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.

Manius found. A ship sailing towards Albien. Massimo in the Subura

Salita Dei Borgia. Subura. Rome.
Click here for credits

It's time to confess that he who is writing conceals (and shares) within his soul the Genius of Manius Papirius Lentulus. What is a Genius? It is the numinous every ancient Roman harbours in his soul (a woman has the Juno), a bit like a guardian spirit or what the Christians since Manius' time will soon call a guardian angel.

Names may change, but basically ...

ψ

Hey, how the heck can a Genius be shared by both a 62-years-old man of today and an ancient Roman soldier of 35 trapped in ancient Britain?
(and, what’s more, living in a parallel universe even if almost identical to ours?)

Hey, why the heck do you people think I know.

ψ

Giorgio, he who is writing, has had that horrible dream again last night.

In the subsequent evening he is phoning Massimo, a black-haired 33-year-old athletic Roman, once an excellent soccer player and Giorgio's former pupil (and now friend).

Massimo, dumped by his wife (and not holding together much since then) has moved to a small flat in Monti, Rome, a rione corresponding more or less to ancient Subura, the slum district of ancient Rome, (in)famous for its dubious tabernae, brothels and gangs [more on Subura here].

The place, today clean and fashionable, still hides incidentally a few dubious locals and the police mostly turn a blind eye: ancient traditions are hard to die in this country, you know. Out of respect. And out of do-nothingness ...

ψ

Giorgio has tried quite a lot during the last 6 months to help Massimo move on. But recently it is him that is calling his ex-student for help.

Giorgio: “Always these horrible dreams! A few nights ago the death of Theodoric the Great, this old man, his white hair all over his big chest protected by a plate crammed with jewels, lying on a sumptuous bed placed at the centre of an immensely vivid mosaic.

With the calm, unwavering voice of the true leader Theodoric was recommending to the weeping Goths that they should love the Roman senate and the Roman people, and that they should appease the Eastern emperor through their deeds and with the help of God.

Again, two nights ago, I dreamt about the perverse though beautiful face of a woman dancer, then about the whole of her luscious body since she was dancing almost naked all around me and finally ended up morphing into a princess or  queen. Aah, she looked shrewd, perfidious wearing her radiant Byzantine attire.

So you see, my dreams change. Only two elements in them never do."

Massimo: “La roscia and the fricken soldier?”

[roscia = read-headed woman in Roman dialect, pronounced 'rosha'; fricken, you may know already]

Giorgio: “Yes, la roscia and that young ancient Roman living in a tower with marshes infested by wolves and blondish savages all around. I know it's been one month that I've been exhausting you with my nightmares.

Last night la roscia, as blue-skinned as ever, was wearing a strange gray wool dress with a green veil that covered her neck and partly her face, a hunting horn hanging from her belt. She suddenly looked at me with eyes that pierced my soul so violently I felt dizzy and hit my head on a tree. Hercle! I cried I dunno why. Surrounded by hordes of cats she then began to twirl around a trunk with chains fastened to its ends and bronze balls hanging from the chains.

Massimo: “Ah Prof, sure you're not depressed like me? Since Giulia left my life is shit.”

Giorgio: "Daje a Ma' … I'm ok, really. In any case I thought the read-head was about to hit me with the bronze balls but my limbs got frozen and I woke up wet from sweat and couldn't get back to sleep until I took some melatonin and was soon snoring like a boar and dreaming again - Flavia told me. 

And then I saw them.”

Massimo: “You saw who.”

Giorgio: “A small group of people on the deck of a light Roman merchant vessel, "about 100 feet long and 20 feet in the beam" (see image below and credits) leaving the port of Vada Sabatia, not far from today's Genoa, on the North West Italian coast. Men and women on their 30s dressed in the ancient manner and appearing as long time buddies. The weird part, it's as if I knew them already in some way.”

A Roman merchant vessel

Massimo: "What?"

Giorgio: "Yes, then all changed and we were in a place similar to the north French coast, light rain, wind, silvery water all around. I was on deck too trying to get closer to the buddies' group but again my limbs were frozen.

I then called them, called them and kept yelling the same words over and over."

Massimo: "Which words."

Giorgio: "Anglia in orientem spectans! Anglia in orientem spectans!
And also:
Septentrionalis Icenorum regio! Septentrionalis Icenorum regio!

What does all this mean for Chrissake!!"



Massimo: "Easy Prof, it's simple:  Anglia gazing towards the East. In the northern area of the land of the Iceni."

Giorgio: "That I understood, the question though being: what the hell is this all about. I have checked. It's somewhere in Britain on the eastern coast (near Hunstanton?) where the Wash is located, a square-mouthed bay where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire - I read on the Wiki [see images on the left and below]. I feel like something is brewing.

I mean, if you have spare time and wanna forget Giulia for a while (it'd do you good) why don't you help me understand?"

Massimo kept silent for a while.

The Wash bay today

Giorgio: "What I forgot to say, five new passengers joined us when we were leaving France, I think, ie Gaul. Two elegant women (two Syrian courtesans I heard), two men clad in black and red, a bit vicious looking and speaking to nobody (one with a hawk-like face), and a blue-eyed good natured Greek merchant in his 30s as well who was bound to South East Britannia to sell his goods (olives, olive oil & resinated wine) to the Romano-Celtic population.

Because of the wind I heard only fragments of their names:  Ch’ae…Rich..., Phi, ...Jen....L..And...Ze...Dou...Daf....An...Cyb...etc. Very confusing. But Pavlos, that name I heard clearly (the Greek perhaps?)

And when I was shouting those words one of the buddies suddenly brightened up (Rich?), looked at me in astonishment and began to shout back even louder, at the top of his lungs:

ANGLIA IN ORIENTEM SPECTANS! ANGLIA IN ORIENTEM SPECTAANS! SEPTENTRIONALIS ICENORUM REGIOOOOOO!

(For God's sake I thought).

Then a few of them started to yell those same words with a weird measured pulse so that they could both sing and dance:

ANG GLI
NORIE NTEM
SPEC TANS
SPEC SPEC TANS TANS
TANS TANS TAANS GLI
TANS TANS ICEE TAAAAAAAAANS!!

(Oh my God I thought).

But after a while we were all dancing like mad and drinking idromele - the girls being not at all bad and a big amphora of that honey wine having soon appeared as if by magic (the Greek merchant? As soon as he had joined the journey, his pensive eyes always looking in the distance, he had appeared like the eternally resourceful Ulysses ...)

One last funny (but horrible) detail: when I woke up I was drunk and my legs tired as if I had danced all night!"

Silence for a few moments.

Then Massimo,loweringly, uttered his words:

"Prof, you are nuts like me or even worse ... Yesterday I saw Giulia in via del Corso with that motherfucker. They were shopping - Armani, Gucci, you name it, the jackass is filthy rich. I was about to reach them and squash that bastard's face like a pumpkin but instead headed home and got drunk. I can't go on like that for long I suppose ...”

Massimo switched off his phone and went out.

He felt angry and depressed. Even his good ex teacher was now giving clear signs of insanity. The final straw, beyond any doubt.

He spent a long time in an Irish pub close by (Finnegan's, at the Salita dei Borgia, see picture at the top of the page) after which he found himself out in the cool of the night.

ψ

Less windows were lit now.

The rione was quieter.

A drunk whore was walking unhurriedly down the dimly lit Salita.

A cat was croaking like a frog behind a trash container.

Strange metamorphoses, in the deep of a night full of chaos (and sorrow).

Click for credits and to enlarge

Lo osservava da tempo
nume dagli occhi impassibili,
le parche, mani rugose,
filando la lana ...

[A numen had since long
Been watching him, eyes impassive.
The Parcae, wrinkled hands,
Spinning their thread ...]