Life of the Medieval Janet

¶ … Life of the Medieval Janet

Early in the morning I woke to the sound of the servants sweeping the stone steps beneath the narrow windows of my bedroom. My father's castle is cold and damp, although we hang tapestries from the rafters to keep the stone and our bones snug from the Irish mist and frost. Halloween comes shortly, and it was still dark when I woke, although I woke no earlier than usual, not before the cock's first crowing. When I pulled back the heavy robes from the window so the wind my greet my cold-flushed cheeks I could see some white glistening dew, half water half snow, beading the grass. Druchta Dea, it is called the frosty liquid of life.

Early too, I could see the milkmaids walking out, clattering their pails against their mud-stained skirts as they trudged to the barns to milk the cows. Beneath me, I could hear the sound of the scullery maid, wrecking her vengeance against the cornmeal that was being beaten into dust for the morning porridge and for the evening supper.

The maids are shot-handed in the kitchen, which leaves them cross. This is because one of the maids has recently given birth to a child and is still lying abed, for it was such a hard birth. It pained me even to hear her cries. While I was wandering by myself, I saw yesterday how a piece of the newborn child's clothing had been torn -- not cut (as iron repels the spirits) -- and fixed to the boughs of a hawthorn tree. When I asked the girl that night why this had been done, she said it was to keep away death and illness from the child. I wonder if this old custom works? It does not seem to make the mother feel any better, poor little maid, she is still as pale and yellow as the cornmeal she used to grind. I wonder if I shall have a child someday -- I hope not!

Well, I suppose she just counts herself lucky that she did not have a changeling child, as this seems like an unlucky and dangerous time to give birth. It is cold the world is filled with fairy sprits, and in October the whole world is filled, seemingly daily, with the death-averting customs of the year. What a peculiar people we are! And how cruel children can be amongst themselves and to the morning old, on a dare -- it is not uncommon to see a boy egged on to fetch a dead man's bone from a churchyard in October or to gather fern seed at midnight in a solitary wood, to be later thrown in the face of some poor wandering grandmother. Halloween pranks are so common, especially against a couple about to be wedded -- I hope I shall never be married, at least not to the men my father thinks suitable! At least not around Halloween! How foolish to schedule one's wedding now!

But in truth, I prefer to see a funeral to a wedding around this time of year, really I do! And they say that one should laugh at a funeral, anyway, for one leaves this rainy damp world for a life of bliss -- oh, I do not long to be dead, but I long to leave this world, where my father hungers for my marriage, a day when I shall no longer eat of his bread and mead at night and feel grateful that he still cares enough for his Janet to feed for a daughter that can give him nothing, no protection, no sons, and merely take a dowry away with her.

Today my father and I did go to a funeral of an old woman. But it was not a sad day, for she was old and the death was expected. Together we passed over the ford, the in-between place where the dead and living meet, a place that is neither wet nor dry, and we held a flask from the water of a ford in our hands. Oh, although it is only the dead that live in between, I at fifteen, neither girl nor women feel that I stand upon such a ford myself, unsure of where I am about to go, to either heaven or hell -- should I become a nun, a wife, or flee this life entirely and go to live amongst the fairy people. I intend to have fun, regardless, while I still can!

A must confess I cast my dream-fate not to be amongst that of the wedded women. But that is my secret, I write this only at night in my diary. Truthfully, I can barely watch the women spinning in the house, without their stillness making me sick. How I much prefer wandering outside of doors, almost like a man! That is what I love about the seasonal custom this time of year, of seeing the villagers go door to door in masks. If only I could be such a wanderer, even a beggar. The villages say that their masked figures represented the spirits of the dead and to refuse them food would be to invite their vengeance on the house. I always give them something. Of course, the priest says that because Christ came to the world, no such pagan worries should trouble our Christian heads, but I am not so sure and besides, I enjoy seeing the masks and giving away what I do not like to eat!