It all started when a young woman, desperate for help, raised her head to the sky and screamed at anyone who would listen. She had tried everything, everything in her power, but for some reason what she intended to reach remained out of reach and she was sick of it.
"TO ANYONE, ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN!"
She declared, with a voluminous voice –she had always been a rather loud person…
"I need help. I seriously need help because I'm not making this on my own. My history teacher SUCKS, you know? I need to pass this exam more than anything or my life is SCREWED! And as I said I'm SO not making it on my own! SO PLEASE I NEED HELP! ANYONE LISTENING UP THERE? ANYONE!?"
And just as the woman gave up, her voice hoarse from all the pointless screaming, something highly unlikely fell facedown from the sky.
The woman stared at the moaning figure of a tall, black-haired man in a rather bizarre costume, wearing a possibly even more bizarre helmet. He crawled up, looked around, ignored her completely, and raised his fist at the sky.
"I HATE YOU HEIMDALL! YOU HEAR ME? I HATE YOU! I HOPE YOUR SISTER REMAINS BALD FOREVER!"
When it was clear the sky was not answering, the man turned at the woman, giving her a look that would have made a less desperate being run away in fear. He scowled.
"So, what 'quest' do you have for the great Loki of Asgard, mortal?"
Well. Of all things that could have happened… The woman knew she should be scared to death, but then she was already scared to death of failing her exam so this bizarrely costumed man couldn't make it much worse.
"Err… Replace my history teacher?"
"What?!"
"He sucks, and I need a teacher that can actually give medieval history in a way that I will pass the exam."
Again the man looked up at the sky.
"SERIOUSLY HEIMDALL, NEXT TIME IT'S YOUR HAIR I'LL CUT!"
The woman cocked her head to the side.
"Who is Heimdall?"
Loki sent her a glare.
"Someone whose nose I will break as soon as I get the chance."
The woman couldn't help but giggle.
"What did you do?"
"None of your business, mortal."
"You're here now, so it's my business."
Loki scowled again.
"Fine. I cut his sister's hair while she was sleeping. He didn't like it."
"Ooh, protective brother mode. Yeah, I see where that went wrong. So… You got sent here to do what exactly?"
"Fulfil the quest you have for me. Only then I will be able to return."
"So… you're my new history teacher?"
"Shut up mortal."
"It's Cathy."
"I call you whatever I want."
This was going to be such a fun course…
(Pagebreak)
The door of the class flew open, and the headmistress entered, with behind her… Loki. The god –Cathy had figured that's what he was- looked as if he wanted to gut someone, while he ducked to get his helmet through the door. The headmistress cheerily announced.
"Good morning class! I have sad news for you all, it seems that your history teacher Mr De Jongh has mysteriously disappeared overnight. As I am informed, he has fled the premises because someone threatened to sew his mouth shut if he ever tried to teach again. Well, good for you I also can introduce your replacement teacher Mr… what was it again?"
"Loki. Just Loki is fine."
"Well then, I'm going to leave you to your classes! Have fun!"
The whole class just sat there with their mouth's open. As the door closed and the headmistress skipped away, sickly cheerful, Loki pointed his glare at the class and said in the most authoritarian voice he could muster.
"Good. As your leader has announced, I am Loki, your new history teacher. Any remarks on my attire will result in having your mouth sewn shut. Any remarks on my style of teaching will result in heavy corporal punishment. I have as much desire to teach this class, as you have to follow it. I don't like any of you pathetic mortals. But I will teach this class, and no one will fail this class under my lead. Understood?"
Totally dumbstruck and slightly frightened, the class nodded. Cathy started to wonder what disaster she had caused…
"Well, good to have that settled. Now. Take your papers, we're going to discuss the Early Medieval Age. I don't give a Bigesnipe's shit about what my predecessor has told you, he has probably no idea anyway, so we just start at the beginning."
Early Medieval Age: The Great Migration Period
"This stuff starts in the fifth century AD. The Roman Empire had split into an east and a west part, and the west part was declining. You want to know why? Immigration politics."
Loki looked very smug about it.
"The border of the Roman Empire –let's assume that when I say Roman Empire I mean the West part for now- was formed by two rivers, the Rhine and the Danube. On one side you had the Romans, with their togas and emperors and Christianity, and on the other side you had the barbarians with their uncouth language and lack of manners and horned helmets, yes?"
Everyone nodded.
"Well, unfortunately it's not at all true. By the time we're speaking, fifth century, Germanic tribes had already made their way deep into Roman politics. This empire business is very high maintenance, and so the Roman's needed soldiers to keep their borders protected. And well, what's better fit for an army than a fight-eager barbarian? You see, they filled their border-protection with the "enemy" they were actually trying to keep out. Paradoxical, no?"
Loki was smirking now, feeling oddly at ease in front of the class it seemed.
"Now, they had let Germanic tribes make a living in the Roman Empire, giving them the status of 'foederati". This meant something like 'ally". They could own and work the land, like any Roman citizen could. The barbarians didn't want to destroy the Roman culture. They would rather assimilate it. Therefore, by the time we're talking, again, Germanic tribes in and outside of the Roman Empire had taken over quite a lot of Roman customs already. The border protection depended on barbarians, for large parts of the Empire agriculture depended on them as well, and as a cherry on top there also was a pretty lively trade circuit between the Romans and the Germanic tribes. You can ask… where did it all go wrong?"
Loki bent to them, as if he was going to share a secret.
"This was a pretty functional 'multicultural' society, don't you think? What happened?"
He gestured to the blackboard, and out of nothing a chalk drawing of a fearsome looking Asian man appeared.
"THIS type happened. Atilla The Hun, quite the fearsome bloke. I've known him; he was a lot smarter than he looked. He, and with him a whole army of agile, cruel and merciless warriors, went on a quest to conquer all of Asia and Europe."
Unexpectedly, a text balloon appeared next to Atilla, stating 'ALL YOUR LANDS ARE BELONG TO ME!'
"So, this gave rise to a phenomenon you know as war refugees, but they called it The Great Migration Period. Whole tribes gathered all their stuff; wives and kids included, and went on the run for the evil Huns. That was the smartest thing to do really, because the Huns did no funny business when at war. Well, I thought it was funny, but I can imagine it wasn't if you were to become the sex slave of some overly hairy Hun. Back to the point, Huns are invading, people are on the run. In East Europe you had the Goths, and those were the first to take a run for their money. At least, about half of them did. The Visigoths went running and the Ostrogoths got enslaved by the Huns. They had nothing to do with your bizarre emo cult, but I can imagine the Ostrogoths felt pretty emo under the rule of those hairy Asians."
This caused chuckling in the class.
"Silence, I'm not done! The Romans, altruistic a they were, welcomed the fleeing Visigoths into their Empire, gave them the status of Foederati, and assigned them a nice piece of land in the Balkan region. We're talking 375 AD here."
On the blackboard appeared "VISIGOTHS IN BALKAN – 375".
"All well, if only that piece of land had indeed been a nice piece of land. But, to tell you the truth, it wasn't. It was infertile, crappy land and you can't really blame the Visigoths for not taking that crap. So… 410, and they went looking for bigger and better under the rule of Alaric I. He was a good leader, and soon his people were able to sack Rome. It wasn't the capital of the Empire anymore at that time, but still a major historic landmark, so you can tell the Romans did not take well to it. It was the first time in 800 years their city got sacked, but to tell you the truth, with those crappy defences it's a true miracle it didn't happen earlier."
On the blackboard appeared, below the first note, "VISIGOTHS SACK ROME – 410".
"The Romans understood now that these particular barbarians were not to be messed with, and in 418 they gave them Aquitania. This is like… the best bit of land you can get, a particularly nice and fertile part of what nowadays is called France, so that settled the dispute somewhat. Visigoths were not the only ones to move into the Roman Empire around that time though. Even before the Sack of Rome different other tribes, namely the Vandals, the Suebi, the Alemanni and the Burgundians had crossed the Rhine at Mainz. This was in 406."
Loki grinned.
"Now, this is where things get really confusing."
The menacing face of Atilla the Hun disappeared from the blackboard to make place for a large map of Europe. In a green flash Loki was folding a long stick with a crayon on the end, and he drew a large arrow from Asia all the way to present day France, to then make a turn, an unexpected loop, and a curl to end up at Rome.
"These are the Huns. Yeah, they got all the way to Rome, so if you're Asian looking you may have a Hun somewhere in your family tree."
More arrows followed this first one.
"Here we have the Allemanni and the Burgundians, they make themselves master of East Gallia. The Suebi and Vandals made their way to the Iberian Peninsula, that's here. They didn't last long though, because Aquitania was already too small for our friends the Visigoths, and they chased the Vandals from the peninsula. The Vandals then went to the North African coast and conquered the Roman provinces there. That was in 429."
Again a note in capital letters appeared on the blackboard: "VANDALS IN NORTH AFRICA – 429".
"Then, the Vandals –who are by the way called Vandals because they were very keen on destroying things- under the lead of King Genseric got the Foederati status for those provinces in 435, because the Romans had little choice, and they immediately went on to get more land. They got the Baleares, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicilia. Now comes the big news… They also sacked Rome. That was in 455."
On the blackboard appeared. "VANDALS SACK ROME – 455"
"They lasted a scarce 45 years without being plundered again. If anything's a testimony of the Roman Empire's deterioration, it's that."
Loki rolled his eyes dramatically and pointed at the arrow representing the Huns.
"You see this? You probably think, 'yeah, those Romans got sacked again"… But strangely enough, no such thing has happened. They say in 452 Pope Leo I The Great had a personal encounter with Atilla, and he sort of talked him out of plundering Rome. Never got to ask him if it were true, because only four years later he died while having sex. Heimdall told me that; it made me wonder what that asshole actually spends his time looking at all day."
Loki looked up for a moment, as if said Heimdall would come down to beat him up for that comment, but as no such thing happened he turned back to the class.
"Anyway, back to the point. Atilla is dead, and the Huns have no leader anymore, and they sort of have enough of the whole conquer-all-the-land business. Result: they go home, or they have themselves added to the Roman border protection. Again, paradoxical huh? By that time the whole Roman army consisted mostly of Germanics and Huns, and the Emperor had no real power anymore."
On the blackboard they can see now: "HUNS DON'T SACK ROME – 452" and "ATILLA DIES – 456".
"In 476 the emperor died, and the new emperor was but a child. The Germanic general Odoacer saw his chance, and he sort of grabbed the power. If you ask my opinion though, I think that six-year-old was happy enough to hand over the power and go back to his toys. Odoacer had no intentions of becoming emperor himself, so he sent the tokens of power kept in the capital all the way to the East part of the Empire. This was the formal end of the West Roman Empire."
A new note reads: "END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE – 476".
Loki sighed.
"That's about the most confusing batch of population movements. Now we're going to concentrate on a particular tribe in the area between the Rhine and the Somme. For the dumb ones among you, those are these two rivers."
Loki pointed the rivers out with his stick.
"This is the tribe of the Salian Franks. Their capital is the city of Tournai, and their kind was called Childeric I, son of Merovech. This guy had been a Roman governor back in the days, so they already had a hand in the power. His son Clovis is most important to us; this guy defeated the Roman governor Syagrius in 486, and chased the Visigoths from their beloved Aquitania. By the time he died in 511, he owned most of Gallia."
Another important date got added to the list, this time: "CLOVIS DIES – 511".
"We have been talking about the West Roman Empire mostly now, but as the power has been transferred to the East part, we'll have to focus on that more. The Ostrogoths no longer served as bedslaves to hairy Huns at that time, they were on the move as well now and looked to immigrate to the East Roman Empire. Not to the liking of the people there, who had seen what had happened to their West part thanks to immigrants…"
Loki grinned widely.
"King Zeno came up with this brilliant distraction manoeuver; he ordered the Ostrogoth king Theodoric to 'restore the Imperial Command in the West Roman Empire'. This came down to saying 'Go kick Odoacer's ass and then you can have the throne THERE, far away from our land'. It worked though, and Theodoric became the new leader there… of course, subordinate to the East Roman Emperor."
It appeared that Loki really started to enjoy teaching this class…
"In 526 Theodoric dies, and the Romans decided they have seen and heard enough of the Goths. The Senate asks Emperor Justinian I to 'free the country of the Arian Goths'. You see, the Goths were Christians, but not the same type of Christians as the Romans, and religion is always a good excuse to start a war. Our dear Emperor was happy enough to oblige, and he set out for glorious battle with his army. They beat the Vandals out of North Africa, took back Spain and the Mediterranean Islands, and kicked the ass of the last Ostrogoth king in 552. Now in Ravenna there no longer seated a barbarian king, but an Exarch from Constantinople. Again, for the dumb ones among you, that is situated here and it's the capital of the East Roman Empire."
The map became empty again, and immediately filled with new arrows pointing out the different battles fought by Justinian I, and his armies.
"Of course it's not over yet. There is one more tribe we haven't mentioned, namely the Lombards. They conquered large parts of Italy and gave their name to what is called Lombardy these days."
Loki clapped his hands.
"Now, we move from Italy to Britain!"
The map changed, zooming in on Great Britain.
"The Angles, the Frisians, the Jutes, the Danes and the Franks all decided that this particular island looked like a good place to start a new home, so they all set sail for Britain, chasing the indigenous Britons and Celts to the West of the island. I was there at the time, visiting a dear friend at the court of King Arthur. Think I even joined in a few battles…."
For a moment Loki looked in thought. Then he shook his head.
"Anyway, that's about it for The Great Migration Period. All this shit is relative in a way, because the tribes I named… well, not all of them had equally strong tribal identities, and the Romans were rather quick to paste names on people who had little to do with each other. Also there were a lot of temporary alliances among the barbarians, strength in numbers and all that, but those didn't mean the people involved actually united; after battle they mostly went their own way. Another thing to reckon with is that names for tribes that have been used throughout the history of the Roman Empire don't always refer to the same tribe. By example, the Frisians invading Britain are most likely not the same Frisians Tacit wrote about."
Loki let out a deep sigh.
"That's it class. You're dismissed, all but the mortal Cathy. Also, anyone who complains about me can expect to be turned into a frog."
The students left, until only Cathy remained. She looked at Loki and grinned.
"You make a pretty good teacher."
"I'm a god, petty mortal. I can be good at anything."
"Even karaoke?"
"What's that?"
"I could show you… but then you must dare to face my parents."
"I have no fear of mortals, mortal!"
"Hmm… Well, you can always come to my place and then we'll do a karaoke battle."
"If you think you can best me in any type of battle, you are sincerely mistaken little mortal… prepare to die."
"We shall see…"
(Author's Notes)
Yeah... This is my way of learning history. I'm a notorious procrastinator, and I spend my time with writing Loki-themed fics instead of studying. This is my attempt at combining pleasure and pain in one... Hope you like it. It's odd probably, and has little storyline apart from the history lessons... but I still beg you to review.
REVIEW! Please... The reason I write fics so much is because I'm an attention whore and this attempt at not failing my exams will only succeed if people actually give me some attention. So PLEASE?
*sad kitty eyes*