Catherine, Called Birdy Quotes
"I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say."
"My father must suffer from ale head this day, for he cracked me twice before dinner instead of once. I hope his angry liver bursts."
"Today the sun shone and the villagers sowed hay, gathered apples, and pulled fish from the stream. I, trapped inside, spent two hours embroidering a cloth for the church and three hours picking out my stitches after my mother saw it."
"If my brother Edward thinks that writing this account of my days will help me grow less childish and more learned, he will have to write it."
"I am delivered! My mother and I have made a bargain. I may forego spinning as long as I write this account for Edward."
"Today I chased a rat about the hall with a broom and set the broom afire, ruined my embroidery, threw it in the privy, ate too much for dinner, hid in the barn and sulked, teased the littlest kitchen boy until he cried."
"Something is astir. I can feel my father's eyes following me about the hall, regarding me as he would a new warhorse or a bull bought for breeding."
"This morning: 'Exactly how old are you, daughter?' This forenoon: 'Have you all your teeth?' 'What color is your hair when it is clean?'"
"There was a hanging in Riverford today. I am being punished for impudence again, so was not allowed to go. I am near fourteen and have never yet seen a hanging. My life is barren."
"What makes this clodpole suitor anxious to have me? I am no beauty, being sun-browned and gray-eyed, with poor eyesight and a stubborn disposition."
"Master Lack-Wit comes today, despite my mother's objections."
"Master Lack-Wit was of middle years and fashionably pale. He was also a mile high and bony as a herring, with gooseberry eyes, chin like a hatchet, and tufts of orange hair sprouting from his head, his ears, and his nose."
"I rubbed my nose until it shone red, blacked out my front teeth with soot, and dressed my hair with the mouse bones I found under the rushes in the hall."
"The stars and my family align to make my life black and miserable. My mother seeks to make me a fine lady—dumb, docile, and accomplished."
"I wonder why rubbing your face and hands with black and sandy evil-smelling soap makes them clean. Why doesn't it just make them black and sandy?"
"My father's clerk suffers today from an inflammation of his eyes, caused, no doubt, by his spying on our serving maids as they wash under their arms at the millpond."
"There are Jews in our hall tonight! On their way to London, they sought shelter from the rain. My father being away, my mother let them in."
"The Jews have no horns and no tails, just wet clothes and ragged children."
"I was unhappy to see the Jews leave this morning until I got it in my mind to travel with them and have an experience."
"The cook's boy told me today of a miller's apprentice in Nottingham who can fart at will. That, I think, is a useful and notable talent, to the Devil with spinning."
"Dreamed of the miller's farting apprentice. This morning I stomped the cake into the rushes on the floor and threw the ring into the pig yard. I will never marry."
"Morwenna says when I have done with writing, I must help with the soap-making. The bubbling mess stinks worse than the privy in summer."
"I can stand no more of lady-tasks, endless mindless sewing, hemming, brewing, doctoring, and counting linen! Why is a lady too gentle to climb a tree or throw stones into the river when it is lady's work to pick maggots from the salt meat?"
"Father Huw says storms are the work of the Devil. Does that mean if the Devil is busy with some other mischief, the weather is good?"
"Why, I wonder, did God make faces with the nose over the mouth instead of the other way? Why do noses have two openings and mouths only one? And why do we need to blow our noses but never our ears? Or our eyes?"
"I have mixed water and eggs with my writing inks to make paint for my chamber walls, where I am painting a scene from Heaven, with dogs and birds who look like me, angels with my mother's face, and saints with the faces of Edward and Aelis and George."
"It appears a storm is coming. Father Huw says storms are the work of the Devil. Does that mean if the Devil is busy with some other mischief, the weather is good? Or if the Devil is occupied bringing a storm to Stonebridge, there is no sickness or evil or bad weather elsewhere in the world? Is the Devil then, being in charge of the weather, more powerful than God?"
"I joined the village children today as they went from cottage to cottage begging for soul cakes. Our cook makes the largest cakes but Perkin's granny makes the best."
"I have named the puppies. The little male is Brutus, after the first king of Britain, and the females are all called after herbs: Betony, Rosemary, Anise, and Rue."
"I wonder why every occasion for mourning or celebrating seems to call for ale: birth ales, church ales, bride ales, funeral ales, harvest ales."
"Birds and animals and children, being smarter, never get drunk and never have ale head or putrid stomach."
"I am not very good at asking nicely for things, even from God."
"One thing I will never do is run away and be a privy cleaner."
"His teeth are yellow because I have no white paint. But maybe they truly were yellow. Most people's are."
"I asked her how did she know, was she there? She hates when I make jests about how old she is."
"Song maker, Birdy? Don't stretch your legs longer than your stockings or your toes will stick out."
"I will not be given in marriage against my will!"
"If I become a saint, I would like my day to be celebrated in just such fashion."
"I watched my birds all morning to see if I could spy them pairing off but they are acting just the same as always, so I must have missed it."
"Even the king would have trouble enforcing that law, Birdy," she said, "for one stick won't make fire, and God's creatures dearly love to warm their hands on a fire."
"When I was little, I used to try to capture the colored light. I thought I could hold it in my hand and carry it home. Now I know it is like happiness—it is there or it is not, you cannot hold it or keep it."
"I do not remember Our Blessed Lord ever condemning spitting. He did not make it a deadly sin like pride or gluttony or greed."
"First day of Lent. We are but dust and to dust shall return. I tried to be thoughtful and morbid on this day but spoiled it by skipping in the yard after dinner from pure joy. I am not dust yet!"
"Each time I tried to write of Geoffrey yestereve, I swooned and could not control my hands."
"After Mass, I sent Tom the kitchen boy for pigeon's milk and asked William Steward to order me striped paint."
"The beauty of men and women is but the devil's work," she said, pinching her mouth like a fish. "A snare and a delusion. A trap for the innocent."
"We walked back to the manor for the ale feast, showering the bride with rose petals, the musicians playing and tomfooling."
"When I got to the goats, Agnes covered her ears and ran squealing from my chamber."
"Mayhap I could be a hermit. I wonder what they do."
"Christ has risen! I got out of bed at dawn today so I could see the sun dance for joy as it is said to do each Easter. It rained, as it does each Easter."
"To the Maypole haste away, for it is a holiday!"
"God gave me this big mouth, so I think it can be no sin to use it."
"I am sulking and have refused all food since dinner."
"God's thumbs! I am going out to the barn to jump, fart, and pick my teeth!"
"I felt as though I had saved the whole world."
"We were happy to think on the church ale to come."
"Home can never match the excitement of Lincoln, but I was happy to see my mother again."
"Marriage is what you make it, Birdy. If you spit in the air, it will fall on your face."
"No one will agree to call me Aelgifu except Gerd the miller's son, who cannot pronounce the name and says Ugly-foo."
"I would choose to let him live free in the woods and fields, but I know no village that would take kindly to a bear roaming its woods."
"I have hung garlic and rowan about the cradle to ward off witches and am watching her closely to make sure she breathes."
"My mother's fever is worse. O dear Saint Margaret, who cares for women in childbed, dear Blessed Virgin, most especially dear God, please save my mother!"
"We will call the baby Eleanor Mary Catherine."
"The squeal of cart wheels and the bawling of babies, the shouts of children and peddlers and cross old women, the hissing of the geese and the roosters' crow."
"I am painting on my chamber wall God holding baby Eleanor in his arms."
"I think sometimes that people are like onions. On the outside smooth and whole and simple but inside ring upon ring, complex and deep."
"I who must be caged could leave them no longer in cages. So I set them free."
"I realize that Shaggy Beard has won my body, but no matter whose wife I am, I will still be me."