Great Tales From English History. : The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More

AADL has no copies of this item

"First published in Great Britain by Little, Brown, 2003"--T.p. verso.
Storytelling -- Cheddar man -- Pytheas and the painted people -- Standard-bearer of the Loth -- And did those feet? Jesus Christ and legends of Glastonbury -- Emperor Claudius triumphant -- Boadicea, warrior queen -- Hadrian's wall -- Arthur, once and future king -- Pope Gregory's angels -- St Augustine's magic -- King Oswy and the crown of thorns -- Caedmon, the first english poet -- Venerable Bede -- Alfred and the cakes -- Lady of the mercians -- Ethelred the unready -- Elmer the flying monk -- King Canute and the waves -- Edward the confessor -- Legend of Lady Godiva -- Year of three kings -- Death of brave King Harold -- Hereward the wake and the norman yoke -- Domesday book -- Mysterious death of William Rufus -- Henry I and the white ship -- Stephen and Matilda -- Murder in the cathedral -- King repents -- River-bank take-away Richard the Lionheart -- John Lackland and Magna Carta --
Hobbehod, prince of thieves -- Simon de Montfort and his talking-place -- Prince Who speaks no word of English -- Piers Gaveston and Edward II -- Prince wins his spurs -- Burghers of Calais -- Fair maid of Kent and the order of the garter -- Great mortality -- Bedside manner of a plague doctor -- Dream of piers the ploughman -- 'Mad multitude' -- Bibliography and source notes -- Exploring the original sources - Acknowledgements - Index.
There was a time, as recently as nine thousand years ago, when the British Isles were not islands at all. After the bleakness of the successive ice ages, the south-eastern corner of modern England was still linked to Europe by a wide swathe of low-lying marshes. People crossed to and fro, and so did animals - including antelopes and brown bears. We know this because the remains of these creatures were discovered by modern archaeologists in a cave in the Cheddar Gorge near Bristol. Scattered among numerous wild horse bones, the scraps of bear and antelope had made up the larder of 'Cheddar Man', England's oldest complete skeleton, found lying nearby in the cave with his legs curled up under him. According to the radiocarbon dating of his bones, Cheddar Man lived and died around 7150 bc.
He was a member of one of the small bands of hunter-gatherers who were then padding their way over the soft forest floors of north-western Europe. The dry cave was his home base, where mothers and grandmothers reared children, kindling fires for warmth and lighting and for cooking the family dinner. We don't know what language Cheddar Man spoke. But we can deduce that wild horsemeat was his staple food and that he hunted his prey across the grey-green Mendip Hills with traps, clubs and spears tipped with delicately sharpened leaf-shaped flints.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

No community reviews. Write one below!