day of May in 679. We are as the air around the handsomely set oak table. This is
the last year they will all be together in at the Manor House. That’s the
reason I chose this time for story telling. The Soki is listening, but can’t see much from where he is.
The table is set with eighteen
people ready for the blessing. Lord Thomas sits at the north end of the table.
There are eight filled chairs on both sides and Lady Hilda sits at the south
end of the table. Sitting on Thomas’s right is Flora across from her is Jacob.
To the right of Flora and on down the west side of the table are Joseph, Sarah,
Daniel, Marion, Ruth, Tam, and Judah. On Lady Hilda right is Kirsten. On
Kirsten’s right and on up the east side of the table are Anne, Hendrie, Andrew,
Duncan, Niall, and Christina who is, of course also sitting next to Jacob.
The main point of this setting
arrangement is to bunch the children towards the center of the table where they
can be more easily observed. The most mischievous four are Daniel, Duncan,
Andrew and Marion. They assume they are the most special as they are on the
center sides of the table. Such is the humor of the adults.
There was plenty for eat and the
blessing was short. Honey-filled pastries were waiting for those who had not
had their fill during dinner. The household servants were considered freemen by
those on the Isles of Arran, and they worked five and one half days a week.
Everyone was on her or his own on Sunday. The Manor House had shared family
areas for the benefit of everyone living on the estate.
It was mandatory for those in the
household to learn to read and write. While these retainers were employed they
earned room and board as well as the insurance that their services were for
life. Their sons were responsible for the retainers and their children as if
they were kin. No one was treated unwell and no one went hungry on the Manor
estate of Lord Thomas and Lady Hilda. Their point of view, instilled by both
sets of parents, was that anyone could become as Merlyn the Bard. No one wrote
such things, as everyone understood the rules of household civility.
The aged Lord Thomas’s fist lightly hit the table. “I shall now give the
blessing for today’s special bounty,” he said.
“It is a singular bounty,” added forty-nine year old Jacob, sitting to
the direct right of his father on east side of the table.
“Singular is a good word,” responded his twin brother Judah at the
opposite end of the west side of the table to the left of Lady Hilda, his
mother.
Everyone laughed.
“Amen!” added Lord Thomas and that was that. The blessing was over. The
table had some guests sitting two in a chair from Thomas’ inward perspective.
The Dead sat a little higher than the Living so it was easy for his mind to
distinguish who was who. This is the way the table is, as it is on this Celtic
holiday, with the Dead family members also present.
Lord Thomas sits at the north end of the table. There are eight filled
chairs on both sides and Lady Hilda sits at the south end of the table. Sitting
on Thomas’s right, is Christina, Flora floats just above her. Across from
Christina is Jacob. To the right of Christina and on down the west side of the
table are Joseph, Sarah, Daniel, Marion, Ruth, Gladys, who is Andrew’s wife.
Tam floats just above her. Judah sits to the right of Gladys. On Lady Hilda
right is Christina’s husband, Mordred. Floating a head above Mordred is
Kirsten. On Mordred’s right and on up the east side of the table are Anne and
Mary, who is Niall’s wife. Hendrie floats just above her. Then Andrew, Duncan,
Niall, and Helena, Marion’s wife is sitting in Christina’s original chair. To
the right of Helena sits Jacob. Now that spirits, Living and Dead are noted we
can go on with the short conversation, at least an edited version.
Duncan, who was twenty-four and sitting on the fourth chair down from
his Uncle Jacob smiled at eighteen year old Daniel sitting directly across from
him. “He quietly said, as the food was being passed to the right, “Grandpa
never says the blessing, he always says he will say the blessing then Uncle Jacob
and my father come up with a response, and Grandpa says, ‘Amen.’ I have never
understood why they do that on these special occasions.”
Daniel’s dark brown eyes sparkled mischievously, “I think it is because
these holy days are not singular because they come about several times once a
year.”
“But the holy day is singular each time,” added twenty year old Sarah
sitting on the left of Daniel in the third chair on the west side of the table
from her grandfather Lord Thomas.
Jose, Sarah’s twenty-one year old cousin sitting on her left, only one
chair from his grandfather, whispered to Sarah, “My brother has no bounds of
logic. He still does not know his grammar as he should.” They both giggled.
“The children speak,” announced Lord Thomas as if he were giving a
command for them to speak when they had already just done so. Everyone laughed.
“We are your grandchildren,” commented Sarah ever so politely.
“You are? There is
not a one of you that is all that grand,” announced Lady Hilda at the other end
of the table. Everyone laughed.
This was the ritual
to begin conversation while passing food and beginning to eat. Scrumptious food
there was too. The table had six separate dishes for choosing, smorgasbord
chosen by Lord Thomas himself. He knew each personality had herorhis favorites.
Serving plate refills were added when needed by the younger retainers serving
from the kitchen.
The first dish is
goat’s cheese, olive oil, and rosemary with two small-trimmed fresh bread
loafs. The second dish is grilled rabbit surrounded by pieces of cheese with
mustard and small buttered oak cakes with garlic on the side. The third dish is
fried fillet of salmon with prawns and bacon and a garnish of watercress. The
fourth dish is a hearty meat stew, which is everyone’s favorite. The fifth dish
is fresh mussel with leak in butter and two added small fresh bread loafs. A
sixth dish is a ham from a good-sized pig of those days with the added
condiments of honey and mustard. Savory wines were also set for everyone’s
delight.
Lord Thomas took in
all the food and smiled with satisfaction. All was in order. He glanced at
Christina and quietly said, “This was a special day for your mother. We
celebrated this as her birthday because of the Roman festival of Floralia, the
gathering of flowers to honor the Spring goddess.”
Christina smiled
warmly, “I know Uncle Thomas. My mother was very special to you, and to me
too.” She glanced down the table to her husband, “Look at the poor man, you
know he’d rather be up here with me.”
“I think of your
mother often, Christina dear.” He paused, “Along with your father and your
husband too.” He wanted to go on with his story about how the Roman holiday
slid into the Celtic celebration of Beltane, a day of the Dead and the Faeries.
Faeries and flowers he thought, I wonder on the significance of the two,
particularly in light of the faery princess of my youth, the beautiful Flora.
Lord Thomas smiled instead and turned for a moment to speak to his older son,
Jacob. “It’s another Beltane’s,” he said with his confident smile.
Lord Thomas
listened to his son while thinking of family memories of this particular Celtic
day in May, . . . ‘the day after the thirtieth day of April, Beltaine’s Eve.
Long before, at Beltaine, Ireland the Partholonians had landed,’ his father had
told him. ‘They lived for three hundred years. The Parthonians were a people
who had battled the Fomhoire, the gods of cold, night, and death. The Fomhoire
were strange misshapen creatures, the forerunners of evil faeries, giants and
even Germanic trolls, that’s how the story was told the night before, then he
added the Celts slid in evil spirits and shades walking along lonely road, but
beware,’ his father would say, ‘of the crossroads. Up or down, all around,
crossroads are the key to what life was, what life is and what life will be.’
Looking south at the other
end of the table Thomas realized that when he saw Lady Hilda he was looking at
his other half, yet when he closed his right eye he could see a twin of that
half and Duncan a child of the other half of the twins. When he closed his left
eye he could see the other twin, Judah, and the children Jose and Daniel of
Jacob as well as Sarah the daughter of Judah between the two boys. He and Hilda
were one at the table and both were at the sides of the table too. These people
were interspersed with children of the original retainers who were in their
sixties. Christina the daughter of his favorite, Flora, was to his immediate
right, sitting exactly where Flora had sat, and in the same chair. At the other
end of the table, to Hilda’s immediate right was Mordred, the husband of
Christina who was sitting in the same chair Christina’s mother had sat in. Then
he thought, Christina and Mordred’s granddaughter is working in the kitchen and
serving us as we will serve her a pastry later.
Thomas glanced to
Mordred, who was sixty-six, and noted Anne, forty-six, the wife of Judah and
mother of Sarah and Duncan. Directly across from Anne, sitting where Tam used
to sit, was Andrew’s wife, sixty-three year old Gladys. Sitting to the left of
Gladys was Ruth, forty-four the wife of Jacob who was sitting on his right and
the mother of Jose and Daniel. Back across the table counter to Ruth sits
Niall’s wife Mary who is sixty-two. She is sitting in the chair Hendrie used to
sit in. and next to her on her right sits Andrew, the brother of Christina,
sixty-seven, the son of Hendrie and Flora, his favorite. Back, directly across
the table from Andrew sits Marion, sixty, the son of Tam and Kirsten and
brother of Niall aged sixty-four, who is sitting on the opposite side next to
Duncan and across from Sarah. To the right of Niall is Marion’s, his brother’s
wife, Helena who is fifty-eight and she is sitting in the chair Christina who
is sixty-five, used to sit in when her mother Flora sat to the right of me. We
are all here, free and bound at the same time.
Mother also sits where Hilda sits and
Father sits where I sit. We are all here at the table in shared bodies loaned
to us by God Almighty. I see myself torn asunder among blood and friends, yet I
am still whole as I sit. I am in many places at once around this table and in
the center among all this delicious food sits Merlyn who continually gives me
food for thought. We are but one square of a greater board. We are many and one
at the same time. E Pluribus Unum,
the reverse of what we are as in a mirror. Merlyn knew things and had an
understanding of what he knew. Lord Thomas grinned and blurted out to the
table, “This food smells just delicious.” Those are the last words he ever says
at the table. The rest of the time he just smiles and eats. That is how
everyone remembers Lord Thomas, who died peacefully in his sleep later that
night.
Lord Thomas’ death
was not unexpected, but it was a surprise the family did not expect. Tears were
not as abundant as one might have expected, but perhaps it was because Thomas
had lived a long and relatively untroubled life. In fact, Lady Hilda said at
the burial service that Thomas’ worst week of life was his first, and he didn’t
remember any of it but from what he had been told. Lady Hilda had great respect
for his parents, Renaldo the Presbyter and Criteria the Scholar. No one at the
Manor had ever heard her refer to either of Renaldo’s parents as Lord or Lady
either.
Hilda
never brought stability to the family, she brought emotion to Thomas. She paid
for this by staying away from him for the most part. Both lived under the same
roof and went about their own business. That’s the way it was in those days.
People did not marry for love or even for money. They married for land. Hilda
had wanted to live her life quietly on an island retreat away from the hubbub
of country life. She had been in one battle and had killed five people, three
men and two women. It was enough. Killing people is what she had in common with
Criteria. Criteria the Scholar was the force that drove her to Thomas. The two
women were of the same mind deep down, but they saw to it that nobody,
including their husbands, knew that. Both were tough cookies in those days,
both were made of oatmeal and nuts galore. Oatmeal looked pretty but if you bit
into either one you would find they would bite back hard without thinking
twice, sometimes without thinking at all. The men thought they were a little
nutty but kept it to themselves and let the women run the place. That is the
way it was. The rule was understood like many house rules were.
Grandma smiled her
soft and warm motherly look. ‘I didn’t have to be there in person, children,’
she said. ‘I picked it up from the retainers. They surmised much and kept their
mouths shut out of respect for the family. Besides, they knew where their
security came from, the men, Lord Renaldo and later Lord Thomas.’
The feudal way of
life was a farce, but everyone put up with it because it was a necessity. The
strange thing is that deep down, not a person of conscious in or near the Manor
estate believed a word of it, and the two of the strongest non-believers were
Lord Renaldo who passed this attitude down to his son Lord Thomas the Doubter.
That’s why the retainers were always treated as family. Everyone knew better
and in the privacy of the Manor house they lived better too.
Grandma
leaned against Merlyn’s stone as if it were a modern walker and pulled herself
up in a slow but determined Grandmotherly fashion. ‘Don’t let this fool you,
child,’ she said with more wind in her lungs that it appeared she had. ‘I’m
going to leave the Floater in the eye socket of that old skull so Soki can
continue listening. It’s a matter in being in tune with what’s going on besides
the usual music.
Almost a year has
gone by and Lord Jacob and Lady Ruth have taken over the running of the Manor
much to the delight of Lady Hilda, by the way. She’s packing, as it’s April.
Lord Judah and Lady Anne are taking Duncan and Sarah to live on one of her two
estates in North England. I’m not exactly sure of where it is other than it is
near Bradford which is about fifty miles southwest of York in Northumberland.
This is sheep country, and the estate and Manor Lord Judah is being given was
owned by Lady Hilda’s mother. Hilda’s mother was a tough cookie too, one who
kept her own land and defied her husband to claim it as his own because she had
married him. He never did.
All
of this had come as a shock to Lord and Lady Jacob of Arran who did not know
Lady Hilda owned any property at all. They had never even considered it nor had
anyone else. One day in March, she announced she was going to move home. This
was an affront to everyone, then, as if she had just had the thought, Lady Hilda
announced she was taking half of the home with her, Lord Judah and Lady Anne.
‘They can run the estate better than I can, besides, she muttered, ‘I hate
sheep, but wool is money and my children are going to have money so they can
live more freely.’
I
think Lady Hilda was way ahead of her time, noted Grandma, she understood that
land alone will not cut it. The sheep would keep the land trim for next to
nothing. Grass to wool. ‘It isn’t the Midas touch,’ she would jokingly say as
she was packing, ‘but it is close.’ Besides, if this doesn’t work out as
expected, thought Lady Hilda secretly, I can always sell the sheep and buy more
land.
From - Orndorff’s Running
Through, Chapter 3, “Grandma’s Story”
** **
Post, Amorella
Hate is common in the head;
Dreams are nourishment for the Living and
Dead
As
Merlyn’s staring pupils black and read
1242 hours.
Just like that in the blink of an eye, I narrowed Grandma 3 to 1132 words. Why
didn’t I see this earlier?
Your mind was too tight, boy. You suddenly
saw it with your heart and an echo of conformation from your soul. Drop it in
here and post – Amorella
** **
condensed to usable first draft form
Lord Thomas
listened to his son while thinking of family memories of this particular Celtic
day in May, . . . ‘the day after the thirtieth day of April, Beltaine’s Eve.
Long before, at Beltaine, Ireland the Partholonians had landed,’ his father had
told him. ‘They lived for three hundred years. The Parthonians were a people
who had battled the Fomhoire, the gods of cold, night, and death. The Fomhoire
were strange misshapen creatures, the forerunners of evil faeries, giants and
even Germanic trolls, that’s how the story was told the night before, then he
added the Celts slid in evil spirits and shades walking along lonely road, but
beware,’ his father would say, ‘of the crossroads. Up or down, all around,
crossroads are the key to what life was, what life is and what life will be.’
Looking south at the other
end of the table Thomas realized that when he saw Lady Hilda he was looking at
his other half, yet when he closed his right eye he could see a twin of that
half and Duncan a child of the other half of the twins. When he closed his left
eye he could see the other twin, Judah, and the children Jose and Daniel of
Jacob as well as Sarah the daughter of Judah between the two boys. He and Hilda
were one at the table and both were at the sides of the table too. These people
were interspersed with children of the original retainers who were in their
sixties. Christina the daughter of his favorite, Flora, was to his immediate
right, sitting exactly where Flora had sat, and in the same chair. At the other
end of the table, to Hilda’s immediate right was Mordred, the husband of
Christina who was sitting in the same chair Christina’s mother had sat in. Then
he thought, Christina and Mordred’s granddaughter is working in the kitchen and
serving us as we will serve her a pastry later.
Thomas glanced to
Mordred, who was sixty-six, and noted Anne, forty-six, the wife of Judah and
mother of Sarah and Duncan. Directly across from Anne, sitting where Tam used
to sit, was Andrew’s wife, sixty-three year old Gladys. Sitting to the left of
Gladys was Ruth, forty-four the wife of Jacob who was sitting on his right and
the mother of Jose and Daniel. Back across the table counter to Ruth sits
Niall’s wife Mary who is sixty-two. She is sitting in the chair Hendrie used to
sit in. and next to her on her right sits Andrew, the brother of Christina,
sixty-seven, the son of Hendrie and Flora, his favorite. Back, directly across
the table from Andrew sits Marion, sixty, the son of Tam and Kirsten and
brother of Niall aged sixty-four, who is sitting on the opposite side next to
Duncan and across from Sarah. To the right of Niall is Marion’s, his brother’s
wife, Helena who is fifty-eight and she is sitting in the chair Christina who
is sixty-five, used to sit in when her mother Flora sat to the right of me. We
are all here, free and bound at the same time.
Mother also sits where Hilda sits and Father sits where I
sit. We are all here at the table in shared bodies loaned to us by God
Almighty. I see myself torn asunder among blood and friends, yet I am still
whole as I sit. I am in many places at once around this table and in the center
among all this delicious food sits Merlyn who continually gives me food for
thought. We are but one square of a greater board. We are many and one at the
same time. E Pluribus Unum, the
reverse of what we are as in a mirror. Merlyn knew things and had an
understanding of what he knew. Lord Thomas grinned and blurted out to the
table, “This food smells just delicious.” Those are the last words he ever says
at the table. The rest of the time he just smiles and eats. That is how
everyone remembers Lord Thomas, who died peacefully in his sleep later that
night.
*
.
Almost a year has
gone by and Lord Jacob and Lady Ruth have taken over the running of the Manor
much to the delight of Lady Hilda, by the way. She’s packing, as it’s April.
Lord Judah and Lady Anne are taking Duncan and Sarah to live on one of her two
estates in North England. I’m not exactly sure of where it is other than it is
near Bradford which is about fifty miles southwest of York in Northumberland.
This is sheep country, and the estate and Manor Lord Judah is being given was
owned by Lady Hilda’s mother. Hilda’s mother was a tough cookie too, one who
kept her own land and defied her husband to claim it as his own because she had
married him. He never did.
All
of this had come as a shock to Lord and Lady Jacob of Arran who did not know
Lady Hilda owned any property at all. They had never even considered it nor had
anyone else. One day in March, she announced she was going to move home. This
was an affront to everyone, then, as if she had just had the thought, Lady Hilda
announced she was taking half of the home with her, Lord Judah and Lady Anne.
‘They can run the estate better than I can, besides, she muttered, ‘I hate
sheep, but wool is money and my children are going to have money so they can
live more freely.’
*
I
think Lady Hilda was way ahead of her time, noted Grandma, she understood that
land alone will not cut it. The sheep would keep the land trim for next to
nothing. Grass to wool. ‘It isn’t the Midas touch,’ she would jokingly say as
she was packing, ‘but it is close.’ Besides, if this doesn’t work out as
expected, thought Lady Hilda secretly, I can always sell the sheep and buy more
land.
Friendship provides humanity both nourishment and sustenance. Friends
connect and reconnect without a sense of time and place. Sometimes the
connection is through nothing more than a shared dream. Other times it is
solely through the connecting of twin hearts, a natural sharing of humanity.
Love rules or so it has been said
Hate is common in the head;
Friendship counts as with a ring
Marriage and family with security sing.
Love, Hate, Friendship, Marriage
Push the species’ baby carriage;
Reason in darkness truly reigns,
Romance is light in human brains.
Dreams are nourishment for the Living and
Dead
Braiding ancient Grandma’s earthly backbone
As
Merlyn’s staring pupils black and read
Reflect a future
dream from the back of his head
***
From above and the
concluding poem.
** **
Added at 2217 hours:
G4
Later,
orndorff. Post. - Amorella
1320
hours. BookBaby has sent the conversion of the GMG.One draft to ebook status.
This may take ten days, but it is not a bother.
Good. – Amorella
You
had an excellent though late shared lunch at Marx Bagels; now you are at the
far north lot of Pine Hill Lakes Park. Carol is on page one hundred of Dark
Horse by Tami Hoag. You are back to chapter three. –
Amorella
1751 hours. We stopped for a kid’s cup
Graeter’s on the way home. Arthritis is bad in both our hips so we had the car
seats on hot and the air on at the same time. We both feel better.
You also discovered the missing genealogy
files for the Merlyn series. Let’s go through what is important at this
juncture. – Amorella
Renaldo
574 -642; Criteria 562-634
Thomas 597-679; Hilda
605-?
Jacob
and Judah born in 630.
Jacob630;
Ruth635 Judah630; Anne633
Joseph658 Duncan655
Daniel661 Sarah659
1815
hours. At the time of Thomas’s death Jacob and Judah are 49. Jacob’s Ruth is 44
and Judah’s Anne is 46. Judah’s Duncan is 24 and Sarah is 20 // Jacob’s Joseph
is 21 and Daniel is 18.
Added at 2217 hours:
Duncan dies in Viking raids
Sarah marries Sarah married Robert of Tyne Forks
Land and sheep tells a good part of Sarah and Robert’s personal
relationship and not so lengthy marriage, probably more than you need to know. When Sarah’s parents moved back east with
her grandmother, she distanced herself from them and found a stronger alliance
with her Grandmother, this happened after they heard the news of the Viking
raids and the massacre of the family and free servants.
Had they not left at Grandmother’s insistence, they
would have been dead too. Her father, Judah, was devastated when he found his
twin had been murdered and their land taken.
G4
Joseph
marries ?
Daniel
marries Treasa
Sarah has a first cousin, or had one until recently. Daniel,
who was eighteen when they sat at the last meal of Lord Thomas. Daniel had sat
directly across from his favorite cousin
Daniel had been saved from the worst of the Viking raids by Christina
and Mordred’s granddaughter, Treasa, who had been in the kitchen making
pastries for the dinner that night of Lord Thomas’ death. Christina and Mordred
had a daughter Vanora, who was born in 0638. Vanora married Travis born in
0640. Vanora and Travis had Treasa in July, 0664. That’s the way the Official
Family Tree shows it in the early twenty-first century.
Daniel and Treasa live on the mainland now,
near the River Clyde and the Highlands. When they ran to escape the Vikings
Daniel remembered a story about how St. Columba had visited St. Mungo at the
old Roman river town later known as Glasgow, Scotland. A green place where two
saints meet has to be a place of good fortune is what Daniel and Treasa
thought. He had security with him that had been well hidden and buried on the
edge of the estate, but afraid to claim his lordship’s title, particularly upon
marrying Sweet Treasa as he had always titled her, he took their secret
cartable wealth to the town on the Clyde after the Vikings had left after the
death of Halfdan.
How they survived was a trail of
one white lie after another until there was so much gray no one knew the truth,
include Treasa and Daniel themselves. He had become a Viking by the name of
Frodi, the son of Fridleif and he had the papers of King Theodoric to prove it.
This was an ancient bloodline from three centuries earlier and it carried the
seal of a continental king. In actuality, at least in another family story,
Daniel was of royal ancestry because a great grandfather was a cousin through
marriage to Queen Hrethel, a Geat of South Sweden. He had a paper to show this
too, but although it had a royal notation, it was not the king’s. With wealth, it was relatively easy to
obtain a false document of Viking ancestry. His legal name becomes Frodisharg
when he added an ancient Swedish place name Harg after it.
Thus, Daniel became Frodisharg, husband with wyf, Vigdis, a name
originally meaning ‘war goddess’ and Treasa completed it with dottir for authenticity. The rest of
their lives Frodisharg and Vigdisdottir lived a complete fabrication but he had
honest work. As one who could read and write in several languages, he traded
the plundered church relics and made quite a name for himself in ancient
Glasgow. Along the way to further wealth, he discovered the family’s large oak
table, the one Merlyn had rested his real arms on. He kept it for himself and
his family. His relearned family stories always paralleled those of the ancient
Scandinavian sagas. With names from an old king’s document, he had no
trouble being an early capitalist long before people had any inkling of how it
would undermine feudalism. Frogisharg’s well-known family watchwords were: “It
pays to have knowledge, but first it pays to have wealth.” The words still ring
a bell in most any language in the world.
Survival was
personally harsh for Frodisharg, as he could not acknowledge he had a brother,
let alone a twin, who lived in Northumbria. To do so would destroy his family’s
reputation for zhonesty, and it might bring harm to both families. In those
days, one never knew what the local chief or king might bring. Better to hope
silently, which he did for the rest of his economically viable life. He also
managed to keep a few small important holy relics in a box hidden away in the
highlands. “Church security,” said Frodisharg, with a twisted bit of sardonic
humor he had picked up from his grandfather and grandmother.
When Frodisharg
mentioned church security to their
only surviving son, Taliesin, it sounded like the family had the crown jewels
of Scotland buried away in the hills. Taliesin married Grimildis of Rotterdam
whom he met at a trade fair. This little story has some honesty you would not expect from a capitalist following after his
father’s relic trading business.
G4
As he was about to say something important to his
son, Wilfred, who stood in fancy clothes near the front door of their
formidable yet modestly ornamented home Taliesin scratched his forehead and
said, “Heading home, eh?” he said.
“Yes, Father. I just stopped by for a moment. Mother
wanted me to take a secret family recipe to Daria.”
“How is the married life?”
“Good, Father. I do well because of you. Partnership
in the business strengthens the family fortunes.”
“Our greatest treasure is the old oak table.”
“Yes, it is,” said Wilfred.
“It is priceless, son. I expect you to never sell
it.”
Wilfred smiled politely, “It is your table Father,
not mine.”
“It is not my table. The table is a legacy in itself.
To sell the table, is to sell the family.” He pause into a deeper almost
emotional voice, “The table belonged to great grandfather, Lord Renaldo and to
your great grandmother, Lady Criteria in the six hundreds.”
“Lord and Lady,” frowned Wilfred. “We are Viking
blood, not English.”
“Your great-great-great grandfather, Lord Renaldo was
Spanish. Your great-great-great grandmother, Lady Criteria was Greek. They were
scholars for the Bishop of Rome of all people. Grandma Criteria’s Uncle
Theodoric was a King.”
“Your grandparents
lived a lie to save their lives and ours.”
“Do you have a record of this?” said Wilfred
matter-of-factly almost as though his father was talking about a relic to buy
or sell.
Taliesin did not bat a sardonic eye and said, “You are the record, son. Are you about to
sell yourself short?”
************************
Evening. You had scrambled eggs with fresh
tomatoes and veggies for supper. You and Carol watched “Murder in the First”
and “Major Crimes” as well as ABC News. You also placed the remaining Grandma
chapter segments in one document and made several copies. Also, put one in
iCloud. – Amorella
2131 hours. Thank you. I forgot about
iCloud. At least I have all the genealogical data as well as the stories in one
place for this book. I can root through it as the chapters come up. Feeling
much better about this tonight. The plan is to cut the names to only those
necessary to connect to book three. I can work on Grandma and genealogy book
three later or as I have time.
No comments:
Post a Comment