The Medieval Monk

Blogum scribo

Picture
  • Welcome
  • What I do
  • Blog
  • Projects & Publications
  • Buy me a coffee
  • Contact Me

14/12/2014

Christmas fasting, not feasting (continued)

0 Comments

Read Now
 

Whilst you all face the traumatic Christmas quandary of whether or not to break with the traditional turkey and finally try goose this year, the Anglo-Saxon Monk continues his lonely struggles with Christmas fasting.  Have a little compassion, please!

Picture
Cooking in the Bayeux Tapestry: spot the kebabs! (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Well, what a blessed kerfuffle!  This fasting business for Yule-tide Lent – the forty days before Christmas – is proving to be rather problematic, as you already know if you were one of the compassionate readers of my previous post. 

OK
, I only have myself to blame.  Trying to get back on track with my fasting seemed such an honourable endeavour, but I’m beginning to have qualms about my methods. 


As I informed my blessed readers, I’m attempting to find a greater purpose, or motivation, for fasting.  I don’t know why, but the fact that fasting should allow me to devote myself more fully to my spiritual duties just isn’t cutting the mustard (and German sausage). 

It’s been suggested to me that attempting to draw inner strength by imagining the sin of vomiting due to gluttony and drunkenness – which attracts 7 days of fasting as penance – was, quite frankly, ridiculous logic.  But that’s what absence of food does to you.  It addles your brain.  And mine, I can tell you, has been just like scrambled eggs these last couple of days.  (I like them softly scrambled, by the way, with no stinting on the butter, and well seasoned.)

So, I’ve moved direction with my sinning – my imagining of it, that is.  And here’s what I’ve come up with through my careful reading of my scriftboc, my handbook of penance:

‘If a little boy steals or eats carrion, and he understands this, he should fast seven days.  If he’s twenty winters old and does such a thing, he should fast twenty nights.’ (Scriftboc, my own translation)

So, as you see, for this sin I need to imagine myself as a little boy, probably some ruffian or village urchin.  Any older, and I would have to fast for another twenty days, and I don’t have enough days left before Yule to do that.

Now, I know you’re thinking that this is another case of me falling to another eating-related sin, but please take note: I am just imagining stealing the carrion, not eating it! 

And what would I want anyway with mangled, putrescent carcasses when some nice cheese, a few softly boiled eggs, a hunk of roast lamb and a flagon of mead is to be had – in my imagination, I mean?!


Oh, this is no good!  I have to get my thoughts away from food!  But what is a poor, fasting Anglo-Saxon monk to do?  There’s only one thing for it.  No more food-related sins.  Instead, I  must think about ... sex. 

The trouble is, will I be able to find a sexual sin in my scriftboc that attracts less than a year’s fasting?  Well, it would be most educational to find out ...


Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author

    Welcome, blessed readers! This is the blog of the Medieval Monk, the alter ego of Dr Christopher Monk.

    Archives

    April 2025
    July 2024
    June 2024
    August 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

cookieassistant.com
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Welcome
  • What I do
  • Blog
  • Projects & Publications
  • Buy me a coffee
  • Contact Me