I, Ecgwulf Ealheresson, Ealdorman of Sondwic, sit outside my hall watching the rhythmic bobbing of a moored boat in the moonlight. I am old and find it ever harder not to slumber when in thought, relaxing in my chair. Above me, the sky is a brilliant canopy of stars. Whenever I sit back and contemplate the magnificence of the heavens, I drift into a deep reflection on my own unimportance.
Priests blather on about how God created the celestial spheres over our heads. It is all lost on me as I cannot conceive of such mechanisms. To gaze at distant constellations and planets makes me think how I wish to sit on one of them and consider our own Earth from afar. From on high, it would be but a pinpoint to my eye, a twinkling dot among others. I would look at it and murmur, “There, that’s my hom
