The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres

"The hut was constructed of wood and thatched with reeds. The three warriors of the King heaped around it bunches of dry seaweed and dead tree branches."

"Oh, I can guess what is to come. Oh, Ronan – that is horrible. The father is going to burn his son, granddaughters and his son's wife!"

"When a sufficient mass of these combustible materials was heaped up all around the hut, Clotaire made a sign. The warrior who held the burning brand blew upon it, and soon as it was in flame held it to the heap of dry wood and weed. In an instant the hut disappeared behind a roaring sheet of fire. The cries of the unfortunate beings who were about to perish in the flames became heartrending. I turned my head away in involuntary horror, and, as my eyes fell upon the high sea, I saw the light vessel speeding away under full sail and vanishing in the distant horizon – it carried away Imnachair, together with the treasury of Chram.

"Clotaire has four sons left to him – Charibert, Gontran, Sigebert and Chilperik. It is said that the last of these seems to have inherited the ferocity of his father Clotaire and his grandfather Clovis!"

EPILOGUE

On the morning after the day when Ronan, my brother Karadeucq's son gave us this account, he left us. These were his last words:

"Kervan, I leave this house happy at having fulfilled the last wishes of my father and the orders of Joel."

Ronan the Vagre left, accordingly, early in the morning to return to his beloved Valley of Charolles. My nephew promised that, in the event of any matters of importance, he would inform us if he finds a traveler bound for Brittany. He would address any further narrative either to myself or my son Yvon, should I have left this world.

May Ronan, my brother's son, arrive safely in the Valley of Charolles and find his family happy and peaceful.

If before my death I should have nothing to add to these chronicles, I bequeath them, together with our family relics, to my son Yvon.

* * * * * * *

I, Yvon, son of Kervan and grandson of Jocelyn, enter at this place the date of my father's death in the month of June of the year 561.

From travelers we have learned that King Clotaire died this year at Compiegne in the fifty-first year of his reign, and was interred in the basilica of St. Medard at Soissons with the blessings of the bishops.

I have received no tidings from Ronan. May he still be alive and happy and free in the Valley of Charolles, as we are here in Brittany, which still remains free from the Frankish yoke. May it please Hesus never to allow our beloved province to experience such a calamity.

notes

1

Bishop Gregory of Tours. Histoire des Franks, IV. 12.

2

"I do not know by what diabolical influence they accomplished it, but they seduced in this fashion an immense multitude of men, who set themselves to pillaging and despoiling all whom they met on their way, and distributed their spoils among those who had nothing." – Bishop Gregory of Tours. Histoire des Franks, IV., 10.