Roman/Anglo-Saxon jobs • Page 3
Do you have a habit of doing silly things after you've had a drink? This could be the job for you. After quaffing large quantities of strong alcoholic beverages, your head may start to spin, but it's at this point that you can excel as you wade through waist-high stinging nettles grasping the little devils by the handful.
With a cavalier attitude towards pain, and no time for dock leaves, you then hobble back to your processing hovel and get to work sipping enough alcohol to numb your lips between bouts of biting off the wicked nettle leaves. If you're still sentient, you can start splitting the nettle stalks to remove the tough inner fibres, and then your grubby swollen fingers can rub ash and clay into the mash to dry it out.
The day after gathering and preparing is spent nursing a headache and gently spinning the nettle fibres into thread for posh shirts or useful string. Love pain and binding materials? This could be right up your street.
Have you got strong arms, a love of fish and your own spoon? Then get your name down for this one. The Saxon oarsman – also known as a 'thole-sitter' – needs to be keen to see the known world, not scared of water and, more importantly, not scared of Vikings.
If you're a bit handy and fancy an adventure, why not join up with Alfred the Great's new navy? Using our latest technological wonder – our own version of the Viking longboat – you can take to the waves and revel in the sieve-like nature of a loose-planked marine vehicle. Using your spoon with aplomb, you can bail out the water that sloshes around your feet as you mumble the latest sea shanty. If the wind chill and icy waters get you down, you can always spice up a coastal patrol with a good helping of back-breaking rowing.
Conditions may be terrible, but Saxon oarsmen have certainly impressed their enemies. Here's what Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Clermont in Gaul, wrote to a friend in about AD 480:
… In fulfilment of those half-military half-naval duties of yours, [you] were coasting the western shores on the look-out for curved ships – the ships of the Saxons, in whose every oarsman you think to detect an arch-pirate. Captains and crews alike, to a man they teach or learn the art of brigandage; therefore let me urgently caution you to be ever on the alert. For the Saxon is the most ferocious of all foes. He comes on you without warning; when you expect his attack, he makes away. Resistance only moves him to contempt; a rash opponent is soon down. If he pursues, he overtakes; if he flies himself, he is never caught. Shipwrecks to him are no terror, but only so much training. His is no mere acquaintance with the perils of the sea; he knows them as he knows himself. A storm puts his enemies off their guard, preventing his preparations from being seen; the chance of taking the foe by surprise makes him gladly face every hazard of rough waters and broken rocks.
With competition from the Vikings now, Saxon reputations on the waves might not be quite as good. Still interested? Then sign up and wear your hands to the bone, cuss under your beard as you keep pace with the number one oarsman, enjoy manky fish and salt beef for dinner and, if you're lucky, you might even get to fight a burly Dane.
