The Carlovingian Coins; Or, The Daughters of Charlemagne

EPILOGUE

Vortigern, the grandson of Amael, wrote this account of the war of the Franks against Brittany. Left for dead on the banks of the Scoer, he did not recover his senses until a day and a night had passed after the defeat of the Bretons. Some Christian druids, led to the spot by Caswallan, who had escaped the massacre, came to the field of battle to gather the wounded who might still be alive. Vortigern was of the number. From them he learned that his sister Noblede, the wife of Morvan, together with other women and young girls who took refuge in the fortified enclosure, had stabbed themselves to death in order to escape being outraged by the Franks and led into slavery. After Abbot Witchaire left the house of Morvan on his return trip to announce to Louis the Pious the refusal of the Armorican Gauls to pay the tribute demanded from them, Vortigern returned with his wife and children to Karnak in order to gather in the crops from his fields. The harvest being in, he left his family at the house of his parents, and returned to Morvan in order to join the latter's forces, and oppose the army of Louis the Pious. Immediately after his wounds were healed, Vortigern returned to Karnak, where he rejoined his wife and children. The Franks had not dared push their invasion beyond the valley of Lokfern. They contented themselves with leaving Armorica devastated and stripped of her bravest defenders. Yet is she not subdued. She but waits the moment to revolt anew.

Vortigern joined this narrative to the other narratives of his family, and he accompanied his own account with the two Carlovingian coins, the gift of Thetralde, one of the daughters of Charles the Great. These relics of the family of Joel now consist of Hena's little gold sickle, Guilhern's little brass bell, Sylvest's iron collar, Genevieve's silver cross, Shanvoch's casque's lark, Ronan the Vagre's poniard's hilt and his branding needle, Bonaik's abbatial crosier and Vortigern's Carlovingian coins, together with the narratives that accompany them.

Myself, Rosneven, the oldest son of Vortigern, who make this entry at the foot of my father's narrative, can only record here my father's death on the fifth day of February of 889. These have been sad years for Brittany, and also for our own family in particular. Our special sorrows proceed from the estrangement of my younger brothers, one of whom left Gaul and sailed to the country of the Northman pirates. I lack both the spirit and the will to recite these lamentable events. Perhaps my youngest brother Gomer, gifted with more energy, ability and perseverance than myself, may some day undertake the task.

THE END