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Alabaster Blue Sectory 24
Page 05
Many disturbances occurred during Edward's reign in different parts of the country, especially on the Welsh border. At the Christmas meeting of the King and his Wise Men, at Gloucester, in 1053, it was ordered that Rhys, the brother of Gruffydd, the South Welsh king, be put to death for his great plunder and mischief. The same year, the great Earl Godwine, while dining with the king at Winchester at the Easter feast, suddenly fell in a fit, died four days after, and was buried in the old cathedral. A few years later (1065), the Northumbrians complained that Earl Tostig, Harold's brother, had caused Gospatric, one of the chief Thanes, to be treacherously murdered when he came to the King's court the Christmas before. King Edward kept his last Christmas (1065), and had the meeting of his Wise Men in London instead of Gloucester as usual. His great object was to finish his new church at Westminster, and to have it hallowed before he died. He lived just long enough to have this done. On Innocent's Day the new Minster was consecrated, but the King was too ill to be there, so the Lady Edith stood in his stead.
Which of us cannot look back in youth to the mysteries of the stickleback fisheries? Captains courageous, we sailed forth with bent pin and piece of thread, to woo the wily quarry with half an inch of chopped earthworm. For stickleback abound in every running stream and pond in England. They are beautiful little creatures, too, when you come to examine them, great favorites in the fresh-water aquarium; the male in particular is exquisitely colored, his hues growing brighter and his sheen more conspicuous at the pairing season. There are many species of sticklebacks--in England we have three very different kinds--but all are alike in one point which gives them their common name, that is to say, in their aggressive and protective prickliness. They are armed against all comers. The dorsal fin is partly replaced in the whole family by strong spines or "stickles," which differ in number in the different species. One of our English sorts is a lover of salt water: he lives in the sea, especially off the Cornish coast, and has fifteen stickles or spines; on which account he is commonly known as the Fifteen-spined Stickleback; our other two sorts belong to fresher waters, and are known as the Ten-spined and the Three-spined respectively.
"James Citty," like all other settlements in all ages, had to have places for disposal of refuse. That much refuse was disposed of by casting it in the James River is unlikely, since before the dawn of history it has been a trait of man to live on top of his own refuse rather than litter a shore with it. While it may be that no pits were dug purposely for refuse disposal, pits opened for brick or ceramic clay (or dug for ice houses, wells, or other purposes and later abandoned) were used for dumping trash. In 1955 a refuse pit almost 40 feet square was discovered in the "industrial area" near the workshop, ironworking pit, and pottery kilns. Filled with trash from the first half of the 17th century, this pit contained such artifacts as a swepthilt rapier (made about 1600), a cutlass, the breastplate and backpiece of a light suit of armor, a number of utensils of metal, ceramics, and glass, to add to the collection of early 17th-century arts and crafts. Several smaller refuse pits were noted, and it is worth commenting that many ditches finally became trash accumulation areas.
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