6: ALCUIN WRITES TO TETTA *
Translator's Note: Chapters marked with an asterix (*) are not part of the original Old Norse manuscript of Berserk Revenge: A Norse Saga. These extraneous chapters consist mainly of correspondence between Abbess Tetta (the head of England's doomed Lindisfarne nunnery) and Bishop Alcuin (an English missionary in Germany, also Tetta's spiritual advisor). This material has been added to the saga because it offers a rare first-hand view of Halfdan's later activities, as described by a foreign witness.
June 1, Year of Our Lord 792
To the wise virgin and best-loved lady, the Abbess Tetta, and all of the other sisters in Christ on the Blessed island of Lindisfarne:
Alcuin, a most unworthy servant of God, the Bishop and Legate of the Roman Church to Germany, sends you his heartfelt greetings in Christ.
I am ever-mindful of your most sweet friendship, with which you most kindly received me long ago with all joy. I have never forgotten those summer days in York, when you and I and your brother worked side-by-side on Holy projects there; I always remember the wisdom of your mind, the gentle music of your endless prayers, and your obvious purity. Greatly as I then was glad in your presence, so greatly do I now suffer in your absence.
I beg my gracious lady not to be offended by my lateness in sending a personal letter to you, in reply to your last learned letter, which I received long ago. This delay was owing to my great preoccupation with the restoration of the churches burned by the pagan Germans still infesting our parishes and cloisters. Despite our educational efforts, and the military support of King Charlemagne, the misguided pagans of Germany have recently pillaged and burned more than thirty churches. It was this disaster, not forgetfulness or change of feelings, which delayed my writing to you sooner.
Despite the local unrest, God has recently also brought good fortune to our Holy Mission. The pagan German petty-king Rothbod, who once dared to hold myself as a captive when I tried to bring Holy Truth to his blighted province, is dead. I am told that while this dissolute man-fiend sat feasting amidst his filthy and illiterate nobles, the same evil spirit which had seduced him into defying the law of God suddenly struck him with madness, so that still in his sins, without repentance or confession, raving mad, gibbering with demons and cursing the Priests of God, he fell forward, into his half-eaten meal, and departed from life to the torments of hell; where Rothbod will witness in horror, as described in Scripture, the very bowels of the earth; millions of fiery pits vomiting terrible flames and, as the foul fires rise, the souls of wretched men clinging to the edges of the pits, wailing and howling and shrieking with pitiful cries, mourning their past deeds and present agonies; until they fall screaming into the pits, there to regret their errors forever.
The German people are still extremely fickle and unfaithful. Uncountable numbers of Germans who chose Baptism after the war have -- now that most of the King Charlemagne's soldiers have been sent elsewhere -- shamelessly returned to their idols and druids and sacrifices. What a loss of souls for the Church, if we fail to re-convert them!
I have been commanded by His Holiness and Supreme Patriarch, our beloved Pope Hadrian, to suppress all human sacrifices in this dark land. Incredibly, there are Germans who claim to be Christians, who took Baptism and attend Church services, who have renounced human sacrifice -- but who see nothing wrong with selling slaves to pagan druids, knowing full well that these slaves are to be drowned by the evil druids in a dirty swamp to praise false gods!
I confess that I still do not understand many of the German customs. Some Germans refrain from eating ordinary foods which God created for our meals; other live on milk and honey alone, I hear. Such is the culinary depravity of the Germans, that I have also been commanded by His Holiness to suppress the eating of wild and tame horses in Germany. His Holiness, in one of his frequent letters to his most humble and undeserving of lowly servants, called horse-eating "a filthy and abominable custom" and demanded I suppress it, as of course I am zealous to do. King Charlemagne -- an avid equestrian who, alas, is more often seated on a saddle than a church pew -- also supports the ban on eating horse-meat.
After so many long years living among these rude and savage Germans, I am sore at heart with longing for my native land of England, and our familiar traditions. Sometimes I dream of English food! A pastry baked in the true English way -- stuffed with parsnips and pork-bits, the crust nicely browned -- is, to an Englishman living where nobody cooks properly, a subject of longing and fantasy!
Though I am but poorly equipped as a teacher, yet I try to be the most devoted of them all, as you yourself well know. Be mindful of my devotion and take pity on an ancient man worn out by troubles in this barbaric land. Support me by your prayers to God, and help me by supplying me with the Sacred Writings. May I be so bold as to beg of you to send me the copy of The Universal History Against the Pagans by Orosius, which Winbert, of revered memory, my former Abbott and teacher, left to your library when he departed this life? A copy of The Universal History Against the Pagans, such as I need, cannot be procured in this book-poor country, because with my failing eyesight it is impossible for me to read small, abbreviated script. I ask for Winbert's copy because I know that Winbert wrote each letter and each word clearly and separately. His copy will greatly help my teaching-work here, as it proves by example and by logic that the world before Christ's Coming was full of calamities and woe and tyranny, and that the supremacy of the Church has brought wealth and peace and justice to those who truly love Him. Should God inspire you to do this for me, no greater comfort could be given me in my ancient age, nor could you earn any greater reward.
Sister Tetta, I beg you -- nay, I command you -- to write to me soon, in rich detail, telling me of life at Lindisfarne. I have not been to that Blessed island since your election as Abbess -- when you became "a virgin mother of virgins" -- and am curious as to what has changed at your convent, and what remains as I remember. I am also curious to read news of our lovely but trouble-filled kingdom of Northumbria, and also of the other English kingdoms. Any news is welcome, especially regarding my home-town of York; a place I miss almost as painfully as I miss you.
Meanwhile, I pray earnestly that you will remember -- as I remember well -- your ancient promise to constantly pray for me, so that the Lord, who is the Redeemer and Saviour of us all, may rescue my soul from so many threatening dangers. Pray strenuously, therefore, to the merciful defender of our lives, the only refuge of the afflicted, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world, to keep me safe from harm with His sheltering right hand as I go among the dens of wolves; that, when my loins are girded as if for battle, the Father all-merciful may place a blazing torch of Truth in my hand to enlighten the hearts of the pagans to the glory of Christ. And I pray also that you may be pleased to pray for those pagans put under my authority by the wisdom of His Holiness, that the Saviour of the world may see fit to rescue them from human sacrifices and the worship of vile idols; joining them to the daughters and sons of the only true Faith, to the praise and glory of Him whose will it is that all men shall be saved and shall come to the Truth.
My dear sister, implore God with clear and incessant prayers -- as I trust that you do now, and as you have done since we last saw each other, and will continue to do, unceasingly -- that I, lover of Christ and teacher of Most Holy Scripture, may be delivered, in the words of the Apostle, "from unreasonable and wicked men," who are so prevalent here. Please, pray to the Lord God, who is the refuge of the weak and the hope of the wretched, to shield my eyes from the temptations of this passing, wicked world.
Farewell i
n Christ.
Alcuin