What a Thousand Years Is

Perhaps you have often wondered how long a thousand years is. England is about a thousand years old as a nation; a few very great trees are a thousand years old. But it is hard to think of a thousand years and measure it in our minds as we measure a week, and perhaps this story and these pictures may help us.

1. A thousand years ago, in the year 917, a little boy named Egbert was playing with a trumpet. His father was in the camp of King Alfred, and sounded the signal which called together the English people to drive back the Danish invaders. The boy grew up, and in his old age he took on his knee a little girl named Edith.

2. Edith lived through the great times when William the Conqueror brought his Norman men to rule in England. She died very old, and the playmate of her closing years was a boy named Harold.

3. Harold became a man and a soldier, a knight of great renown. He joined in the Crusades to win back Jerusalem from the Mohammedans, and died at a great age after a noble life, leaving a little granddaughter, Maud, to remember him.

4. Maud grew up, and her uncle was one of the barons who forced the bad King John to sign the Magna Charta, which gave the people their liberty. She died full of years and honour>, leaving her little friend Hubert to treasure and love her name.

5. Hubert grew up to see the first Parliament in England, and lived to see the people gaining new power in the nation; and on the very day of his death he held in his arms his daughter’s little girl, Joan.

6. Joan was a lovely country girl, living in our English countryside when brave John Wyclif was sending out his preachers to preach the Gospel to the people. She knew Wyclif, and saw him writing the first Bible ever given to the people in our English tongue, and she read the book to her little friend Geoffrey.

7. Geoffrey grew up to be a man, bought one of the first books ever printed in England, and gave it to his little playmate, Katherine, who was learning to read when Geoffrey died at a very great age.

8. Katherine loved the book, and loved reading, and she lived in the great reign of Queen Elizabeth, when men first travelled round the world and learning spread throughout the land; and her children’s children treasured the book, so that when she died she left it to her grandson, Philip.

9. Philip grew up to manhood, and lived through the times of Cromwell, whose invincible army he joined at Marston Moor, fighting also at Naseby and Dunbar. He lived to see the death of Charles the First and Cromwell, and he often told the tale of Cromwell to his daughter’s child, Jane.

10. Jane revered his memory and never forgot him, though she lived to a great age, so that she was only ten years short of a hundred when she died. She would often talk to her little companion, David, of her hero of Marston Moor.

11. David was stirred by the tales of Cromwell, and when he grew up he joined with Nelson, and fought at Trafalgar, where the power of England was established for ever at sea. He lived to a great age, and was often seen at play with little Winnie.

12. Winnie watched the power of England grow on the foundations that her hero had helped to build, and she lived to see the first trains and steamships in the world. She lives still to-day, playing on sunny days with the boy who reads this book to her.

Hand in hand through the world they go, and granny tells her boy of the things that she has seen, and the things far back in the thousand years that England has been a nation.

“And how long is a thousand years, granny?” asks the little boy.

“Why,” says granny, “let me see. When I was as young as you I knew David, and David knew Jane, and Jane knew Philip, and Philip knew Katherine, and Katherine knew Geoffrey, and Geoffrey knew Joan, and Joan knew Hubert, and Hubert knew Maud, and Maud knew Harold, and Harold knew Edith, and Edith knew Egbert—and that is a thousand years.”

“And that is only a day with God!” said the boy.

Then they became silent until—

“Why, bless me,” said granny, “the sun is down! How time does fly!”

(From Arthur Mee's Gift Book, 1917)

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