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Father SwaefredFictitious |
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The village priest of Heorlafestoun, Swaefred only wants to tend to his parishioners. Unfortunately, change, both political and religious, come to his small village. Swaefred finds himself drawing the unwanted attention of the king's powerful brother even as the priest from the neighboring town, who has been Swaefred's mentor and benefactor his entire life, is dealing with the religious upheaval in his own manner. Swaefred is less interested in who rules England, or even what rites he is supposed to follow in Church, as he is in continuing the day to day existence of his villagers' well-being. When I needed a character for the village priest, I remembered a fighter-cleric dwarf character I played in Dungeons and Dragons in the 1980s and realized that with a few tweaks, he could become the person I needed. Now living in a mundane world without any of the elements that made him a fantasy character, Swaefred became a priest with a worldview limited by the village in which he grew up (at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, Heorlafestoun (now Harlaxton) was made up of ten villagers, 58 freemen, 2 smallholders, and their families. It also had a 60 acre meadow and two mills). At the time of After Hastings, the village was held by Queen Edith. |
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