Medieval Folk Tales for Children E-Book

Dave Tonge

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 125

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Come one, come all for a ride upon Dame Fortune's wheel! Join many a medieval character as some ride high on good luck, while others fall foul of greed, jealousy and anger. For in this book, storyteller Dave Tonge has adapted traditional tales of proud princes, discontented doctors, mean merchants, covetous cooks, heroic hounds and many more besides. Mixing them with morsels of history, Medieval Folk Tales for Children will give young readers a fair and fine flavour of the ups and downs of life from 500 to 1,000 years ago.

Leseprobe

For my friend, mentor and fellow yarnsmith,Stewart Alexander, and also all the otherstorytellers who have kept these stories aliveover the past 1,000 years.

First published 2020

The History Press97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,Gloucestershire GL50 3QBwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Dave Tonge, 2020

The right of Dave Tonge to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9445 3

Typesetting and origination by The History PressPrinted in Europe

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Thank Yous

About the Author

About the Illustrator

About this Book

1. Envy

Of Fire in the Fens

Of Medicine and Murder

Of Some Midwinter Magic

2. Gluttony

Of Birds and the Brothers Three

Of the Cow that Came Home

Of the Friar and the Fart

3. Lust

Of the Queen’s Clever Question

Of the Cook and the Crane

Of the Fake Flood

4. Sloth

Of a Lesson Learnt

Of the Rascal and the Rug

Of the Man with the Braying Backside

5. Pride

Of the Best of Blades

Of the Cock, the Crow and the Cunning Fox

Of the Nightingale that Knew All

6. Greed

Of the Youths who Dealt with Death

Of the Man who Stole Steam

Of the Old Woman who Learnt from a Lad

7. Wrath

Of the Man who Dealt with the Devil

Of the Wolf in the Well

Of the Knight who Grieved for his Greyhound

8. The End

Of the Rich Woman Buried in Boots

Glossary

Bibliography

Thank Yous

Big thank yous to Helen James for proofreading my work and to my young friends Tal Fee, Althea Broughton-Squire and Poppy Hall and their parents, Poppy and Curtis Fee, Su Squire and Alison Hurd for their expert opinions on children’s stories. Thanks also to Suzanne Arnold for her continued support and encouragement. And a very huge thank you to Kim Voisey for her marvellously medieval illustrations. Kimmy – you rock!

About the Author

Dave is a professional storyteller who travels all over England telling his tales. History was his favourite subject at school, so he thinks himself very lucky that he can dress up like a Saxon, medieval or Tudor storyteller and tell tales in ancient castles and at ruined medieval priories. The very first story he ever told was one adapted from The Canterbury Tales, a collection of medieval stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer. It’s a story about three foolish young men and Death and it’s included right here in his book.

About the Illustrator

Kim teaches art at City College Norwich. She loves the early mornings, her dog, Pilgrim, and also history, and based the illustrations for this book on ‘illuminated manuscripts’, meaning decorated medieval writings like the Luttrell and Macclesfield Psalters. They are religious books, yet most of the pictures used to decorate them are of people working on the land, drinking in alehouses, dancing to music and having fun. And Kim really loves to have fun!

About This Book

Welcome to my book of medieval folk tales. Before we get to the stories, I want you to imagine that I’m offering you a white feather, perhaps from a goose like the one pictured above. But what if I was to tell you that it was actually a feather from an angel’s wing; a religious relic, meaning an object with almost magical powers that could cure you of any illness and bring you good luck? Many of you would not believe me, yet if you had lived in medieval times most of you would, even paying me silver coins to buy the feather for yourselves. We live in a world of the internet and education, of knowledge of how the world works. We live in a time where death and disease are kept at bay by science and medicines, but medieval people were not so lucky. They could not expect to live as long as we do and often they died in horrible ways: from violent wars to deadly diseases like the Black Death. And so, by going to church and on pilgrimage to visit the tombs of godly saints and also by believing in religious relics like the angel’s feather, medieval people had some hope of a better life.

Their lives were ruled by religion and to break the Church’s rules was to commit a sin, bad behaviour that could send you to Purgatory when you died, a place where you would be terribly tortured, at least that’s what the Church said, long ago. Churchmen spoke of seven deadly sins – envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, pride, greed and wrath – and they found their way into many a folk tale. And know that these stories came in all different shapes and sizes when they were told by troubadours and jongleurs, the storytellers of long ago. Some were legends of the Celtic peoples who lived here before medieval times. Some of the stories came over to England after the Norman Conquest and were called ‘romances’ and ‘chansons de geste’, which is French for ‘songs of deeds’. They were long stories about brave knights, but there were also much shorter magical tales called ‘Breton lays’. Others were ‘fables’ about animals, which were sometimes used by the Church to teach people right from wrong. But medieval folk also enjoyed comic tales about farts and other rude things, called ‘fabliaux’ and ‘jests’, and I have included examples of all these different types of tales in my book.

Many of the stories were already old when they arrived here in medieval times. Ancient collections like The Seven Wise Masters came from faraway places like India and Persia. They were translated from foreign languages by monks and other learned medieval folk into new books like the Gesta Romanorum, which is Latin for The Deeds of the Romans. And during that time the stories changed, especially when medieval writers began mixing old tales together to make new ones. Two of the most famous writers to do this were Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales and the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron. Both Boccaccio and Chaucer used ‘framing narratives’, meaning big stories in which other tales were told. In Chaucer the frame story was about a group of pilgrims travelling to Canterbury to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket, taking it in turns to tell tales to entertain the others. In Boccaccio’s book the main story was about a group of young people who escaped to the hills above the city of Florence while the Black Death killed many below, and there they shared stories to pass the time. You can find out more about the medieval story collections I’ve used in the bibliography at the end of my book, and there is also a glossary that explains some of the older and more unusual words that I like to use in my tales. Think of it as a modern version of a knightly quest, a medieval adventure where you must seek out secret wisdom! Although not all the knowledge is hidden, for each chapter starts with a nugget of history about the medieval kings who ruled England. They were believed to have a God-given right to rule, but as you’ll see, they had just as many faults as the rest of us!

And so at last we are coming to the stories. Each of them ends with a rhyme, a reminder that many a medieval storyteller like Chaucer set down their stories in verse. Unlike Chaucer, I haven’t included a frame story with my collection, although there is nothing to stop you imagining that you are part of a bigger tale – perhaps listening to my stories as you ride out on a beautiful spring morning, the cool rains giving way to bright sunshine, while the buzz of busy bees about the blossom accompanies each tale. Or perhaps you would prefer to be relaxing with friends on an Italian hillside, lying in the dappled shade of some ancient twisted tree while gazing out over the warm red-tiled roofs and richly decorated churches of Florence. You might yearn to be in a faraway king’s sumptuous palace surrounded by rich lords and ladies dressed in fine furs and soft silks. Or maybe you would prefer the company of rough-hewn folk, the poorer people gathered together in the village alehouse enjoying good food and even better company, laughing their aches and ailments away for a while at least. Whatever your choice, know that the storyteller is about to tell the first of many tales and he starts as so many medieval troubadours did long ago… ‘Harken unto my words, listen and hold your tongues, for I have a tale to tell.’

When the Anglo-Saxon King of England, Edward the Confessor, died, he had no children of his own and so promised the throne of England to many rulers from other lands – from Harold Hardrada, King of Norway to Duke William of Normandy, his distant cousin. Yet it was Harold Godwinson, the most powerful of all Edward’s Saxon earls, who was envious of the power of kings and so took the throne for his own. But Duke William of Normandy also looked upon the riches of England with envious eyes and so attacked England, beating the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. And so it was that he became King William I of England and it is his rule that for me marks the beginning of the medieval period and the beginning of my book.

Envymeans to want something that someone else has so badly and to hate them because they have more than you. It was thought to be a very dangerous sin in medieval times, for it could lead to violence and even murder…

Of Fire in the Fens

There were many bold outlaws in medieval times, from Fulk Fitzwarin to Robin Hood. Yet a father to them all was Hereward the Wake. His story came first and, unlike Robin Hood, Hereward was a real man whose life became legend, a blending together of truth and lies… For once, in the fens of East Anglia long ago, there lived a Saxon called Hereward, who found fame for his wakeful, watchful ways. Some called him a hero, but others whispered that he was a base-born thief who was jealous of richer, more famous men. Even his own father was angered by Hereward’s evil behaviour and cast the boy from his halls.

But Hereward thrived upon the hatred of others, for he was full of rage and fire and sought only to prove that he was a brave and powerful man in the making. And so it was that he travelled to Northumbria, where he found fame slaying a giant bear, a man-eating bloodstained beast. Then he journeyed into Cornwall and did battle with a cruel tyrant called Rough Scab, a fine name don’t you think, my friends? Beating him in battle, Hereward took the tyrant’s sword and renamed it Brain-biter, a name that in time would make his many enemies quake.

Well, with so many heroic deeds to his name, it is not surprising that when the Norman duke, William, conquered this land, our sturdy hero was not here to fight against him. But when Hereward returned to these shores he grew angry at the greed of his new masters. Normans lorded it over all, stripping the land and the people of their wealth. In his own boyhood home Hereward watched as the new Norman abbot of St Peter’s Abbey demanded more tithes and taxes from the poor Saxons, a people who had no more to give. Hereward the Wake grew so angry that he gathered together a rebel gang, men like Leofric the Mower who was armed with a scythe, a curved blade normally used for cutting crops. And with his Saxon warriors Hereward attacked the abbey, stealing all that glittered and was gold; be it coin, candlestick or chalice, he took it all, claiming that he was keeping it from greedy, grasping Norman hands.

But our hero’s actions brought him no satisfaction, his deeds lay heavy upon the wakeful warrior. And on the night of the day that he had attacked the abbey the darkest of dreams rose up within Hereward, just as the chill damp mists rose up from the marshes that surrounded his fenland home. For in his sleep an old man came to Hereward, an old man with a bent back and a beard so long that it dusted the floor, while his face was lined by misery and woe. It was Saint Peter from the Heavens above and he was searching for all that our Saxon outlaw had stolen, crying out, ‘Why, Hereward? Why?’ Hereward awoke with a start, his mood as dark as the short and darkening days of the season, his heart as grey and grim as the grim and grey winter’s day breaking without. He realised that his fight was with the Normans and not with the saints in Heaven above.

Hereward ordered his men to return the abbey’s treasure and then mounted his horse, a swift mare called Swallow, and with his sword, Brain-biter, in his hand, the brave outlaw and his burly band came smashing and crashing out of the fenland fogs, falling upon carts loaded with Norman gold. And Brain-biter was true to its name, for the fens were stained red with Norman blood. For what could the Normans do? They were defeated by the Saxons’ homeland as ever they were by their swords and axes. The boggy fens swallowed Norman knights and horses whole and the Saxons were as slippery and elusive as any eel that swam in the rivers that snaked across their land. So too the Normans were fearful of the bogarts and other foul fenland fairies that dwelt in that dark foreboding place, cruel creatures who fed upon the fear of men.