Grendel and Beowulf
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Grendel Wolde 1513, which is the dreadfulla storeye of the ambush of the deceitefulle and godless Urners against the truie, faithfulla and godloving people of Grendel Wolde
(from a village church chronicle)
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Tinu shifted uneasily on the small ledge and pulled the fur closer around himself.
Why am I sitting here? he asked himself, not for the first time on this cold winter morning. He was way too old for this and could have left it to younger men. Maybe because it made him feel useful. The wind was whistling in the rock crack above them and blew snow into his eyes. It was very cold, even for mid-winter and snow had fallen the last three nights. It had stopped now, but the paths were very difficult even for the most determined travellers. More than knee-deep new snow on top of the thick layer that had been there already.
Not a good day for a foray into hardly known hostile territory. The Urners would not come. Not today. No reason therefore for his companion and him to sit on this tiny rock ledge in the cliff above the valley. Nevertheless, he kept on starring into the valley behind the mountain pass from where the Urners had to come when they came, because that they would come one day, there was no doubt possible for Tinu. The white heap next to him moved, a scrubby head stuck out of the sheep skins powdered over with snow.
‘Ugh, I hate Urners,’ mumbled, scratching his head and turning to Tinu. ‘They will not come. Not with the snow and all.’
‘Be glad for it,’ the older one replied and pulled his wolf fur tighter around his shoulders, ‘no one wants this fight.’
The other had turned his attention again to the divide between the two valleys, separating two daleships, two bishoprics and two hostile peoples. His eyes followed the rock ledge on the edge of which they sat. The Guardians of the Valley.
The ledge widened further down, then met a steep scree that ended at a very dense forest, the Grendel Wolde, that protected the village from the frequent lowina, rock avalanches. Behind the forest were the first houses of the village that carried the same name as the forrest protecting it. He could see from their vantage point high above the valley that the first villagers moved around to begin their daily chores. It would soon be time for him to go down.
‘I want to kill as many of the bastards as I can. Bloody sheep fuckers they are, ungodly and deceitful all of them.’
Tinu sighed. Hannes had never even seen an Urner in his life, he had never been out of the valley and Urners did not come here. Sometimes the ramblings of young men angered him. Like wild dogs, really, he thought. Once you set them against each other, they only wanted to fight and forgot all around them. He envied them for their vigour, but their lack of brains was frightening.
His nephew, Dres, was a little better and the other men of the daleship council, as were some others of their age. They had learned to think and to decide when to pick a fight, at least on good days. But Dres was old as well. Not as old as Tinu, certainly. No one was that old anyway.
The oldest men died the latest one or two hands of years younger than Tinu, and most before, most often blind or deaf and crippled by gout. He had none of these ailments, and even though he could no longer run like a young man or match their strength, he was in better physical shape than men a generation younger than him.
Rumours had started a year or two ago that God did not want to take him home to Heavens for a sin he had committed. That God keept him alive and well, and among the living of the mountain goat people in the Grendel Wolde valley.
He brushed away some snow that had gathered on his blanket. The wolf fur kept him dry and warm, but he did not want it to ice over if the snow melted from his body warmth underneath. He shuddered under the fur as the icy mountain wind blew along the cliff face.
Tinu did not know why he had not aged at the same pace others did. He was not aware of any particular sin he had commited. He was certainly not a saint, but he had tried not to break the most important ones of God’s commandements, and the priest had absolved him from the sins he had nevertheless committed.
He knew from where the rumour probably had come. They were all of the same daleship, the daleship of the mountain goat of Grendel Wolde, which united them against the Urners. But other things divided them. The valley community or daleship consisted of several alps, the slopes surrounding the valley, and the grazing and watering rights were organised by alpships, co-operatives into which one was born. The alpships in the valley fought each other for grazing rights and water, here a stolen cow, there a watering through on a remote alp smashed at night, occasional fist fights.
What he knew for certain was that it must have been a Boume or an Abegg who had started the rumours. The Koufme usually tried to keep out of the quarrels in the valley. And it was unthinkable that someone of his own clan, the ‘nderegg, had spread the rumours. So it must have been a Boume or an Abegg. Probably a Boume, there was more than one reason why they did not like him. Old stories, the reasons and circumstances long forgotten, only the grudge and the hostility remained.
‘It was us who raided them first. A handful of summers ago,’ he said to the younger man.
‘It was god’s will that we fought these godless creatures.’
A sharp remark burned Tinu’s lips, but he was wise enough not to say it aloud. Something along the lines of that it had been the priest who had said that it was God’s will. And that it had been the Abbot of the cloister between the lakes, their lord, who had allegedly told the priest about God’s will.
Tinu did not think he knew god’s will better than the abbott, who probably was a very saintly man if God made him the master over the stone cloister between the lakes, and therewith over the valleys and their inhabitants. But he had been once over the montain pass that they were watching and into the next valley. From the next mountain ridge, he had looked into a valley that belonged to some Urner people. He had seen a church, and he had heard a bell. They did not have a bell in the Grendel Wolde church, but he knew what a bell sounded like and only churches could afford them.
‘All creatures are god’s creatures,’ he said rather lamely, and to strenghten the statement just a little, ‘and the Urners believe in god as well.’ The answer was as swift as it was shortsighted:
‘No they don’t, otherwise the abbott would not have told us to attack them sheep fuckers.’ The young man smiled at him triumphantly, then turned away again.
Tinu sighed inwardly. Young men really believed anything they were told. He had heard that abbots fought each other pretendeing the other one was a heretic, just as daleships fought each other, or alpships fougth among each other.
He had also heard strange stories about the Urners and two other daleships further North. They did not want to serve an overlord anymore, had killed the reeves, killed or chased away their men-at-arms and had declared themselves free. Tinu shook his head about such wild stories. Surely, not even the Urners and their northern neighbours could be so crazy.
Normal folk without a lord? That was obviously against the god-willed order of things, Tinu could not believe such folly. Since when could the folk be free, without a landlord to protect them. The next thing would be to live without the guidance and protection of Holy Mother Church.
He shook his head, snorting. Lunacy! Whisperings from the Horned One. He hastily crossed himself to ward off evil.
He could not help thinking that the order of the abbot to foray into the Urners’ lands had more to do with the rebellion of the Urners than that the Urners did no longer serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ther
e had been rumours of a battle of the Oath-Companions (as the Urners and the other revolters seemed to call themselves) against an army of knights, and that the Oath-Companions had won. Now this was an obvious lie, spread by the Urners to frighten their enemies. Since when could the folk stand against knights. God would not stand on the side of folk defying his will.
In any case, it was clear to him that his mountain goat people had attacked the Urners first and that they would retaliate. Maybe this winter, maybe next summer, and until then, there would always be a Guardian of the Valley on watch. He also knew that it was their own fault even if the Abbot had told them to do it. But he also knew that this thought was too complicated for the young man. Hannes preferred to hate the Urners as this was God’s will, the will expressed by the priest.
After another sweeping glance along the ridge line of mountain pass and the valley beyond it,where there was nothing but virgin snow, he shook the snow from his fur and stood up, careful not to slip and fall from the ledge into the depth.
‘I will go down now,r’ he mumbled with cold stiff lips. Hannes briefly looked over at him, nodded and stared at the ridge again. „Stay vigilant. And whatever you do, don’t close your eyes.’
‘Stay alert,’ he repeated once more. The younger man flashed him an angry glance from under his bushy eyebrows. Tinu sighed exasperatedly and turned to climb down the long way into the valley, where later this morning mass would be held.
It had begun very shortly after the ‘Credo’ in the middle of mass. The whole parish had murmured the syllables they all had learned by heart and of which they understood nothing than that they were important and were supposed to express their creed.
At first, there had been a red glow behind one of the small windows made of thin-scraped leather. The window was not very big and it was high up in the wall. But against the dull grey light of the winter morning, the yellowish-red was clearly visible. One of the Boume had seen it first, as they stood together opposite the wall with the window.
One of them had seen it, gasped and indicated at the window. The whole parish had turned around to see what it was the Boume had seen. The colour could only mean that there was fire. One of the houses must have caught fire from the embers that were still in the hearth. It was then that they had also heard a scream and shouting, the bleating of sheep and some small bell that they knew hung on the neck of the bellwether. And loud, strong voices. Men’s voices.
The whole parish was in the church, except for the Guardian on the cliff ledge. And then it had dawned on them: the Urners had come. They had sneaked into the valley despite the snow storm and had ambushed the Grendel Wolde village. These godless heathens had come on a sunday morning where the godloving people of the mountain goat tribe were at mass.
There was an uproar, much loader than the noise now heard outside of the church, the men were fuming and several were running towards the heavy oaken doors to defend their village against the pillagers, to smother the flames and save from the fire whatever they could, when the voice of the priest was heard, cracking above the din like a whip:
‘CURSED THE ONE who leaves the House of the Lord where the table is set, only to run after worldly goods!’ The men, some of them had nearly reached the oaken doors, hesitated, looked back in disbelief. ‘CURSED THE ONE,’ shouted the priest once more and pointed at them.
Some of them, notably the young ‘nderegg and Boume men considered to continue. But a look at the frightened faces of their women and the wiser of the older men stopped them in their tracks. Killing and being killed by Urners was one thing. Everybody wanted to kill Urners and stay alive if possible. But being cursed by the priest was something else altogether. The wrath of the Urners, they could live with. The wrath of God was nothing anybody of them wanted to face.
They led a hard life, their houses were small and their sheep were not fat. They defended their belongings when they could. But not at the cost of burning in Hell. Grumbling, they turned around and stood again on their places, shooting glances full of hate at the priest in his black cassock tight over his fat body, who began chanting again and proceeded with his litany.
It took the priest a long time, a very long time. Longer then ever before or after it felt to the folk of Grendel Wolde until he had finished his chanting, before he had broken the Lord’s body, had drunk the Lord’s blood and given the blessing. Only then were they free to rush out into the cold winter air while the women and children stayed in the church just in case that the Urners had not gone.
But gone they were. They had left behind two burned houses, the ancestral homes of the Boume and Abegg elders, they had stolen food, some copper cauldrons which were precious properties and little else from the houses. There was little else to steal. They had also driven away a good part of the sheep of the upper village, but the time had not been sufficient to also raid stables in the lower parts of the village. The Urners had been very audacious, but not foolhardy and it would be a very hard winter in the valley. Maybe they would have to ask the cloister for food even if that meant still higher tithes for the years to come.
The men grabbed whatever was available, knives, pitchforks, sickles, clubs, some were empty-handed as they ran up the hill following the deep tracks in the snow. They were furious, and they were afraid.
Afraid of the Urners, but even more afraid of a spring that would come and they would eat limp winter grass and tree bark. They would cook old sheep skins and leather belts to have at least something like a soup. Where some old people, and small children and their mothers, exhausted from childbirth would die of hunger, and where the young and strong would wait helplessly for the first fruit to grow, and the first green to sprout. Not vegetables, but just any sort of green they would devour. For live was hard in Grendel Wolde, even when they had collected foodstuff in summer and autumn. As it was now, things looked grim.
And so they sallied out of the church and up the mountain side in the hope that the Urners were slowed down by the sacks of food and the herd of sheep they drove before them through the deep snow.
Tinu knew better than to follow them. He was too old to be of any use, too slow on his feet. The Urners had a big headstart, at least the time it takes to prey three rosaries, maybe four. They were probably halfway to the pass summit by now, and even if it was possible to pursue them beyond the pass, the farther the men went, the more risky it got. Behind the pass were Urner lands. If it came to a fight there, the people there would help the Urners, as they were Urners themselves.
Instead of running towards the pass with the others, Tinu hasted through the Grendel Wolde forrest and scrambled up the scree. The heavy club he had with him made him fall several times. But it was better to have some bruises and scrathces than to meet a Urner straggler emptyhanded.
He was worried what he would find on the rock ledge. No Hannes, taken away by the enemy or a dead Hannes below the ledge in the rocks. But his suspicion was another one.
When he reached the ledge, he thought they had taken him with them. But approaching, he saw something move slightly, a deep moan. And there was Hannes, sunken down from his sitting position. His sheep skins were gone, he lay in the snow only in his shirt and breeches and he seemed unconcious.
Tinu carefull searched the environment, but could not see anybody else and approached the younger man. He had a bad wound at the back of his head, probably from a club, his skin was ghastly pale with a blueish hue from the cold, he was unconcious, but seemed otherwise
in order. It is as I have thought, as I have warned him before leaving, thought Tinu.
Quickly, he grabbed the younger man’s arm, pulled him along the ledge and a few steps into the gravel of the cree towards the village. He took off one of the sheep skins he wore and wrapped it around Hannes, then took his club and gave the unconcious man a good beating, not to hard, careful not to break any bones, but he would have some ugly bruises to show. Then he turned around and swiftly went back to the village.
When the men would come back from their pursuit they would wonder what had happened to the Guardian, why he had not warned the village. A Guardian knocked out while asleep on duty would be driven out of the village and banished from it. An outnumbered figther on guard duty knocked inconcious by the enemy would have a hard time, but he still had a place in the village if they found him before he froze to death.
It was the only thing Tinu could do for his kinsman.
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