The Warriors Enter Winchester

In Anglo-Saxon times the king fought in the summer and over-wintered in one of his castles, which were located in the important towns of his kingdom. This excerpt from Courting Trouble describes the royal procession as it enters the town of Winchester in 801. Here's how the narrator, who is standing among the gawking townspeople, describes the part of the procession made up of warriors.

Our attention was diverted by the arrival of about forty armed warriors. They were a fearsome looking bunch. Most carried spears that were taller than a man, and all had swords a yard long encased in scabbards at their sides. Some wore the scramasax, the dagger that gave us our name, around their necks. They used to smear these with poison in the old days but they’re not used so much anymore. The warriors were clad in steel like the man I had seen in the forest. A few wore helmets—these ingenious devices extended down over their foreheads in front and ended with built-in eyebrows and nose guards. I spotted one man with a complete face mask: only his eyes were uncovered. 

The men carried broad round wooden shields with decorated iron bosses in the middle. I noticed one huge warrior whose front teeth were missing. His shield was covered with deerskin and had an iron bar across it. The dome of his boss came to a cruel looking point and had probably poked out more than one man’s eye.

What were herbs used for?

What were herbs used for in the Dark Ages? Just about everything. They were medicines, cosmetics, and dyes. They were even, in some cases, used for disguise, and that's how our heroine uses the gipsywort and other materials she has gathered.

I  . . . went to the stream to gather gipsywort. In a secluded clearing, I extracted the dye and stored it in a leather drinking pouch.

[Later she uses the dye to darken her skin.] I took off all my clothes and the knife I always wear strapped to my thigh. I poured some of the gipsywort infusion into the wash basin and mixed it with water so the color wouldn’t be too intense. I rubbed the stain over my face, neck, arms and my legs up to the crotch, figuring it was best to play safe. I didn’t want anyone to spot a white thigh in the latrine. Then I crushed the chalk into a fine powder and worked it into my hair. I pressed a few seed pods over some teeth to make them look rotten.
I gave the gipsywort time to dry and the powder time to settle, then I strapped on my knife and dressed in my old nurse’s clothes.

Excerpt from "Courting Trouble" by Elaine Drew

Dark Ages Cosmetics

Girls in the Dark Ages were every bit as self-conscious about their looks as girls today. In this scene from Courting Trouble, we see Wulfwaru, the heroine's stepsister, treating a zit with a contemporary remedy. Besides the recipe for curing a pimple, this brief interaction tells us something about their relationship.

“What’s the matter with your face?” I said. It was covered with a thick white poultice.
“I had a blemish,” she said in that peculiar high voice of hers. I was sure it was an affectation, and I often wondered why she chose it. Whenever I talked to her I found myself pitching my own voice lower, as if to show her how ridiculous she sounded. She went on, “I pounded ivory and mixed it with honey. It works wonders.” She looked at my skin as if she had never seen it before. “You should try it.”

How Illuminated Manucripts were Painted

Although you don't often hear about, women worked as painters in AngloSaxon times. In this excerpt from Courting Trouble, the heroine's stepmother is painting the border of an illuminated manuscript. Borders were painted before the calligraphers set to work on the script.

She was sitting near her desk in the hall, painting a border for one of the bishop’s manuscripts. She bent over her work closely; she was short-sighted. The piece was on a large wooden frame that held the painting upright. As I approached I took in her elaborate design. Two narrow gold borders were set around the page, one inside the other. Red, blue, and green leaves straddled the space in between. Sometimes Waldberg’s understanding of form was a little wobbly, but I was always surprised at how sensitive her drawings were. It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of her personality.

Her brushes were arranged in a box on her desk. Her pigments were set to one side, each in its own oyster shell. She mixed the colors with egg yolk on a small piece of wood that she held in one hand.