The Dark Days After Camelot
England After Arthur
In those days you would have searched a long time for the winding lane or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated. There were instead miles of desolate land, craggy marsh and moorland. The roads once built by the Romans would by then have become broken and overgrown, descending into wilderness. Icy fogs hung over rivers and marshlands, serving all too well the ogres who were then still native to this land. The people who lived nearby, one wonders what desperation lead them to settle in such gloomy spots. The creatures panting breath could be heard long before their misshapen figures appeared out of the mist. But such monsters were not cause for astonishment, people then would have regarded them as everyday hazards, and in those days there was so much else to worry about: how to get food out of the hard ground; how not to run out of fire wood; how to stop the sickness that could kill a dozen pigs in a single day and produce green rashes on the cheeks of children. In any case, ogres were not so bad, provided one did not provoke them. One had to accept that on occasion (perhaps due to some dispute within their ranks) one would come blundering into a village in a terrible rage and despite shouts and brandishing weapons, would harm anyone in it's path, and every so often would carry off a child.
For warmth and shelter, many Bretons dug villages deep into the hillside in what were known as Warrens, connecting one home to the other by way of underground passages and covered corridors.
I have no intention to give the impression that this was all there was in England at the time, while great civilizations flourished elsewhere in the world, we were here, not much beyond the iron age. Had you been able to roam the country at will you might well have discovered castles, containing music, fine food, athletic excellence, or monasteries with inhabitants steeped in learning. But there is no getting around it, even on a strong horse in good weather, you could have ridden for days without seeing a single castle or monastery rising out of the greenery. You would have mostly encountered settlements like the one I have described. And unless you had gifts of food or clothing or were ferociously armed, you would not have been sure of a welcome. I'm sorry to paint such a picture of our country, but there you are.
Saxon villages viewed from a certain distance and a certain height would have been something more familiar to you as a village than the Breton Warrens. For one thing, perhaps because the Saxons were taller, or perhaps because of a keener sense of claustrophobia, there was none of this digging into the hillside. If you were coming down a slope toward the village in the valley you would have seen between 30 and 50 individual houses laid out on the valley floor in two rough circles, one within the other. You would be too far away to pick out the difference in size and splendor, but you would have noticed the thatched roofs and that they were "round houses" not so far removed from which some of you, or perhaps your parents were brought up in. And if the Saxons were happy to sacrifice some security for the benefits of open air, they were careful to compensate with a tall fence of tethered timber poles, their points sharpened like giant pencils. The poles were twice a mans height to discourage any would-be climber, and to make the prospect of climbing it even less enticing a deep trench encircled the fence along the outside.
