An Epic Poem for Queen Cartimandua
Settle back now and hear my tale,
Of cunning and deceit I will unveil.
Of a tribe in the North of this fair land,
Now listen to my story and you’ll understand.
Queen she was, Cartimandua was her name,
Leading the Brigantes tribe, earned her fame.
Married to Venutius, leading the biggest tribe,
Working with the Romans, we have nothing to hide.
We are proud warriors, nothing do we fear,
But why fight the Romans, they’ll soon disappear.
Our tribe will be here when the Romans have gone,
Back across the water is where they were from.
The plunder this land and tried ruling us too,
But we are not interested, for they are few.
And when we are ready, we will rise with our might,
And smash those puny Romans and put them to flight.
But why should we war when they leave us alone,
And our fair precious Queen does sit on our thrown.
For the Romans need grain and cattle to last,
We can spare both, our riches are vast.
Our Gods will protect us their power is true,
Roman Gods are weak and relatively new.
Other tribes are unhappy and looking for trouble,
They would pull down the Romans and reduce them to rubble.
Caratacus their King comes to us for help,
We bind him with chains till he doth yelp.
Off to the Romans we take him that day,
Then off to their jails, for a very long stay.
Queen Cartimandua is mighty but her husband he thinks,
That the Romans would run if we kick up a stink.
The Queen says no and Venutius backs down,
Ruling together they share a joint crown.
But Venutius is cunning and plots in the dark,
The Queen is unhappy and tells the King to hark,
“Go from me now, I divorce you with sorrow”,
“Pack your bags and go, be gone by tomorrow”.
“A new man I now have, Vellocatus his name”,
“Once your shield bearer, he now brings you shame”.
Venutius leaves then and disappears on the double,
Plotting with other tribes, he wants to make trouble.
Other tribes are angry at the Romans we know,
But we are still happy and go with the flow.
He plots and recruits tribes and warriors to his name,
And draws them all in to his deadly game.
He attacks our tribe at the dawn of first light,
But the Romans arrive to help with our fight.
We repel their attacks with our combined might,
Away the rebels go, we put them to flight.
For the Romans support us and want us to win,
Their Kingdom is shaky, their future is grim.
All across Europe other tribes grow their might,
Fighting the Romans, its not a pretty sight.
But here in the North, we repel all traitors,
We catch and we kill all Brigantia haters.
Venutius slinks off, with anger and sorrow,
But plotting revenge his soul feeling hollow.
He gathers more tribes whilst we still rule,
Does he take our Queen to be such a fool?
For the Romans will help us, they’re strong overseas.
We’ll vanquish our enemies with a terrible ease.
But the Romans are weakening this much is true,
Wars on all sides their strength is through.
Roman Emperor Nero fiddles when Rome burns,
Venutius takes his chance, he thinks it his turn.
For power he wants and the Queen she must go,
He gathers the tribes the throne to overthrow.
Attacks us brave warriors, we laugh at his name,
But this time it’s different and it’s not the same.
The Romans send help, that much is true,
But not many centurians and most of them new.
We fight and are slaughtered the tribe is no more,
Venutius has won, he’s evened the score.
But Queen Cartimandua escapes from the fight,
From history’s books she disappears from sight.
But this tale is true about our warrior Queen,
Boudicca gets the fame and the only one seen.
But look to the North for strong women as well,
And never forget this true tale I do tell.
Paul Brighouse
This post originally appeared on our first site, dis-spelling.org.uk in 2018