The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff

First published: 1959

Type of work: Historical fiction

Themes: Family, race and ethnicity, war, religion, and emotions

Time of work: Roman times and the Middle Ages

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Britain and Juteland

Principal Characters:

• Aquila, a young, brave, and strong Roman cavalry officer who deserts to cast his lot with his native Britain, becoming a Saxon thrall known as Dolphin
• Flavia, his sister, who is taken by the Saxon invaders, remains in Britain with her abductor, and bears a son, Mull
• Ness, daughter of Cradoc, a chieftain, who weds Dolphin
• Minnow, their son, named Flavian, for Aquila’s father
• Brother Ninnias, a Christian monk who befriends Dolphin three times
• Hengest, ,
• Vortigern, and
• Ambrosius, leaders in Britain, known from chronicle history, who scheme and war for control
• Artorius, or
• Artos, (bear), a youthful leader among Ambrosius’ companions, destined to be renowned in legend

The Story

Through a combination of historical circumstances and individual quest, The Lantern Bearers imaginatively suggests what it is like to live in a time of great social upheaval. The story of one family torn asunder by the forces of change reveals the complexity of loyalties and an indomitable striving to preserve the light of civilization in the darkness of chaos.

Aquila’s Roman family have lived in Britain for generations. Their emblem is a dolphin, a sign that the eighteen-year-old Aquila has tattooed on his shoulder. Although he perceives that the world in which he is living may fall apart at any moment, when the legions are withdrawn Aquila is unprepared to leave Britain permanently. Confronted with a choice of loyalties, he finds himself more Briton than Roman; he deserts, and the galleys sail without him. As one last gesture, he fires the beacon in the Pharos at Rutupiae (Dover), a light of civilization that will not burn again.

Two evenings after Aquila returns home, marauding Saxons attack the peaceful farm. His blind father, Flavian, is slain, and Aquila is struck down, as he hears the screams of his sixteen-year-old sister, Flavia, as she is carried off. His attackers leave Aquila naked and bound to a tree for a second band of marauders. Thormod, a young man on his first foray, is willing to take the leavings of other warriors, especially because the dolphin sign reminds him of the tales of his grandfather Bruni. Thus Aquila becomes a slave (his captors call him “Dolphin”) and helps to row the boat back to Ullasfjord in Juteland. There he serves Bruni, achieving special recognition, because the old warrior admires Dolphin’s spirited objection to his slavery and his skill in reading a manuscript, The Odyssey, a favorite of Aquila’s family that was kept as booty.

Through years of anguish, Dolphin keeps alive because of his anger and passion to avenge his family and find his sister. A lean farming year provides an opportunity, for the tribe decides to resettle in the richer lands of Britain. Dolphin, wearing an iron thrall ring about his neck, thus returns to his homeland. At the burg of Hengest, he chances upon Flavia, now a chieftain’s wife. On a night of great feasting in the Mead Hall to honor Vortigern, she helps her brother to escape but cannot leave her man and son. Brother Ninnias, a Christian monk, helps Dolphin on his way, giving both physical assistance and spiritual encouragement.

Aquila/Dolphin thus begins another time of lonely bitterness, still seeking vengeance against those who betrayed his family. Even marriage only partially gives him hope; he feels love for his son but is so austere that the boy prefers the leadership of the charismatic Artos. As one of Ambrosius’ companions, Dolphin contributes significantly to the victory over Vortigern and tries to accept his son’s lack of affection. When Dolphin finds one of Hengest’s young warriors, whom he recognizes as Flavia’s son, he knows that family loyalty and love are stronger than political adherence and personal self-interest; he saves the wounded enemy, Mull. Similarly, when Dolphin confesses this treason to Ambrosius, Minnow stands by his father, and Ambrosius accepts the worth of such honor—that of such sentiments, from such lantern bearers, comes a chance for the restoration of civilization.

Context

The Lantern Bearers, winner of the Carnegie Medal, an annual British award for an outstanding children’s book, is the third book of a trilogy about Roman and Middle Ages Britain. The legions in Britain were withdrawn by 410. The Lantern Bearers continues the history of the family presented in The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) and The Silver Branch (1957). These are the best-known historical novels of Rosemary Sutcliff, who believes that there are “truths” to be learned from the disintegration of the Roman Empire and the uncertainty of the Middle Ages, which parallel contemporary circumstances. She resumed the story of the Aquila family in Frontier Wolf (1980). Her preoccupation with the period is also clear in two other novels, Outcast (1955) and Dawn Wind (1961). Sutcliff’s feeling for Roman Britain was first inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906) and its sequel Rewards and Fairies (1910), books that also suggested a linking of past and present.

The Lantern Bearers contains literary interests that have been central in some of her other works, a translation of Beowulf (1961) and retellings of tales of King Arthur in The Light Beyond the Forest (1979) and The Sword and the Circle (1981). In addition, Sutcliff writes of Boudicca’s leading of the Iceni against the Romans in Song for a Dark Queen (1978), winner of the Other Award for “a non-biased children’s book of literary merit,” and of a freed Roman gladiator who joins the Horse People of Northern Britain in The Mark of the Horse Lord (1965), often called her best historical novel. She also wrote novels about prehistory—Warrior Scarlet (1958) and Sun Horse, Moon Horse (1977); Celtic, Saxon, and Viking in Blood Feud (1977); and later periods—the English Civil War in Simon (1953) and Norman in Knight’s Fee (1960).

Sutcliff’s achievement in the writing of historical fiction is unrivaled since World War II, and her reputation is likely to increase. Her themes are large ones, significant in any age: light and darkness, death and rebirth, freedom, and winning through pain and trials. Although she makes no concession to easy reading, she writes with clarity and power to provide a fine introduction for a young person’s development as a sophisticated reader of fiction, as well as to foster a sense of history and the individual. Sutcliff’s skills as a storyteller, combining exciting narrative with evocative description and accessible dialogue, make her fiction vital and pertinent.