The Real Middle-Earth by Brian Bates

Author:Brian Bates [Bates, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2022-06-14T17:00:00+00:00

Edwin was faced with a singing crow, but no longer had a wizard to interpret the message, and advise him how to profit from the bird’s warning. The bishop was galvanized into action by the petrified faces of Edwin and his entourage. It was imperative that he regain control of the situation. ‘Shoot an arrow carefully into the bird’ he ordered. One of the king’s bodyguards cocked his bow and fired. The arrow pierced the crow and it fell dead from the tree. Grasping the arrow, the bishop took the dead bird to the church hall, and there brandished it in the air in front of a probably sceptical congregation who had been ordered to show up for Christian instruction. Paulinus proclaimed that this ‘proved that they should know by so clear a sign that the ancient evil of idolatry was worthless to anybody’, since the bird ‘did not know that it sang of death for itself’ and so could not prophesy anything for those ‘baptized in the image of God’. In other words, a bird which could not even foretell its own imminent death could not prophesy anything at all. Clearly Paulinus knew that the congregation would believe that a crow or raven had the gift of foretelling the future – it was one of the cursed ‘idolatries’ which he was trying to stamp out.

Of course, this is a Christian story, presumbly slanted by its monkish author to show the wonders of that faith, and illustrate how misguided the pagan beliefs were. But Middle-earth wizards would have reckoned the bishop to have made a serious mistake. He had assumed that if the crow had known it was going to be shot, it would have tried to save its life by flying away. But prophetic animals were not merely mortal creatures. This crow was a ‘spirit messenger’. It would not, in Middle-earth belief, have been afraid of ‘death’ in the material world. So the intervention of the bishop probably did not convince the congregation. And certainly the crow’s message was not interpreted for King Edwin.

Edwin perhaps took extra precautions, especially since he had already survived one assassination attempt. We do not know how long he survived after the crow incident, because we do not have a date for it. But when the end came, it was devastating. Edwin had been concentrating on the threats to his kingdom from various princely pretenders to the throne around whom ambitious warlords in the North were gathering. But instead, the fateful conclusion came from an alliance of the Mercian king Penda and the Welsh king Cadwallon. Penda was still a powerful and feared heathen warrior, brother of Edwin’s first, pagan wife. They killed Edwin in battle in 633 in the fenlands at Hatfield, near Doncaster. Queen Aethelburgh fled back to Kent with her children, accompanied by Bishop Paulinus. The kingdom of Northumbria was ravaged and burned by the invaders.

Yeavering Castle was apparently abandoned after Edwin’s death. Another site was established a short distance away at Millfield, where a new hall was built.

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