The View From the Cart: An imagined account of the life of St Cuthman in the Dark Ages by Rebecca Tope

The story of a legendary saint from the Dark Ages, as told by his mother. The young Cuthman is instructed by God to take his crippled mother with him on a pilgrimage across southern England. He fashions a wooden cart for her, and together they spend some months on the rough and bumpy roads, meeting many adventures along the way. Cuthman is kept prisoner by a community of rapacious women, at one point. Further on, they are joined by a young boy, Hal, who later becomes of great importance to Cuthman. Finally, they arrive in a pagan settlement called Steyning, on the coast of Sussex. Here Cuthman builds his promised church, and performs miracles to ensure the conversion of the people. His mother watches it all from her seat in the cart, making her own contributions, and drawing her own conclusions at every stage. The struggle to convert the whole of Britain to Christianity is epitomised in this single tale.