Thus Alcuin could write a jocose letter, even quoting Scripture in that vein. Let us see another. He was detained in Britain at the end of the year 790 by an unexpected event, of which mention has already more than once been made. Ethelred, the king of Northumbria, had been deposed and kept in prison till the end of 790. Alcuin wrote to his pupil Joseph, in Gaul, to tell him that Ethelred had passed from prison to throne, from misery to majesty; and things were so unsettled that he did not like to leave for France. He was evidently not well supplied with money, food, or clothing. He begged Joseph to send him what was necessary for the sea voyage; also five pounds weight of silver which he had sent to his charge, and another five from his possessions in France; three garments, of goat-skin and of wool for the use of his attendants, lay and clerical, and of linen for his own use; also black and red cloaks of goat skin, if he could find such, and many pigments of sulphur and colours for pictures. Then he turns to the question of meat and drink. Quoting 2 Kings iv. 40, he exclaims, “‘O, thou man of God, there is death in the pot’, for [again quoting, from 1 Sam. ix. 7, and putting wine in place of bread] the wine ‘is spent in our vessels’: and [he adds] the acid beer of these parts makes havoc in our stomachs.”
Here is another example of his playfulness and lightness of touch.
Ep. 9. A.D. 783-6.
“To the most illustrious man Flavius Damoeta Albinus sends abundant greeting of perpetual peace.”
Ep. 12.
Ep. 101.
This was Riculfus, Archbishop of Mainz, whom in another letter he addresses as the great fisherman, probably because of piscatorial rights which he naturally had as a riparian proprietor. Alcuin himself—we may note—was a fisherman. He writes to Arno in 798, from Tours, that he does not know in which of two places he will be the next month, but whichever it was it would find him fishing. “I know not whether I shall play the diver on the banks of the Meuse and catch fish, or float on the waters of the Loire and catch salmon.” There are salmon now both in the Meuse and in the Loire; but the phrases in Alcuin’s letter seem to point to bottom-fishing on the Meuse and surface-fishing on the Loire. Alcuin learned to fish on the Ouse at York, of which he writes, as we have seen above[244], “Hanc piscosa suis undis interluit Usa.” We must return to Letter 9.
“I greatly rejoice in your welfare, and am much delighted with your loving present, sending you as many thanks as I have counted teeth in your gift. It is a wonderful animal, with two heads, and with sixty teeth, not of elephantine size but of the beauty of ivory. I am not terrified by the horror of this beast, but delighted by its appearance; I have no fear of its biting me with gnashing teeth. I am pleased with its fawning caresses, which smooth the hair of my head. I see not ferocity in its teeth; I see only the love of the sender.”
Carmen ccxix, ed. Quercet.
Alcuin afterwards made this ivory comb the subject of a poetic riddle:—