Gervase the Poacher, of Muckle Sump

Age 12: the eel traps overflowed. Eel pie, eel stew, eel again.

Age 13: fever took both your parents in a season. The parish took you in, grudgingly.

Age 14: a winter fever laid you low, but the fire held it off.

Age 17: found a silver penny in the mud and told no one.

Age 18: named by a neighbour with a grudge and a poor memory.

Age 19: buried half the parish in a plague year and did not so much as cough.

Age 20: a winter fever laid you low, but the fire held it off.

Age 21: misjudged the ford in spate and washed up two fields down, alive.

Age 22: a learned physician applied leeches, a horoscope, and a large bill.

Age 24: being half-suspected of witchcraft, you were quietly paid for charms. Enterprising.

Age 25: a parish upbringing is a hungry one. You learned to make a turnip last a week.

Age 28: a saint's day meant no work and actual meat. You were briefly, piously content.

Age 29: took the sweats, and sweated through it.

Age 30: acquired a saint's fingerbone of uncertain provenance and certain expense.

Age 34: a winter fever laid you low, but the fire held it off.

Age 35: a winter fever laid you low, but the fire held it off.

Age 36: shivered through a bout of the ague.

Age 38: carried the hot iron nine paces and healed clean. Innocent, apparently.

Age 40: sold the lord's own deer back to the lord's own cook. A closed and beautiful loop.

Age 41: the church-ale raised money for the steeple and the whole parish got magnificently drunk for God.

Age 42: sold the lord's own deer back to the lord's own cook. A closed and beautiful loop.

Age 44: went hungry through a lean winter and lived, barely.

Age 49: your snares never failed and never were found. A craftsman, in your way.

Age 50: died of the flux, having ignored the physician's advice to be bled, which was also wrong.

Survived by no one. Even the pig looked relieved.