Garthes Dream
By Vicky Hill
Kalamazoo Valley Community College
Spring 2007

Garth! Get out of your bed. Get in here and eat your bread before these rats carry it away!

I mumble something back to my mother, but my focus at this moment is directed to catching the very large roach that was scurrying to hide in the straw. John, Lizzie, Mary, Gunner and little baby Sarah had already left the bed to eat their morning bread. This is one of my favorite times of day, when they all leave me alone and I can lay back and pretend I am a rich noble Lord of Knight on a great Crusade.

When I get out of bed, my bare feet usually hit a cold hard packed dirt floor in a two room basement flat in the village, but my imagination could have me dreaming of my feet softly treading on fancy rugs in front of a blazing hearth. My breakfast would consist of the fine white breads my father bakes for the titled instead of the dark, barley laden stuff we have to gnaw through. My imaginary breakfast even consists of eating an orange! Not just on the Yule morning, but EVERY morning.

After eating my bread, it is my job to take the two pigs out of the house and put them into the pen off the back alley. Having discovered that pigs are called pigs because they live like pigs, means I also have to clean up the mess they left in the flat. Stupid pigs! They should stay out all night so theyd get stolen, then I wouldnt have to fuss with them. We sell most of the meat anyway, so I hardly get to enjoy eating them. In my dream, I live in a manor house the only time where I might see a pig would be on a platter all roasted brown and crispy with a nice juicy red apple stuck in his mouth. And me! With a knife in my hand ready to have my portion.

All of us children, except bratty little baby Sarah, have to help mother haul water from the well. Three trips for each of us usually fills the barrel for the day. Mother leaves the hauling of water to us so she can spend time talking with the other women on our street. Of course, lately it has all been rat talk. BORING!

I dont mind the rats that much. I didnt really like having them run across my face, though, when I was sleeping. But it was pretty funny when they made baby Sarah scream. With my wooden sword and a pocketful of rocks, they make great dragons or Norsemen to slay. John, Gunner and I make our way thought the maze of streets to the monastery to learn our rhetoric. The walk to the abbey is always a challenge, dodging the emptying chamber pots from the upper flats and side stepping the still steaming piles of dung, both human and animal. It is ALWAYS funny when somebody else gets hit.

We all gather on the floor of the monastery for our lessons in grammar, Latin and logic. My brothers and I share a bone stylus and waxed board when we need to write out something. I dont like schooling but know that in order to be a knight I have to learn this stuff. We usually get a half hour break to eat midday and on nice days we go outside to eat. Dividing the half loaf of dark bread and sometimes a piece of hard cheese between the three of us, we seek our own amusements.

While other boys might play prisoners base or hood mans blind, I usually just lie down on a patch of grass and dream of the life I could have. No hard cheese or dark bread, but fat capons, salmon, young hind or gar. Dragons to be slain, damsels to be saved, and crusades to be undertaken. Sitting astride my huge destrier, my shield bearing my crest and my enemies fleeing at the mention of my name thats the life Im meant to lead. Sadly, Im rustled back to consciousness and back to reality when the meal time is over. Even at age 11, I do not want to be trapped in this prison of my birth, this little Hamelin town. Most of my friends feel the same way. Someone has to have an answer, a way out of village life.

After rhetoric, we help father haul the flour form the mill to the bakery for the next mornings baking. Sometimes father slips us a piece of the wonderful white bread he makes for the Manor Lord. His baker is dug into the ground, almost a cave like building set aside from the other buildings because of the fire hazard with the multiple ovens. His great oven actually backs up to the Smithys forge, and they share a common chimney. In the bakery shop there are two long tables made of boards lain over trestles. The oven is off to one side, and there is a three legged stool for father. Several barrels line one side wall, which hold the assorted ingredients for bread making: barm, barley, flour, salt, water, etc. He showed us where the rats tried to chewed through the barrel staves to get at the barley. Father goes to the bakery before I am awake, and comes home after Im asleep everyday. I do not want to share the same life sentence.

At home for dinner, we usually have a pottage with beans or peas, and on rare occasions, salt pork. Sometimes after dinner mother will set a pie tin on the stove to get it red hot. Then she will sit us all down by turn with a small bone comb she goes through our hair to get rid of our little nit friends. As each little nit is found, she tosses it into the pan and it makes the funniest popping sound. She said she wished the rats could be taken care of so easily.

After evening prayers, we generally go to bed and my journey to escape continues in my dreams. Tonight, I overheard mother and father talking about a crusade. I wonder who this Nicholas fellow is.

websites that Vicky found to support the above story:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval_peasants.htm
http://www.medieval-life.net
http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/etext/piper
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/food/index.htm
http://www.medieval-spell.com