Witch 1. Introducing Hælend and Wulf. A magic wood and lo, a picta damesel

A Celtic witch? One never knows. Ophelia by the Victorian pre-Raphaelite
painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). Credits

Manius Quinto sal.

[…] I can finally tell you my tower is close to the sea, **** miles from Londinium, **** miles from Venta Icenorum, reachable from the Antonini Itinerarium. Now you know where I am. Please send me the area maps. […]

It's not the only reason I am writing. Horrible (and marvellous) things have happened and I do not know where to start.

I went into the woods with Hælend, my medium sized but powerful steed that Wulf my German friend gave me as a gift to celebrate our friendship - an amazing Angle, Wulf, he's teaching me the Ænglisc ways and his absolute truthfulness of heart has given me animus to rebel against cruel Fortune: being trapped in an alien land, bereft of properties, of slaves (only two I have bought at the Ænglisc market), of real defence and, most of all, of Clelia's deep love and warm presence.

'O Fortuna, velut Luna, statu variabilis ..'
O Fortune, like the moon, you always change ..
Depiction of Fortune at a much later age

But as Lucius Annaeus Seneca teaches us:

Fortuna opes auferre, non animum, potest

[Fortune can rob our wealth but not our courage]

Boldness, yes. But how can I describe Hælend? Well, at first was I disappointed: our horses look so much better and she appeared even worse than most German steeds (such horrible yellowish colour!) but I was so surprised when I saw how she could endure any strain with ease and could compete with, and often win over, even the nobler Roman breeds (this big German clan I've been kinda absorbed into possesses a dozen beautiful Roman horses btw) and yet she's also so amazingly mild (and weird; should I hide that?)

I'll tell you. Having received a bad blow by a towering German during a few sword fight exercises - a deep bleeding cut was showing on my left arm -, Hælend came close to me and (Aesculapius!) much to the surprise of the onlookers (Wulf was absent) she started to lick my wound with her long (and rough) tongue: sweet Queen of heaven I cried when I saw the wound healed in just two days!!

I digressed.

Roman soldier in colder climates

So while getting deep into the forest in search of game but armoured in the Roman way like I always do when I explore territory or hunt (one never knows), with Hælend scrutinizing the terrain with her non human senses – were she a woman she'd certainly be a Sibyl but I prefer her as my horse frankly, I had too many domineering sisters.

I was wearing a Roman helmet with a wolf's skin on top, German bow and arrows, my favourite gladius Hector, a pilum (or javelin) in my left hand plus two strange dogs Marius and Caesar (though adorable and surely Diana's favourites) which I bought from a very old & rich German woman being carried on her lectica, or litter, by 4 young and good-looking slaves of dubious race.

By the way - another digression - I was hit by her face, that was so wrinkled I couldn't see her eyes, and by a pair of showy gilded brooches she wore that fastened her embroidered wool tunic, with strings of beads hanging between them - an ornament oh you'll agree Quintus an Italian, Gallic or Romano British woman would never wear but that gave her this, hard to say, 'new look' I found attractive after all, kind of 'new British' you know.

It's as if this emerald island were perhaps timidly finding her own ...

Enough. I do hate this place.

Alglo-Saxon gilded saucer brooches "worn in pairs
at the shoulder to fasten a dress, often with
strings of beads hanging between them."
British museum (credits & explanation)

As I was saying, it's hard to tell how we got into a very incomprehensible place.

I mean while advancing forward in such beautiful wetlands rich with birds, eagles and wolves I began to realize the landscape was slowly changing and getting perceptibly moisture-less. It had basically turned into a weird wood which much to my surprise couldn't be too far from where my tower is located.

Moreover I vaguely felt the place familiar but also odd: shrieks were all around from crazy night birds - but it was day time Quintus!
 
And then I felt it.

["What the hell did you feel" - I'm sure you'll ask.]

Deep forest. Click for attribution

OK. I felt the magic of a new world that was familiar and strange as I said since unordered and yet almost invisibly arranged by some crazy intelligence - a bit like what is more evidently displayed in our Italian gardens, that reflect the arrangement of mathematical reason.

Trees plants flowers of many sorts with their colours and exhilarant perfumes (voluptuous spring was radiating her magic ...) and butterflies, insects, animals flying and jumping about, both night and day creatures all awake as if nature had confused her laws Virgo mea!

But this is not the point, friend.

["What on earth is the point now", you'll again ask you having always been the stereotyped practical Roman]

Well, the point being that this area showed, more distinctly than any landscape, to possess a soul. I clearly felt such place's divinity, id est plants, huge trees and living things all formed like a savage, and yet not unordered, world exuding a primeval anima or vital force that awesome Greek minds identified with the eternal and intoxicating goat-horned, goat-legged numen Πάν (now dead as they said) and old days' rustic Romans with Faunus (dead too).

Pan and Daphnis. Goat-horned, goat-legged deities were
many (male, female and unfortunately children).
Very unconventional they were, not far from Satyrs

I then couldn't but kneel down and whisper our Celtic bard Virgil's sacred verses:

Tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra

formosam resonare doces
Amaryllida silvas

[You sit careless in the shade, o Tityrus,
and 'Amaryllis!'
(woods-wandering enchantress
& flute player),
you bid the woods resound]

Ah but I had to wake up from my dream since Hælend started to get very nervous. What was the matter?

We turned around and … the dogs were gone! Such gifted animals, can you believe that?

Vanished.

Why these premonitions? Which envious god desired to whack me?

My life was, is miserable. I live like a savage while I had properties & thousands of slaves. Now I dwell in a lousy tower and possess just two young women I bought from the Germani - not at all bad, right - but the one with exotic almond eyes is so small and half dead I have in truth only one and a half.

Along the left, longer side of such space - an almost perfect rectangle - there she appeared in my sight:

A beautiful woman standing on the green grass with glowing red hair, her skin white and so amazingly pale as a moon creature - something so exotic for a Roman.

Her flesh colour even paler than the German women's, she was wearing an equally pale wool tunica with a majestic white horse behind her (of Roman breed no doubt), calmly grazing the beautifully green grass, the princely animal's coat having the same incomprehensible pale snow colour.

I recognized her immediately.

This woman Manius had first met.
Why now she looks like a damsel?

It was that picta who had scared the hell out of me near my tower and was now disguised (very poorly I thought) as a lady.

Disguised as a lady? The idea railed me and I thought such savage needed a good lesson from a civilized son of Rome.

Yes, it was time for some revenge and fun why not?

You know Quintus this ancient grudge that Celtic - how can you know damn, you're 100% Roman - or half Celtic (especially from the West Alps) Romans such as I am - have, vis-à-vis Picts and Caledonii so darn allergic to Romanization.

A Roman slave auction as imagined by Jean Léon Gérome (c.1884). Enlarge

I recall this Caledonian slave locked in a cage at a slave auction in Augusta Taurinorum: a nice open air square surrounded by our white and monumental peaks all around. Her cage had been placed on a wooden platform, her attractive body all bluish from paint and tattoos.

Out of curiosity I got closer in order to touch her strange hair but she bit my hand fiercely.

Her master wanted to flog her publicly to set an example but although I gave him a few coins (to stop that, she was just a savage after all) I seldom forget when people hurt me.

Did she hurt me deeply? Well, OK, whatever my reasons in any case I definitely felt the beautifully pale lady needed punishment, Quintus, I don't know why.

Light punishment perhaps, I am not a bad man, all I needed, I now imagine, was just some relief from all the sorrows that plagued my heart.

ψ

I therefore advanced in her direction.