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R I S E

 

QUEEN BOUDICCA: A LIFE IN A LEGEND

 

A pagan queen, an unruly woman and a valiant warrior: Boudicca has lived a varied afterlife in British history.

Queen Boudicca was the warrior queen of the Iceni whose rebellion against the Romans was roundly – if belatedly – quashed. Boudicca – this is now accepted as the most accurate spelling of her name, though the popularity of the Latinised Boadicea, among other permutations, persists – raised a rebellion, which united the Iceni with a handful of tribes usually inclined to be at war with each other, seeking revenge after a series of brutal acts by the Romans.

The final straw had been the public humiliation and scourging of the proud queen, recently widowed, and thus deprived of her protector-husband, King Prasutagus. Boudica’s daughters, whose ages are unrecorded, were raped by Roman soldiers. According to some sources, other members of her family were enslaved. This was the immediate cause of Boudica’s rebellion in AD 61.

After a series of surprise victories for the Britons, the conflict came to a head, probably somewhere between Verulamium (St Albans) and Londinium (London), at the Battle of Watling Street. The crack Roman general Suetonius Paulinus had decided to take a break from burning druids in Wales to come and put an end to the insurrection in the south. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, in the hours before the decisive battle Boudicca rode a war-chariot up and down the ranks, willing her band of warriors to victory. Yet for all her vitriolic anger and indignation, she and her followers were eventually routed by the most powerful empire Europe had known. Boudicca poisoned herself so as to avoid slavery or worse.

All of this was first related by Tacitus in the Annals. Tacitus’ father-in-law had been the Roman's governor of Britain and had witnessed the blend of savagery and heroism that seemed to characterise the people there. But like much classical learning, the story of Boudicca and the attempted colonisation of Britain was largely lost until the Renaissance, when Tacitus’ histories were rediscovered and republished in new editions across Europe.

The rediscovery of Tacitus, whose works began to trickle into Britain during the reign of the Tudor monarchs, caused a stir in the still-fractious nations of Britain: heroic myths, including the fantastic tales of wizards and courtly knights popularised by Geoffrey of Monmouth, were swept aside. In their place stood a woman, described in William Cowper’s 1782 poem ‘Boadicea an Ode’, as ‘bleeding from the Roman rods’, with vengeance in her eyes and a spear in her hand. As one of the earliest named Britons in documented history, Boudicca had to be dealt with by any writer keen to explore Britain’s past.

For one Tudor woman in particular, she presented an opportunity: it is tempting to suggest that Elizabeth I’s speech to her troops at Tilbury before the invasion by the Spanish Armada might have taken something from Boudicca’s oratorical display.

It is not surprising that Boudicca was viewed with suspicion and misogynistic ire on the part of some writers and audiences. This was true, for example, of the poet John Milton. Milton had little time for the pagan queen in his prose History of Britain, published in the 1670s. Milton dismissed her as a shameless harridan who ought to have kept her sorry tale of assault, rape and humiliation to herself. Sadly, Milton, for all his poetic genius, was an unreconstructed misogynist; his dislike of Boudicca stemmed from a distaste for the notion of women in power.

As a female chieftain, and a pagan to boot, Boudicca represented all that was most horrifying for Milton. But Milton’s view was not typical of his time, or even of the years before. His critical take on Boudicca can be contrasted with that of the antiquary and historian Edmund Bolton, a penniless hanger-on to the court of James I and VI. Bolton made his way, with only partial success, by writing for the court and, in 1624, he wrote the first detailed account of Boudicca’s rebellion since Tacitus. Bolton intended to write a history of the reign of Emperor Nero, but was so taken by Boudicca that he devoted at least half his text to her and her rebellion. For this denizen of James’ court at least, Boudicca was nothing less than a great heroine, even if she had been a poor general. Bolton’s text is full of entertaining antiquarian speculation. It was he who first put forward the notion that Stonehenge was erected by the ancient Britons in memory of the warrior queen.

In the 17th century, antiquarians seemed most keen on Boudicca. Aylett Sammes, another antiquarian and historian, composed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek tribute to Boudicca and her daughters in his illustrated history of Britain,

Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, of 1676:

"To war, this Queen doth with her Daughters move.

She for her wisdom, followed They for Love,

For what Roman force, Such joined powers could quell;

Before so murdering Charmes whole Legions fell.

Thrice happy Princesses had she rescued so,

Her Daughters honour, and her Countrys too;

But they being ravish’t, made her understand

This harder Beauty to secure, then Land.

Yet her Example teaching them to dye.

Virtue the roome of Honour did supply".

Sammes’ light-hearted verse had a serious point. Boudicca and her daughters had been violated by the Romans and fought back as best they could, even if they were doomed to fail. Throughout the 2,000 years since her death, Boudicca’s posthumous reputation is never easily characterised. A study of her reputation in British culture reveals no single ‘typical’ view of her, but rather a varied sense of her importance to different individuals and groups.

Insofar as we can draw any conclusions about how she has been viewed, it seems clear that people have embraced her as a heroic figure. But we need to be cautious when approaching questions of ‘the past in the past’. It can be tempting to take a single representation of Boudica – a statue, for instance – and see it as typical or representative of a time and place. But it is often more interesting to dig deeper and find out the individual perspective that lies behind a representation. Take, for example, what is probably the most famous depiction of Boudicca: Thomas Thornycroft’s statue on Westminster Bridge. Scholars have viewed this work as representative of a time – the late 19th century – and an attitude – embattled Victorians seeking to assuage fears of imperial decline.

However, the story is both more interesting and more banal than that.

Thornycroft first began his statue in the 1850s, when he was struggling to secure commissions. He found himself with an abundance of two things artists thrive on: time and an emotional predicament that lent itself to self-expression. Boudicca, a symbol of resistance and of British pluck – Thornycroft’s works were being panned by hostile critics and he was losing commissions to superior continental competitors – was in many ways a natural choice.

He worked on the statue for 20 years and when he died in 1871 it was still only a plaster model. On the back of a renewed interest in finding Boudica’s final resting place, Thomas’ son, John Isaac, with the help of William Bull MP, succeeded in raising funds for a bronze version that made its slow and circuitous way to its current home in Westminster (other sites were discussed).

Boudica was embraced by Victorian Londoners, despite the fact that one of her most well-known acts was to burn the place to cinders. Similarly, the towns of Colchester and St Albans have embraced her as a local heroine, a status testified to by everything from stained glass windows to car park graffiti, at least in the case of Colchester. St Albans has taken a more staid approach and is content with telling her story in the local museum, while occasionally using her image to represent the town.

She was celebrated by female authors as a suitable heroine for children and young women, albeit with the caveat that suicide was no fitting death for a Christian lady. In Heroines of History (1854), Mrs O.F. Owens wrote of Boudicca’s demise: Contempt for death, and the reception of it with an exaggerated welcome, formed the grand basis of barbarian virtue; and the woman who fell by her own hand, was formerly an object of applause and example.

Now the consolatory doctrine of Christianity teaches us a nobler lesson. The great principle of worldly probation, is the endurance of afflictions, which are ‘but for a moment’, by the exercise of a faith, constant and inviolate, in the unseen.

Boudica could neatly illustrate the dangers of paganism while displaying native pluck and patriotic fervor.

Yet there was one aspect of Boudicca’s identity that remained ambiguous well into the 20th century: what did it mean for an ancient heroine to be ‘British’? There was a vocal minority in Wales who claimed Boudicca as a uniquely Welsh heroine due to the fact that there were no English people in ancient Britain, only Celts. The Celtic Welsh could therefore claim ownership of the Celtic Boudicca, or Buddug, as she was known within the growing Celtic nationalist movement. But they faced an uphill struggle in convincing ordinary Welsh men and women of this version of history.

When the new Cardiff City Hall was being decorated with statues of Welsh heroes in the early 20th century, the public took a vote on whose likenesses should feature in the ‘Welsh Valhalla’. Queen Buddug garnered few votes. Instead, the Welsh public, when asked to vote for their nation’s exemplary female hero, voted for the hymn writer Ann Griffiths. This choice was simply ignored. To this day it is Buddug and her two daughters who remain the only female figures on display in the Marble Hall.

Boudicca has had a storied posthumous life. As her various appropriations show, as with any aspect of culture, history can be both political and personal.

Image: Queen Boudicca, A Life in a Legend

(Celtic Bard Jeff on Facebook)

Peaceful flow

 

The most powerful thing in life

 

Have a good one!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

 Signing out now until next week :)

Best people

 

Masterpiece and WIP

 

Adorable Christmas art

 

No beginnings and ends

 

You are blessed

 

Christmas present from the Boers

 

Intuition

 

Christmas Creatures (pics that instantly bring the Season to mind!)

 

Most important work

 

Legend of the Christmas Spider

 

Love is universal

 

A Christmas Legend

 

A Christmas Legend Christmas Story 

shared from A Christmas Legend Christmas Story (free-short-stories.org.uk)

A Short Christmas Story by Florence Scannell

It was Christmas Eve. The night was very dark and the snow falling fast, as Hermann, the charcoal-burner, drew his cloak tighter around him, and the wind whistled fiercely through the trees of the Black Forest. He had been to carry a load to a castle near, and was now hastening home to his little hut. Although he worked very hard, he was poor, gaining barely enough for the wants of his wife and his four little children. He was thinking of them, when he heard a faint wailing. Guided by the sound, he groped about and found a little child, scantily clothed, shivering and sobbing by itself in the snow.

"Why, little one, have they left thee here all alone to face this cruel blast?"

The child answered nothing, but looked piteously up in the charcoal-burner's face.

"Well, I cannot leave thee here. Thou would'st be dead before the morning."

So saying, Hermann raised it in his arms, wrapping it in his cloak and warming its little cold hands in his bosom. When he arrived at his hut, he put down the child and tapped at the door, which was immediately thrown open, and the children rushed to meet him.

"Here, wife, is a guest to our Christmas Eve supper," said he, leading in the little one, who held timidly to his finger with its tiny hand.

"And welcome he is," said the wife. "Now let him come and warm himself by the fire."

The children all pressed round to welcome and gaze at the little new-comer. They showed him their pretty fir-tree, decorated with bright, colored lamps in honor of Christmas Eve, which the good mother had endeavored to make a fête for the children.

Then they sat down to supper, each child contributing of its portion for the guest, looking with admiration at its clear, blue eyes and golden hair, which shone so as to shed a brighter light in the little room; and as they gazed, it grew into a sort of halo round his head, and his eyes beamed with a heavenly luster. Soon two white wings appeared at his shoulders, and he seemed to grow larger and larger, and then the beautiful vision vanished, spreading out his hands as in benediction over them.

Hermann and his wife fell on their knees, exclaiming, in awe-struck voices: "The holy Christ-child!" and then embraced their wondering children in joy and thankfulness that they had entertained the Heavenly Guest.

The next morning, as Hermann passed by the place where he had found the fair child, he saw a cluster of lovely white flowers, with dark green leaves, looking as though the snow itself had blossomed. Hermann plucked some, and carried them reverently home to his wife and children, who treasured the fair blossom s and tended them carefully in remembrance of that wonderful Christmas Eve, calling them Chrysanthemums; and every year, as the time came round, they put aside a portion of their feast and gave it to some poor little child, according to the words of the Christ: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

All together

 

How adorable that difference is

 

Rabbit and Bear

 

This is not a stick ...

 

Own essence

 

Love hoo you are

 

Kindness, Goodness, Magic

 

The Overeating Elf

Once there was an elf named Frez that would get so nervous during Christmas time that he would eat two lunches at the elf cafeteria. He tried to be just too perfect in toymaking and never thought they were good enough for the children. The dolls' eyes never sparkled enough, thought Frez, and the wagons were not as shinny as last year. Nothing seemed to be going right and the time for delivery of the presents was getting closer.

It was beyond anybody's understanding why Frez was getting so particular and asking for an elf suit larger than his size. Then, one day Santa found out what the problem was and decided to solve it. It seemed that Frez was not a young elf, but elves never looked their age by the virtue of being ever cheerful and happy. Frez needed to feel he was special, so Santa assigned him his own project called "special toys." These were the toys that were broken and needed to be repaired with love. Frez was so glad to be in charge of such a project that he had only one lunch that day because he had to hurry back to his tasks.

There is a lesson to be learnt from what Santa did for the elf. Sometimes we have off days when we just don't feel positive. Someone's smile or invitation to join some friends can make our whole day worthwhile.

Frez is now content with assembling the broken toys and transform them into something new, and he has stopped being a voracious eater that he once used to be because he is happy. He even wears his old suit now, and his new suit is taken in for his smaller waist.

Its wise for us to try and do something worthwhile everyday so that a "Frez Attack" will never get us. We all have special talents and potentials and we can definitely help someone out if he is feeling a bit low. It takes only a few seconds to be able to know why someone is not feeling happy. Take out that time from your usual day and listen. Most importantly, we are here to help each other and all of us have that hidden talent to do it. Start to make use of that talent today.

Shared from Christmas stories For Kids | Free Online Christmas stories (kidsgen.com)

Brighten your path

 

And SUDDENLY ...

 

The Selfish Giant

 By: Oscar Wilde

Shared from: Christmas stories For Kids | Free Online Christmas stories (kidsgen.com)

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's 

garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful 

flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate 

blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so 

sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How happy we are here!"

 they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with 

him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his 

conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the 

children playing in the garden.

"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow 

nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very 

dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when 

their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. "How happy we were there," 

they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the 

garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no 

children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but 

when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again,

 and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has 

forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round." The Snow covered up the 

grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North 

Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, 

and blew the chimney-pots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we must ask the Hail on a visit."

 So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of 

the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, 

and his breath was like ice.

"I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming," said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the 

window and looked out at his cold white garden; "I hope there will be a change in the weather".

But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the 

Giant's garden she gave none. "He is too selfish," she said. So it was always Winter there, and the 

North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet

 to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet 

singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it 

seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his 

head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open 

casement. "I believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked

 out.

What did he see?

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they 

were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the 

trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, 

and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and 

twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a

 lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it 

was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he

 was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, 

and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! little boy," said the Tree, and it bent 

its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why 

the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will 

knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was 

really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when

 the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter 

again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant 

coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the 

tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy 

stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other 

children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them 

came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe and 

knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the 

Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.

"But where is your little companion?" he said: "the boy I put into the tree." The Giant loved him the 

best because he had kissed him.

"We don't know," answered the children; "he has gone away."

"You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow," said the Giant. But the children said that 

they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little 

boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he 

longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. "How I would like to see him!" he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat 

in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many 

beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all."

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, 

for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. 

In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches 

were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had 

loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came 

near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath 

dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints

 of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay 

him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you 

shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise".

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all 

covered with white blossoms.

GABRIEL and ARIEL

2 Christmas stories from my stable of books 😊

GABRIEL

 The dude in the mirror is trying to kill her!

Ivy moves into an overgrown cottage in the back of beyond two days before Christmas. She soon discovers that the old place keeps old secrets. The mirror above her mantlepiece is not what it seems. Ash and oil footsteps appear from nowhere, as does writing on a wall.

Is her refuge haunted? Ha, well, she’ll decorate the bejeezus out of it, overwhelm whatever it is with pretty baubles and blinking lights. Not everyone loves Christmas as much as she does, after all.

A good plan indeed … until Gabriel introduces himself.

Old houses certainly do keep old secrets.

ARIEL

A gentle tale about loss … and a cat.

This is Ariel’s first Christmas alone and she wants nothing to do with festivities. Her best friend extracts a promise from her to put up a tree, though, an old woman gives her advice, and on the way home she buys a few Christmas treats and, on impulse, cat food for the strays around her building.

These factors end up changing Ariel’s life.