from First Wolf...
‘Keep still, wriggly little eel,’ I whispered angrily. ‘If the men see us, we’ll both be beaten.’
This quietened him, for he knew about beatings, and I settled to watch the members of the folk moot with a feeling of great bitterness in my heart. I was old enough to attend the meetings, to join their war talk, but there was no place for me. With my useless leg, they would never send me into the forest to kill my first wolf. They would never think of me as a man.
Many nights I dreamed I was searching for the wolf, only to wake sweating, shouting, and filled with sick fear. The creatures often hunted in packs, it would be dangerous work, but I longed for my chance to prove my worth. Boys of my age had slain the wolf; they sat by right at the meeting place and pitied me. Their pity did not upset me much, for it was kindly meant, but some like Oswold, uncle Heolstor’s son, threw stones at me and shouted insults that made me burn with anger.
At my birth, my kinsfolk saw my useless leg and voted to leave me on the hillside for the wild beasts to eat, but Father would not let them tear me from my mother’s arms. He followed the teachings of the good Saint Cuthbert, knowing it wrong to kill a helpless child, and I was thinking it was a blessing to have such a father, when a sudden shout made me jump.
‘Godwin, what use is your folk moot?’ It was Heolstor, his face like thunder. Spitting angry words, he threatened my father with the ash spear. ‘There’s no king’s man to attend the meeting,’ he shouted, ‘there’s no one with the right to hold the spear, to judge what should be done!’
My father growled, wrenching the spear from his brother’s hand. An anxious cry went up, for only the king’s high reeve held the ash spear to decide right from wrong. Then clenching the spear in his fist, as tough as the hammers he used to beat the glowing iron on his anvil, my father gave so threatening a look that the men placed their weapons on the ground, squatting in the sand to listen to him speak.
My father growled, wrenching the spear from his brother’s hand. An anxious cry went up, for only the king’s high reeve held the ash spear to decide right from wrong. Then clenching the spear in his fist, as tough as the hammers he used to beat the glowing iron on his anvil, my father gave so threatening a look that the men placed their weapons on the ground, squatting in the sand to listen to him speak.
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