| Pedigree
My blood was formed in primordial mists, and persists to this day.
My blood is a legacy of millenniums uncountable.
My blood ascended mountains by the hundreds,
And empires a thousand fold,
And lived lifetimes without number.
My blood died some in Hastings,
And in the Battle of the Lillie in 1054,
And defeated the Saracens,
And gained honor and glory in battlefields now unmarked,
And bled for countries now rendered to moldering pages,
Yet endured and progenerated.
The blood of Charlemagne flows through my veins,
As does that of Pepin,
And Clovis,
And back through the ages until time is lost.
I share a past with Otto the Great,
With knights and pagans,
With plunderers and philanthropists,
With soldiers and scholars.
Powerful my blood is -
A saint and a barbarian am I,
And proud to be of both creeds,
Of all manner of my antecedents.
I am beholden to all,
And proud of the deeds of all my ancestors recorded,
And prouder still of those unrecorded who lived in obscurity,
Whose names defy time’s recollection.
I am the stock of chamberlains, and dukes, and barons, and earls,
And kings praised to heaven or hell,
And paupers who reached a wretched demise in dark corners
Unwitnessed and forgotten,
And no marker to keep the earth where they fell,
And no song, until now, to sing the lives extinguished.
But the line persists.
And kind begets kind.
And the blood is tenacious.
This blood, my blood,
Sustained the princes of Scotland who stood by Duncan.
Ulford, Justice of Ireland, was my blood,
And Llewellyn of Wales,
And Elvira Sanchez de Gamboa of Toledo,
And Don Sancho Garcia de Salzedo, Lord of Ayala Fifthlord,
Who fell at the battle of Alarcos,
Sir Piers Peter de Mauley, Sheriff of Northampton,
Maud of Brittany,
Maurice Fitz Maurice, Lord Justice of Ireland, Lord of Offalyin,
Gerald of Windsor,
And Sybill de Salisbury de Everlaux.
My blood passed from Hersent,
To Charles,
To Louis "The Fair",
To Charles The Great, and Hildegarde of Swabia.
Mine is the line of Welf, Duke of Bavaria,
Odo, Count of Orleans,
Count Giesselbert, and Regnier,
Robert le Frison, Crusader, Count of Flanders and Artois,
Fulk, Count of Anjou, King of Jeruselem,
William The Conqueror, son of Robert "The Devil",
Malcom Canmore, King of Scots,
The original settlers of Wethersfield in 1635,
Richard Goodrich, High Sheriff of Yorkshire,
And Mary, only "Mary", no other title survives,
Killed by Indians in 1677, and I know no more of her.
I am descended from John Wilt of Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts,
And Routrou, Viscount of Chateaudun,
Giselburt, Duke of Lorraine, Lay Abbot of Echternach,
Henry The Fowler, who married Matilda Ringleheim,
Henry I, King of England,
Rulf I,
Fulk II,
Charles III, King of France,
Louis IV, D’Outre-mer,
Edward Atheling, "The Exile", betrothed to Agatha Halt of Hungary,
Sir John Ferres, 1st Baron of Ferrers, born June 20th, 1271,
Godfrey, Count of Namur,
Conrad I, Count of Luxembourg,
Ida of Saxony,
Gospatric, Lord of Workingham of High Ireby,
Aubrey de Vere II, Sheriff of London,
Premyslava and Ladilas of Hungary,
Rogneide of Polotzk,
St. Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev,
Olag of Novogorod,
Walter de Burgh, Earl of Ulster,
Isobel Bigod,
Richard Mor de Burc,
Isabel of England,
And Richard the lion hearted, son of Henry II, King of England.
Duncan II, King of Scots was my ancestor,
And Athelreda of Northumberland,
Daughter of the sister of Edmund,
And Robert de Rumely, Lord of Coupland and Skipton in Craven,
Agatha of Ravensworth,
Ansfred the Dane,
Hrollager,
Rognvald Eysteinsson,
Aseda of Jutland,
Sveide the Viking,
Rognvald Olafsson, son of Olaf Gudrodsson,
Cecily Avenal, Lady of Bicknor,
William Malet, Baron of Curry Malet,
Sir John Hastings,
Dambrowka of Bohemia,
Boleslaus "The Cruel",
Borivorius, 1st Christian Duke of Bohemia,
Edgar the Peaceful, King of England,
Lady Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred The Great,
Joan de Tateshal,
Who received Tateshal for her share of her father’s estate,
St. Luitgarde Count of Cleeves,
Curopalatis, Emperor of the East,
Josceline of Denmark,
Walravius, Count of Nassau,
Dunlaing, King of Leinster,
Arnmod Arnvidarsson, born in Onundfjord, Norway,
John De Hastings of Leamington House,
The Earl of Arundell, beheaded in 1326,
William De Warren, who died in a tournament,
Don Galindo Valasquez de Ayala,
Who was at the conquest of Saragoca,
Sancho Velasquez, to whom Don Alonzo VI, King of Castile,
Granted the lordship of Ayala in 1074.
I am of the line of the infante Don Velade Aragon,
And Alphonso, King of Portugal,
James, King of Aragon,
Ferdinand III, King of Castile,
Cynan ap Gwaethfoed from Wales,
Eric VIII, King of Sweden,
Skoglar Tostem, whose lineage has been lost,
Bruno, Bischop of Augsburg,
Skjold, King of the Danes,
Odin of Asgard,
And Frigg, born in 219,
And Cadwalladr before him but unrecorded when,
And Snaer, King of Sweden,
Vanlandi Svegdasson,
James Weeden and Isabel Winch,
And Iodine de Camville,
Who married Sir William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury,
Who was slain in battle with the Saracens,
And Isabel Mauduit of Elmley Castle,
Who died in a nunnery at Cokehill,
And Charles "The Bald", who died on Mount Senis in the Alps,
And Thomas De Clare, who fell in battle in Ireland in 1286,
And Hugh de Moreville, one of the four knights
Who assassinated Thomas A. Brecket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
My lineage comes from Walter de Gant,
Commander in the Battle of the Standard,
And Sir Richard Fitz Allen, Beheaded in 1397,
From Constantine II, slain by Norwegians in battle,
Refil Bjornsson,
Murcertac O’Toole, son of Gillacomghall O’Toole,
Thomas de Monthermer, lord slain at the battle of Sluys in Flanders,
Sir Richard Woodville,
Lord High Constable of England, beheaded in 1469,
Ursanus Nobilus,
Auda the Deep Minded,
Thorstein the Red of Rogaland,
Ketel Wether of Romerike,
Vedrar Grim, Earl of Sogne,
Skaan,
Svyar,
Stelmi,
Ketel Flatness, Lord of Hebrides,
Walpert, Count of Ringelheim,
Ragnhildis Ludmilla,
William Seylard, citizen of London, merchant and tailor,
William Carpenter, who came to America from Southampton,
Mary Petty,
Colonel John Whiting of Hartford, Connecticut,
And Matthew Allyn and Margeret Wyatt,
From whom President Grover Cleveland descended.
I am of the clan of John Bullard, born in 1485,
Whose name was recorded on the militia muster roll in Suffolk,
And William Wilson, buried in Windsor Castle,
John Smith, a quartermaster in the Netherlands,
Who sought the new world in 1635,
And the Reverend William Wilson,
Now resting in Saint George Chapel in Windsor,
And Hugh Heath of Huxley,
And John Warren, who came to Boston on the Arabella in 1630,
Gilbert de Clare, a red crusader, wed to the princess Joan de Acre,
Hugh Magnus, a leader of the First Crusade,
Hugh, Count of Paris,
Borelo, Count of Urgel,
Captain James Leonard, who built "The House of the Seven Gables",
Where he and his wife Lydia Dwelt.
And he was a friend to the Indian chief Massasoit.
And under the foundation of his house,
He secreted the head of Massasoit’s son.
And in my genealogy, I have found
Isaac Learned of Middlesex,
And Running Deer, born about 1715,
And Mary Lewis, with dark eyes and hair,
Given a beaded dress and moccasins,
And Edwin Whiting, who passed away in Mapleton, Utah in 1890,
And Benjamin Averett in Springville in 1888.
And thirteen volumes of names from my father’s childhood home.
All these have passed,
And my grandmother, Myrtle Bernice Holt, has recorded their lives,
And through her diligence left the knowledge for me in her books,
That I may claim entitlement to the memory,
That I might seek and find in a single evening,
All my kin, my kind, my ancestry,
That I might stand proud,
That I might bear my blood with honor,
My nobility and peasantry,
That I might concede my heritage eagerly.
And here then is my tongue to stir the memory,
To wake the spirits of all my forbearers, my ancestors,
To seal this past to my name,
To write an epitaph with this remembrance.
Rise, oh, ghostly kin and kind,
Rise on the wind, on my breath,
Upon my notes and tones.
Possess me, this mortar yet sustaining the foundation.
I am your hope.
You are my treasured names and records.
I revere all.
And if I lack a name for some,
With no limit to my enthusiasm
Do I embrace these nameless brothers and sisters,
And sing their praise.
Had I omnipotence,
I would grave all this history,
All these life experiences,
Upon a planet,
Or yet a star shining brilliantly,
And cast it spiraling heavenward for all time,
A radiating celestial body,
An inspiration to the darkness.
And I would watch from a space between the trees.
And I would sing softly to myself.
I am Daniel F Mitchell, beneficiary of all my predecessors.
I was born in 1960,
And will never die.
And I shall rise tomorrow, and teach children these words.
~ Daniel F Mitchell
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