Aslaug's Axe Shed

I promised I’d tell the rest of the story of my trip to Bradford.

So I suppose it’s only fitting I tell the story of how I went to York.

Well, it was a one-day trip, but it was one of those events that can open ones eyes in a very real sense. Erica and I were going there on our own. The train trip wasn’t bad … not in good company like I was, and we arrived safe and sound in York.

From the first moment, we were walking in history. In a very literal sense. The medieval city walls opposite the train station left an impressive first impression, at least. From there, we walked along the street, through one of the smaller city gates and across the river Ouse on an old bridge where the old bridgekeeper’s house had been turned into a teeeeeny little coffee-shop. The buildings were absolutely beautiful. Old townhouses, neatly laid out, and I was already thrilled.

That was … until we reached Petergate. We got halfway across, and Erica turned and looked at me with a wry grin and said “You do realize, Joan, that you’re standing on a Roman road now, don’t you?”

I nearly stumbled. Erica explained to me that Petergate … that exact street … had followed an unchanged route since the Romans founded York under the name Eboracum.

The Ninth legion had marched down that very road. That -exact- road. Down to their barracks and the basilica … their administrative center.

Placed where the greatest Gothic Cathedral in Northern Europe now stands.

York Minster.

I stood there, and I looked up at that building … and my knees began to shake. I can’t even begin to describe the scale or the awe it instilled in me.

It was, without question, the most beautiful building I have ever seen. So … needless to say, we entered. The admission price was rather steep, I have to admit, but Erica did point out to me that the money goes into maintaining the building, and I paid it gladly. Including a trip up into the central tower … 275 VERY claustrophobic steps up and 275 very claustrophobic steps down. But I did it and was rewarded with a view to shame the Gods. I could see clear out to the moors … forty five kilometers, or almost thirty miles, away from the cathedral itself.

It had snowed the night before and someone had written “Happy 2010″ on a soccer field. It looked small from up there. It was absolutely amazing.

But the trip around the minster itself was even better. Not only is the place literally a treasure-trove of architecture and art, but the history of the ages just seems to come crashing down on ones shoulders in there. Erica happily followed along and put up with all my zipping to and fro. And when we got to the nave with the main altar, I stood there and looked up at the stained glass windows, and tears just began to roll down my cheeks. Erica had to put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

It wasn’t a religious experience for me. But I could feel history … looking down on me. That building has seen so many things. Those windows, those carvings of faces on the walls …

It felt like it was all looking right down on me at that very moment, and I must admit, even writing about it now is emotional. It was overwhelming and one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had. I kept wishing the stones would begin to whisper, and I know that’s a cliché par excellence, but … it’s true. I just wanted to hear them tell me everything. There, in front of the altar, and behind me, the seat of the representative for every town and city in the See of York, I could almost hear the Te Deum and the Non Nobis being sung.

I could smell the incense.

There were two towns with black coats of arms at their stalls, each with an eight-pointed maltese cross embossed on it. The habit of the Knights Hospitaller.

And there was the crest of Masham, part of the Scrope family crest. Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, made famous by Shakespeare for his attempted betrayal of Henry V on the eve of that great and famous King’s campaign which would end at Azincourt.

The carvings in the wood … and the detailed faces embossed high up on the pillars, almost certainly the faces of some of the masons who built the church (since that was not an uncommon tradition). And over it all … this magificent … truly awe inspiring, CENTURIES old stained glass window, 76 feet … SEVENTY SIX FEET … in height!

Words can’t describe it. Nor can mere photographs. Something like that has to be seen with the naked eye to be fully understood and appreciated.

Eventually, we ended up down in the crypts. There is a brilliant exhibit going on down there, where not only the foundation walls have been laid bare in a few places, but also the foundation walls of the Romanesque, Norman cathedral which stood where the current minster stood, before the current building was built. That building would have been a massive cathedral by today’s standards in its own right. The minster in its current form, however … is just mind-numbingly huge.

But the real treat came when we reached the old Roman buildings. The corner … the very corner of the Ninth Legion’s basilica has been excavated, and one can reach out and -touch- those foundation stones. It was indescribable to put it in plain English, and made all the more poignant by the statue of Emperor Constantine the Great, located right outside the Minster.

The point of that statue is that it is located -precisely- in the spot where his offices would have been in the Basilica, when it still stood.

And the significance thereof cannot be underestimated.

You see … when Constantine arrived in Eboracum, he was not yet Caesar. When he left, he was.

Which means he was almost certainly hailed as Emperor of Rome in that -exact- spot.

Can you imagine what that kind of thing does to a mind like mine? I swear, my head was swimming. Constantine the Great was the Emperor who converted to Christianity on his deathbed, and long before that, had granted Christianity status as official state religion.

It was he who Christened Rome … and his journey started -right- -there-. Hailed as Caesar by the Ninth Legion, stationed almost as far from Rome as he could possible get and still stay within the borders of the empire.

Well, my knees were shaky as we left. We tried to cross the street to a much smaller church, right across the street called St. Michael le Belfrey’s. This tiny church was the main reason I had wanted to go to York in the first place, but … alas … it was closed on the day. I will have to see it next time.

Why did I want to see it so badly? Because in that very church, Guy Fawkes was baptized in 1570. And the Church record with his name, Guido Fawkes, inscribed in it, is still shown to the public there.

At least I got to see the silverware used by the Catholics at St. Michael le Belfrey’s during those years.

And again, Erica had to steady me as I got all sappy and emotional.

In any case, we continued our trip down through York. HOURS had already been spent in the Minster, but we had plenty of time left.

First, we simply walked around a bit through the magnificently beautiful city center of York. But Erica had a cunning plan in store for me, and eventually we ended up by a place called “Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms”. Erica claimed this place was a must-visit, and that most Yorkshiremen only go there once in a lifetime, because it’s usually impossible to get a table.

Betty’s has turned the good cup of tea into an artform, and mere words won’t do justice to the atmosphere. Oak paneling on the walls, comfortable seats, home-mixed tea-blends and bakery so delicious it just made you whimper for more. There will never be a scone again for me after that, I can tell you that much. Everything else will pale in comparison!

Thusly refreshed, we did a spot of shopping. Buying some hand-made fudge and taking a stroll down the oldest mercantile street in England, the Shambles (aptly named may I add), we came by a small, Catholic shrine located inside one of the old houses. It was dedicated to St. Margaret Clitherow, and Erica smiled mischievously and asked if I wanted to enter, to which I believe I didn’t bother replying before entering!

The shrine was quite small. Just one room. There was a sign on the door asking people to please not smoke or take pictures in there, since it was a place of worship and reflection. But we were the only people there. On the wall was a plaque describing who the saint had been in life, and it was of great interest to me since she had been martyred as a recusant and protector of Catholic priests in 1586 … during the reign of Elizabeth I, and thusly right smack in the middle of my primary historical period of interest.

She had refused to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges, claiming she had done nothing wrong. In accordance with English law, she was then taken outside and crushed to death between large slabs of stone. This was intended to force the defendant to plead either guilty or not guilty, but Margaret Clitherow refused and died as a result. I could then inform Erica that technically speaking, that law was still in effect in England today. I learned of this while writing my thesis … it has in fact never been formally overturned, although naturally it is no longer in use.

As I told her this, I realized we were no longer alone. A family had entered right behind us, and the lady of said family smiled warmly at me and said “If I ever get in trouble with the law, I’m calling you. Can you please leave your email address?”

I chuckled and told her I was foreign as Erica and I made oru way onwards.

To Jorvik.

The viking excavation museum.

We got in line to buy tickets outside, but were ushered inside by a lady in viking dress, saying we were just two people so we could buy our tickets in the museum-shop. I smiled at her in my most friendly manner and said “Godt ?r og Fred!” … “A good year and peace”. Apparently she thought I said “Godawful”, and Erica, laughing hard, explained that she had actually brought a Danish heathen to see the viking museum and the lady in costume lit up in a big smile!

Once inside and equipped with tickets, we headed down into the museum itself. Rather than explain everything that went on down there, I’ll settle for two examples. As Erica and I got out of a moving exhibit, showing a reconstruction of a part of Jorvik as it would have looked when the vikings had the run of the place, we came upon another lady in costume, sitting on a wooden stool … next to a piece of stool.

Literally.

A viking turd. Preserved in a latrine for all those years. And now on display. The bizarreness of this was such that I had to stop and laugh. The lady in costume was rather sad, since most of the visitors that day seemed to be Japanese and they BREEZED through without asking questions. “Doesn’t ANYONE want to ask a viking related question?” she asked … and I knelt down by a playing-board next to her, where a game of hnefatafl had been set up. Viking chess it’s also called. I explained the basics of the rules to Erica, and the lady in costume raised an eyebrow and we got to talking. Once again, Erica explained that she had brought a genuine heathen to the place … and we got a good chat about drinking horns and helmets (thank the gods, they had NO horned helmets anywhere in the entire shop. All of them were goggled or spangenhelm types … YAY for someone actually GETTING it at last!), before we continued on.

Just before we left, two more costumed museum-workers overtook us and one of them, a lady, pointed to a coin behind a glass pane. “Look, that’s the one” she said. “That’s the counterfeit one!”

The other one, a young man, nodded sagely. And I was surprised. Look, the vikings were NOTORIOUS for copying coinage. The most common coin type was a long-watered down copy of already-then ancient Roman coinage. The image on the reverse of the Emperor astride his horse had been replaced by a highly stylised Odin astride a horse instead, but it’s clearly recognizable to the trained eye. Anyway, I cleared my throat and pointed this out to them, and told them that the process of counterfeiting coins was extremely widespread then. And that, since we were in England, I felt compelled to point out to them a famous coin found on Offa’s Dyke (a long, long defensive structure along the border of Wales, built by King Offa roughly at that time), which on one side bears the simple words “Offa Rex” (Offa the King) and on the other, bears an arab inscription, copied studiously from a middle eastern Denari, saying “There is only one God and that is God, and Mohammed is his prophet”.

The English coin-master wouldn’t have known what it said. To him, it simply looked like a nice pattern on a coin and he copied it.

The two museum workers looked at one another, then at me, then at one another again and then the woman blinked and went “I have GOT to look that up!” and she stormed off.

Erica was trying to hide her face by this time. I think she was embarrassed to have brought me. But when we got back up into the museum-shop again, I went another step further and had the gall to ask them how I’d go about applying for a job with them. I got detailed instructions on this, and I thanked them. As I was leaving, the lady commented that I didn’t sound local, and Erica couldn’t help herself.

“No, she’s not. She’s Danish. She’s re-invading …” she said, absolutely deadpan.

I had a hard time keeping a straight face until we got outside. At which time we found a pub to sit down and have a pint.

We were slightly inebriated when we left. Just one pint, but apart from a scone and a mince pie at Betty’s we hadn’t actually eaten anything yet, so we decided to counteract the alcohol with some food. And just as we had said so, we turned a corner and found a restaurant called “The Danish Kitchen”.

That got a good laugh, but we didn’t eat there. Instead, we ended up with a cornish pasty a bit further along. We did some shopping … and by then it was time to go back to Bradford.

And while I know I said I’d give you the rest of my holidays in one go, I think I’ll leave New Year’s Eve and my going back home for a short piece one of the next few days.

Cheerio!