now in this small holt by bacstune locan at the treows i was thincan that these frenc they wolde gif all these things other names. i was locan at an ac treow and i put my hand on its great stocc and i was thincan the ingengas will haf another name for this treow, it had seemed to me that this treow was anglisc as the ground it is grown from anglisc as we who is grown also from that ground. but if the frenc cums and tacs this land and gifs these treows sum frenc name they will not be the same treows no mor. it colde be that to erce this treow will be the same that it will haf the same leafs the same rind but to me it will be sum other thing that is not mine sum thing ingenga of what i can no longer spec
If the snippet above, from Paul Kingsnorth’s eccentric novel, The Wake, seems difficult to read, rest assured it’s supposed to be difficult. The author has made the decision to write in something like the language and orthography of an actual 11th Century document. This provides a sense of authenticity at the expense of comprehension. If you’ve studied a Germanic language, as I have, reading it will be a little easier. But I suppose any English reader can comprehend most of it with a little work.
Buccmaster of Holland (a place in England, not the Netherlands) is a stubborn and self-willed English peasant farmer at the time of the Norman conquest. He’s jealous of his status (a socman with three oxgangs), brooks no contradiction from his wife or sons, and holds tenaciously to the old, pre-Christian English heathenism.
When the wapontake is raised to recruit men to fight, first King Harald Hardrada in York, and later William the Conqueror in the south, he refuses to go himself, because he sees nothing in it for him. This leads, ultimately to the loss of everything he has. So he flees into the wilderness to be a “green man,” a rebel and an outlaw, to fight the invaders. He gathers a small group of fellow outcasts, and lords it over them as if he were the great man he believes himself to be. And all the while he is listening to the voices of the old gods, whose messages are infuriatingly vague.
Ultimately, we will learn Buccmaster’s secrets, which are ugly and tragic and make the story a rather different one from what he – and the reader – have believed it to be.
The Wake is a book that requires some wrestling, in various ways. I’m not sure if I’d go on to read the second book, but I already paid for the third one, so I guess I’d better see it through. The author has recently converted to Christianity, and it will be interesting to see what effect that pilgrimage may have had on this unusual trilogy.