Quiet day, and that can be a good thing...

My wife is ill and resting, I shopped and bring her what she needs when she wakes - tea and chicken noodle soups mostly, some apple juice. I listen to music and read about Gawain and King Arthur, long ago and far away. I am on the second of Gillian Bradshaw's telling of the story and noticing that the best of those tales is done in the period of time before the lights all went out in the Roman Empire. But the book reminds me that they were going out and the stories are of a futile effort to hold back the Darkness, but the Dark Ages were well on their way. The Civilized Roman world had fled towards the Greek one and allowed the barbarians to have the leftovers of old Rome. Sometimes we get to dig up something from then, and turn it into a tourist site. I have been to one of the places unburied in the dust near the volcano, If their lives were so wonderful, that they had little to be proud of beside their love of sexual play, bloody entertainment spectacle, the arts, wine and wit - well, I didn't see it pointed out to me there. Not strong enough to put on their armor, sharpen their spears and fight the traveling tribes - no, they hired that done. Pay ransom, commerce and more taxes for more German Legions, since Romans were much too important and wealthy. So if there were a warband in Britain after the last legion left it could be the basis of the Legend of King Arthur, what will there be in our future as the lights go out?