Mathilda Potter

I was drawing water at the well when Elspet Malison and her daughter Clarice approached, bearing two empty buckets each.

Elspet greeted me with, “So schoolteacher, I saw you on the village walk last month. What did you think of Anthracyda?”

“I hardly know what to think,” I replied. “It’s not in the Bible or my philosophies.”

“I don’t suppose it is.”

“I asked it what it was and it said ‘hillside spirit’. I asked what that was. It laughed and said it would tell me that when I could tell it what a human was. I started to say what a human was and realized I was just describing humans, not saying what a human IS. The philosophers talk about what it is to ‘BE human’, but that is not the same thing either.”

Elspet laughed. “You’re overthinking this.”

She waved a bucket. “This is a bucket right? It is made out of pieces of wood. In a few minutes it will have a purpose of carrying water. Later today it will have a purpose of carrying vegetables.”

“Yes.” I said cautiously.

“Now, if I were to turn it upside down and put it on Clarice’s head here, it would be a helmet, not a bucket.”

Clarice laughed and ducked her head as her mother pretended to put the bucket on her head.

“Bucket, helmet, water carrier, vegetable carrier. Doesn’t matter. It is a made thing. You, me, Clarice, the fish that Dauy (her husband) catches, Duncane’s (her son-in-law) sheep are living creatures. So is Anthracyda.”

“So you are saying the answer to the riddle is that a human is a living creature?”

“Yes. And Anthracyda would probably tell you that a hillside spirit is also a living creature.”

“Humans are not ‘creatures’,” I retorted.

“Oh? We live, we die. What is the difference?”

“We’re made in the image of God, so we have souls. They don’t.”

Clarice interrupted, “You can’t look into the eyes of a sheepdog and say it doesn’t have a soul.”

“But it doesn’t.”

Clarice, with all the authority a 16-year-old could muster, looked at me coldly and said “You’re wrong.”

Elspet looked at me, smiled and said, “You have your answer.”

“What is this? Yesterday Sussana, today Clarice. I’m not going to argue theology with children.”

Elspet shook her head. “Now you have to argue that Anthracyda doesn’t have a soul. It’s not even in the Bible. So what would you base that conclusion on? It’s clearly not an animal. Face it Mathilda. When the Bible and reality disagree, one has to give way and make room, It’s not going to be reality.”

“I’m tired and have things to do.” I said and picked up my water bucket, turned away, and walked home.

Elspet Malison

Clarice looked at me and asked, “She’s wrong, isn’t she? Dogs do have souls?”

“Yes, dogs have souls.”

“But why did she say they don’t?”

I frowned. “Because people want to feel special. They want to tell themselves they’re important. So they tell themselves they are better than other people, better than animals. That they are closer to God - as if being closer makes them better. And if they can’t feel good about themselves, they push other things down, so they can feel that they are more important than those things.”

I continued. “Look around the village.” I motioned towards the inn. “Is Mr Blexham (the innkeeper) better than Mrs Blexham? Is he more ‘important’?”

“No. They both run the inn. They couldn’t do it without each other.”

“Yes. Is Mrs Blexham better than Mrs Rede (the baker)?”

“No. They’re both nice people.”

“But the Blexhams own the inn while the Redes only rent the bakery.”

“That doesn’t make them better.”

“Yes.” I touched her nose with my forefinger. “What makes you special is who you are, not how much money you have or how much land you own or whether you have a title.”

Clarice puffed herself up a little. “I’m better than Henry Dericote. All he talks about is his family has more money than anyone else in the village.”

I laughed. “But if you tell other people that you’re better, what they hear is that you are trying to push someone else down. That doesn’t make you better. What makes you better is being kind and helpful. Then other people will say you are better. In bad times they will help you before they help the Henry Dericotes of the world.”

“What did she mean by ‘made in the image of God’?”

“The Bible says that God made man in the image of God. Of course, we’ve never seen God. He could be invisible just like Anthracyda. But if we were made in the image of God, then we should be invisible, And we’re not. Mrs Potter, and the Vicar before her, seem to think it means that we are like God, but since the Bible doesn’t say that animals are in the image of God, that they aren’t, so we are better. They think the ‘better’ bit must be that we have immortal souls. I’ve heard some women say that it was added by men so they could say they’re closer to God than women are. It’s all just a part of people wanting to feel special without doing the hard work of being special. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“So what is Anthracyda?”

“Did you ask it?”

“No. We talked about birds. How most birds feed the babies, then, when they leave the nest, the babies don’t stay around. But with crows, the young crows stick around and learn and play with their parents. Did it mean that crows are more like people?”

I chuckled “Probably. I don’t know what Anthracyda is. You can’t see it, but it is there, it talks to you, it can do things and, for some reason, it likes to help. People, animals, plants, or whatever else is up there in the hills. Anthracyda is kind and that makes it a good whatever it is. That’s enough for me.”

I motioned with the bucket still in my hand. “And now we need to fill these buckets.”

“Yes, Mother.”

A minute later she ventured “Mother, what did you and Anthracyda talk about?”

“Raising children, crows and villages.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Umm. Does Anthracyda think it is going to raise a village?”

“No. Anthracyda is up in the hills. It wants us to raise a village.” I looked at her seriously and spoke over the creaking of the well windlass “But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“You mean you and me?” Clarice looked a little wild-eyed.

I laughed again “No. It will take a lot more than the two of us and will take more than your lifetime. Set a good example by being kind, and that will be your part.”

After I said that, I started to wonder. Yes, Anthracyda and I had talked about raising children, crows and how eventually that might make villages take care of each other better. Was Clarice right that it was trying to ’raise a village’? I’m just a fisherman’s wife. Duay and I have enough on our hands to feed and shelter ourselves and our children. I don’t think Anthracyda is trying to make me a disciple for a hillside god. I think it is trying to make us pebbles, not bait. Duay and I and Cait and Brice Rede met Anthracyda when we were much younger and wandering the hills together. I think it opened our minds to different ways of thinking. We are probably the only two families in the village that never beat their children. Maybe eventually none of the families will beat their children. It will take a very long time, but I think Anthracyda, sitting in the hills, is patient.

Next - Fiona and Mathilda (September 11-12, 1643)

Return to Index