Much The Miller’s Son. A Merry Man?
Picture from Medieval Occupations https://medievalbritain.com/type/medieval-life/occupations/medieval-miller/
Much, or Moche, or Midge, or even Nick, in various
ballads of Robin Hood, is described as the Miller’s son and one of Robin’s company
of Merry Men. ‘Midge’ suggests he was small and possibly harmless, but in one early
ballard (Robin Hood and the Monk) he is shown as being a killer, murdering a
page boy and then taking the boy’s place in disguise.
This ambivalent attitude to Much also reflects medieval attitudes to
millers. Because millers were responsible for turning people’s wheat, barley
and other grains, even dried peas, into flour, they were often suspected of
stealing part of the flour and giving light weight. Mills were often controlled
by local land owners, and peasants resented having to use a mill where the
gentry demanded a cut. Peasants were even forbidden from grinding their own
wheat – although the discovery of quern stones at medieval sites shows that
this law was frequently ignored. Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, portrays a
miller as a bully and a show-off, Simpkin the Swagger. In medieval France, too,
millers were seen as cheats, as the widespread saying calling millers, tailors,
weavers and tax collectors thieves shows.
I have a water mill in my novel, “A Summer Bewitchment,” and show the
hero Magnus and heroines Elfrida entering the mill in their quest to recover
seven missing girls.
Excerpt
Dispirited, she slid off the bony bay and opened the mill door to a blistering
fog of flour, a tumult of grinding mill-stones. She flung up an arm, clapping her
hands over her ears as the ground shuddered under her feet. Magnus scowled, shouting
something before hooking her up and carrying her through the mill into a narrow
side chamber.
In this room she could hear again
and the dusty flour was a little less thick, but it still formed a billowing
cloud within the room. Dropped onto the dirt floor by her husband with no more
ceremony than he might have released a bag of wheat, she coughed like a cat
with a fur ball. Magnus smeared chaff from his eyes, cursing beneath his
breath.
“How the miller stands this I do not
know,” he said at length.
“The money is good.” Mark detached
himself from leaning against a beam and approached. “A fresh horse is tethered
for you, sir, my lady.”
I
am no lady. Elfrida bit down hard on that. She
glanced at Magnus. “A message through Father Luke?”
“It seemed the easiest way. Have you
brought the clothes?” he asked Mark.
Mark handed him a parcel. “Sir, I
have two horses—”
“Go back, welcome Peter to the manor
and tell him how things are when you get the chance. Keep a watch on Father
Jerome and Tancred, especially Father Jerome. I do not want that priest getting
word to the Lady Astrid.”
“Do you think he would try to or
even want to?” Elfrida asked, thinking at once of Father Jerome’s pale, sunken
look when he realized his lady had gone off without him.
Magnus shrugged. “Why should I care?
Mark, I will take both your horses. We shall go faster with two, riding and
guiding.”
Mark tugged on his red nose. “I ride
Star?” He sounded horrified.
“He is smooth enough and steady.”
“And slow. What do I tell our reluctant
guests?”
“Tell Tancred and that priest as
little as possible. Let them think we have gone to my wife’s village.”
Short Blurb
for “A Summer Bewitchment.”
Can a knight and his witch save seven kidnapped maidens? Sir Magnus and
Elfrida strive to find the girls, but at what cost to their marriage?
A
SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2)
Amazon Co Uk
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZTMNWZ9/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=a+summer+bewitchment&qid=1572606494&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
Lindsay Townsend
