100 BC - Etha - an Iron Age Celtic girl

1400 years have passed since Yani lived in the village, and 2700 since Alard died. Now the village is just a little larger, but the huts look almost exactly the same as Alard and his family lived in 2700 years before.

The basic frame was of wood with a thatch of reeds and grass and the shape was either circular or rectangular.

Farmers had learned to plough the soil before planting seed. The wooden plough was pulled by several oxen and the women followed casting the wheat seed to right and left.

The plough had an iron shoe shaped over the wood. The iron was harder than either wood or bronze and Etha's father Eric found the work much easier more quickly done than Yani's father had done. Wheat was planted in the autumn and barley in the spring.

Iron was used for most tools and around the farmhouse were various items hanging from the wooden posts.

In Eric's hut lived his wife, eldest daughter Etha, with more younger children. Along with them lived Eric's old parents (aged about 35) and his two brothers with their wives and children. Unmarried sisters also stayed with him so the hut must have been very crowded. It was very large - over 50 feet across 18 metres - and inside hurdles and curtains divided it up.

Even during the day the place was quite darkish 'though some light came down through the smoke hole in the roof. Every evening the adults sat around the fire doing small tasks and chatting.

The old lady was a great teller of stories of how things were long ago. The children listened with wide eyed wonder to the tales of how a god named Alard dug the great ditches at the top of the nearby hill to hold the Devil in the centre of the circle.

Lug was the sun god and Mananan came from the sea along with Ea as the god of rivers and streams.

It was a special day when a travelling story teller came to the village. Everyone joined in to prepare a big feast and they collected around an outside fire if it was summer or into the largest hut in winter and spent much of the night singing and listening to the old stories.

Telling stories was considered a great art form and tellers of stories were called bards. They often set the stories to music (the start of folk songs).

Around the village was a wooden palisade of split tree trunks to keep out bears, wolves and foxes who could smell and hear the animals which were brought in each night (cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry). The farmers had learnt that the crops grew better if the animals were allowed to graze on the arable land after the wheat and barley had been cut.

At harvest time Etha went out with the other women to cut the corn using an iron sickle and then the grain was threshed and dried before being put into storage pits ready for the winter.

In times of trouble the whole village and others nearby fled to the hill top where were the remains of the old fort.

If they had sufficient warning the villagers were able to rebuild the old banks and ditches and add ramparts to the most vulnerable parts.

Most battles involved very few people (perhaps 200 only, because there were not many at each village) and the fighting lasted for an hour or two at the most. Afterwards life rapidly returned to what it was before. If the invaders won the battle they took what they wanted and either stayed or returned to their own villages whilst if the local people were victorious they simply killed all the enemies and took their weapons, jewellery and clothes and buried the bodies.

Amongst the warriors who had been defeated in a recent battle the villagers found a captive. They were surprised as he was a Druid and these priests were famous for their knowledge and power. The centre of their religion was on Mona the Island of Anglesey - where terrible ceremonies were held which included human sacrifice.

The Druids were believed to have such power that even people across the seas in Europe sent gifts and messages asking for prayers and help.

On being made free to return to Mona the Druid promised that all the villagers would have a special favour from the gods and for many years afterwards their harvests were excellent and their animals very fertile, and the village grew to be the most important in the district.

Coracles were tiny one person boats used on streams and rivers for fishing.