The Wake

The Wake: Man Booker Prize 2014 Longlist Edition

Kingsnorth, Paul

Unbound (2014)

Tags: Historical Fiction, Fiction
Historical Fictionttt Fictionttt

Historical fiction in old English

Everyone knows the date of the Battle of Hastings. Far fewer people know what happened next...Set in the three years after the Norman invasion, The Wake tells the story of a fractured band of guerilla fighters who take up arms against the invaders. Carefully hung on the known historical facts about the almost forgotten war of resistance that spread across England in the decade after 1066, it is a story of the brutal shattering of lives, a tale of lost gods and haunted visions, narrated by a man of the Lincolnshire fens bearing witness to the end of his world. Written in what the author describes as 'a shadow tongue' - a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable for the modern reader - The Wake renders the inner life of an Anglo-Saxon man with an accuracy and immediacy rare in historical fiction. To enter Buccmaster's world is to feel powerfully the sheer strangeness of the past.

The Wake
has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 along with a host of other brilliant titles. The full longlist includes
The Wake
by Paul Kingsnorth,
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
by Joshua Ferris,
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan,
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
by Karen Joy Fowler,
The Blazing World
by Siri Hustvedt,
J
by  Howard Jacobson,
The Bone Clocks
by David Mitchell,
The Lives of Others
by Neel Mukherjee,
Us
by David Nicholls,
The Dog
by Joseph O'Neill,
Orfeo
by Richard Powers,
How to be Both
by Ali Smith and
History of the Rain
by Niall Williams.

Paul Kingsnorth is the author of two non-fiction books, 
One No, Many Yeses 
(
2003
), and 
Real England
(
2008
), and a collection of poetry, 
Kidland
 (
2011
). A former journalist and deputy editor of 
The Ecologist
 magazine, he has won several awards for his poetry and essays. In
2009
, he co-founded the Dark Mountain Project, an international network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of new stories for troubled times. Much of his writing can be found online at
paulkingsnorth.net
. 
The Wake
 is his first novel.

BY
THE
SAME
 
AUTHOR

Non-fiction

One No, Many Yeses

Real England

Uncivilisation

Poetry

Kidland and other poems

The Wake

A partial glossary

A note on language

A note on history

Sources

I have persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them.
Many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes
perished through me by famine or the sword.

Having gained the throne of that kingdom by so many crimes,
I dare not leave it to anyone but God.

Deathbed confession of Guillaume le Bâtard,
1087

England is become the residence of foreigners and the property of strangers…they prey upon the riches and vitals of England; nor is there any hope of a termination of this misery.

William of Malmesbury,
1125

the night was clere though i slept i seen it. though i slept i seen the calm hierde naht only the still. when i gan down to sleep all was clere in the land and my dreams was full of stillness but my dreams did not cepe me still

when i woc in the mergen all was blaec though the night had gan and all wolde be blaec after and for all time. a great wind had cum in the night and all was blown then and broc. none had thought a wind lic this colde cum for all was blithe lifan as they always had and who will hiere the gleoman when the tales he tells is blaec who locs at the heofon if it brings him regn who locs in the mere when there seems no end to its deopness

none will loc but the wind will cum. the wind cares not for the hopes of men

the times after will be for them who seen the cuman

the times after will be for the waecend

who is thu

who is thu i can not cnaw

what is angland to thu what is left of angland

i specs i specs

but no man lystens

songs

the songs from the holt

songs yes here is songs from a land forheawan folded under by a great slege a folc harried beatan a world brocen apart. all is open lic a wound unhealan and grene the world open and grene all men apart from the heorte. deofuls in the heofon all men with sweord when they sceolde be with plough the ground full not of seed but of my folc

aefry ember of hope gan lic the embers of a fyr brocen in the daegs beginnan brocen by men other than us. hope falls harder when the end is cwic hope falls harder when in the daegs before the storm the stillness of the age was writen in the songs of men

so it is when a world ends

who is thu i can not cnaw but i will tell thu this thing

be waery of the storm

be most waery when there is no storm in sight

feoht

tell them

feoht

loc it is well cnawan there is those wolde be tellan lies and those with only them selfs in mynd. there is those now who specs of us and what we done but who cnawan triewe no man cnawan triewe but i and what i tell i will tell as i sceolde and all that will be telt will be all the triewth. triewth there is lytel of now in this half broc land our folc wepan and greotan and biddan help from their crist who locs on in stillness saen naht. and no triewth will thu hiere from the hore who claims he is our cyng or from his biscops or those who wolde be his men by spillan anglisc guttas on anglisc ground and claiman anglisc land their own

ah but we is broc now dreaned we is too small to feoht mor we has borne it too hard we secs now only to lif. and if there is any left who thincs to lif after his triewth or after the laws of the crist if there is any thincs him self abuf this through luf or through mildness of heorte then he will die with his wif and his cildren for all is broc now

all is broc

still i will stand and i will tell the triewth the triewth of what i done and for what i was feohtan and how i was brocen by those ficol hores what i stood and cwelled for. i has not forgot i has cept it for there is micel must be telt and words now is left my only waepens and none wolde sae i has efer been afeart to wield what waepens i has

because of what is wispred it moste be telt what befell

i was a socman of the blaec fenns a free man of the eald danelaugh where there was no ealdors too high for the folc to cum to and if they wolde pull down. thu wolde not cnaw it to see me now my nebb blaec all is broc a lif in fenn and holt but i was a free man of angland a man of parts in my land i was born this way i is still a free man i is still a free man

to them i wants to cnaw it i is named buccmaster of holland

the songs will be sung for a thousand years

our fathers was freer than us our fathers fathers stalcced the wilde fenns now the fenns is bean tamed efry thing gets smaller. for efry cilde born there is sum new law a man sceolde be free and alone on his land the world sceolde not cum in until he ascs it. freodom sceolde there be in angland again lic there was in the eald daegs in the first daegs of the anglisc

freodom in angland

now if this bastard is gifan to lif the fenns will be succd of the sea and gifan to the land gifan ofer to man and the gods of the secg and the water will die and the spirit of our folc in these lands will die. the wilde will be tacan from these fenns and the wilde will be tacan from in me for in efry man there is the wind and the water and his worc until he is tacan is to cepe the wilde lands from the tamers

cwell the bastard

cwell the bastard

cwell the bastard

in these places there is wihts uncnawan to man there moste be no law put on us by sweord or by word of ingenga cyng

bastard tamer with stan and style the wilde is all

wood not stan

it will tac thu baec

water not the lea