Idk, I think considering that hetalia has already set the precedent with America and Russia that the strength of a country roughly correlates to their own physical strength, then England was a beast for at least a couple of centuries, and France for even longer. Strong enough to bend steel. Strong enough to single handedly lift each other. Strong enough that when they fight other nations get the hell out of their way because they'll crack that marble floor with their fists. Idk something about suped up eldritch horrors England and France terrorising each other and the rest of Europe in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries. And both of them having their moments where they surrender that power in complete devotion to each other and to other nations they adore, because the only thing scarier than a feral wolf is a tame mastiff who will bite on command.
Obviously would apply to other very powerful countries in history too (Spain woof), but these are the two on my mind atm
Thinking heavily about Arthur who, more than most people, is characterised by hunger. Hunger for power so that he can stand up for himself. Starved for touch because he denies vulnerability. A craving for the sea at his back. Literal physical hunger gnawing in the pit of his belly because there's always something to be done that's more important than eating. A constant need for more.
Hungry Arthur who, only in the last twenty years or so, has learned how to be full (with France's help).
I've been thinking about England's oldest relationships dating all the way back to the Middle Ages...
France is Arthur's twin flame. They'd find each other in every universe. They understand each other (and each other's bodies) in ways no-one else ever could. Neither of them are thrilled about it.
Spain is Arthur's foil. They're complete opposites. Fire and ice. Oil and water. They mirror and imitate each other. They're a lot more similar than either of them would ever admit.
Scotland and Wales are Arthur's soulmates. They can be truly authentic around each other. They've seen each other at their worst. They can virtually read one another's minds. Personal space is non-existent.
Portugal is Arthur's first and true love. They complete each other. They make each other better. They would follow each other to the end of the world. He's the one person Arthur consciously chooses over and over.
This is a cosy historical fic about England's relationship to his land and to magic over the ages, and the giant sleeping under his coastline.
Historical notes at the end. The only important ones going in are that (1) Arthur is Æthelwulf in my headcanon before he changes it to Arthur (the name of Alfred the Great’s father seemed fitting), and (2) Wæs þū hāl means, more or less, ‘be in good health’ before English had the word ‘hello’.
Thank you so so much to @humble-aeruscator for listening to me ramble about giants, for all your amazing ideas about the nationverse, and for being so welcoming to a new writer in the hetalia fandom!
1068
England rips out another handful of grass and tosses it over the edge of the cliff in frustration. The wind playfully blows it back in his face and he splutters.
He’s getting cold. And he should be elsewhere. William will be angry. His new bastard-king has a quick temper and an even quicker hand. The king is staying nearby to settle a rebellion,[1] and Æthelwulf has walked for two days just to get away from him. He’ll be punished on his return, he’s sure.
Wæs þū hāl little kingdom.
England jumps hard at the deep rumbling pitch which vibrates through his feet into his bones. The giant speaks so slowly, like every syllable is dragged up from the depths of the ocean.
“It’s not fair,” Æthelwulf says out loud, now that he has a familiar audience.
Life never fair little kingdom.
“At least you get to rest out here. I have to live with him.”
Another rumble that sounds like faint amusement. The spine of blackened rock breaching the ocean surface rattles, and a flock of seabirds screech as they take flight. You could rest in sea if want.
For a moment it’s tempting, and Æthelwulf dares a meek look over the edge. It’s a long way down.
“I can’t breathe under the sea like you do,” he settles on an excuse.
Giants not breathe, Wessex.
Æthelwulf shakes his head. “I’m not Wessex anymore. I’m England.”
The sea breaks violently against the giant’s hunched back as he settles. Wessex. England. All same. Soon you become more than England.
Æthelwulf snorts derisively. “How? There’s no more island left to become something else.”
More lands. Across sea.
Is he talking about France? The thought alone makes England angry.
“France is on my lands.”
No. Over other sea.
The other sea? England has no idea what the giant means. He speaks strangely often, like he can see things in the future that Æthelwulf can’t.
“Will you come up to see me?” England asks hopefully. His mind has conjured a hundred different facsimiles of the giant’s face and he burns with curiosity. Do giants have hands? Teeth like headstones? Eyes like great sea pearls? Dripping clumps of seaweed for hair?
Not today little kingdom.
England rips out another handful of grass.
1139
Wæs þū hāl little kingdom.
“They’ve written a book about you.”[2]
The earth underneath Æthelwulf rumbles as the giant stirs with something between amusement and curiosity. A book?
Technically it’s a book about England, not Gogmagog, but he’s in it and that has to count.
“Yes. About the giants and the first men.”
The rumbling pitches lower, as if Gogmagog is recalling unpleasant memories. Threw me in the sea.
“Corineus?”
Yes.
The silence settles. Gogmagog (that’s what they said his name was) is very still today, and the sea laps lazily around the hump of his back. England runs his hand over the grass around his crossed legs and adds more to the little pile he’s been collecting.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, for lack of something better to say.
Æthelwulf is in book?
“Yes, it’s—” England’s brow furrows as he thinks on how to explain Geoffrey’s history to Gogmagog, who doesn’t seem to have the same concept of men’s lifespans as England. “It’s a book about how the first men became kings of my lands, and about their sons and daughters.”
Why need book? Æthelwulf remember.
He shrugs. “They want to make sure they remember too I suppose.”
Gogmagog muses on this. Æthelwulf forget?
“Of course not!” England says loudly into the wind, indignant at just the thought.
Gogmagog rumbles, as if he doesn’t believe him.
“Will you come up to see me this time?” England ventures. Maybe he could persuade Gogmagog to help him subdue Cymru. Swinging an oak tree like a great club and drowning his brother’s fields in saltwater.
Not today little kingdom.
England sulks. “You always say that.”
1497
“Gogmagog?”
The wind whips around England’s face, stinging his eyes and branding salt into his cheeks. He’s lying on his belly, right at the edge of the cliff, and for a long time it’s silent. England is starting to get bored when he finally hears it, the faint rumble of wakefulness off the shore.
Wæs þū hāl little kingdom. The voice is slow, sleepy. It vibrates through his stomach and chest where he’s laying down.
“We just say hail now,” Arthur corrects, but deep down he’s feeling warm relief in his chest that Gogmagog answered.
Strange man thing, Æthelwulf. To change words.
He almost feels bad about correcting Gogmagog again, but that name sounds so old and useless now that he can’t resist. “Not Æthelwulf, Arthur. My name is Arthur.”
That gets Gogmagog to stir properly in interest, and the sea crashes against him and the cliffs below.
What wrong with Æthelwulf? Æthelwulf good name.
“It’s old-fashioned. Nobody uses names like that anymore. And Arthur is a good name too.”
Arthur not as good name.
England pouts. “Yes it is, I chose it! It’s the name of an old king.”
Gogmagog seems to ponder this. Why king name good?
Arthur settles into the stories he’d heard many times over. “Arthur pulled a sword from a stone, which made him the king. Or maybe a lady from a lake gave it to him.”
Arthur suddenly has an idea, and he tips his head over the edge of the cliff to look at Gogmagog properly. “Could you give me a sword?”
Gogmagog’s answering hum sounds angry, and a spray of rocks tumbles from his back into the sea with a rattle and a splash.
No. No sword. Will not give.
Arthur looks up to the horizon with a pout. Gogmagog’s next hum is gentler.
What else this king do?
“He had a group of loyal knights—men who serve the king—and he went to the other lands and fought the Romans.”
Gogmagog does not recognise this word. Romans bad for Arthur?
England isn’t sure how to answer him. “The Romans were very strong,” he finally settles on.
He’s leaving out a part of that particular tale, about King Arthur slaying the giant at St. Michael’s Mount on his way. He’s not sure Gogmagog will understand that the giant was evil. And that Arthur was a good king because he was a strong and noble warrior.[3]
Gogmagog grumbles at England’s vagueness. You did not see me for long time. Long long time.
England knows this but he’s surprised Gogmagog noticed under the sea. “Sorry. I was busy.”
More big now. England supposes he is. He’s a squire now.
Why here?
Arthur exhales heavily, frustration bubbling under his skin. “The people near this land rebelled.”
Rebelled?
“Fought against their own king.”[4]
Gogmagog had been a king of the giants once, so perhaps he understands the weight of the crime. The earth hums. You killed them?
There’s a lump in England’s throat and he swallows angrily. “I had to. They were going to burn London. My heart city.” He plunges his hands into the grass around him and rips out handfuls of it, squeezing it into a dense green ball in his hand.
Gogmagog shifts, the rocky edges of his spine creaking. For a moment England thinks he’s going to breach the sea, huge and terrible, but he settles again.
Throw them in sea for me?
“What? No!”
Why not? Sea for dead things. Arthur will throw many men in sea.
“No, not…not dead people. Dead people get buried in the land. Or…” Arthur makes a face. “Cut into pieces. Rebel leaders get cut into four pieces as punishment and the king puts their heads on spikes on London bridge.”[5]
Sea would be more good.
“No, it wouldn’t, not for people. They have to be in consecrated ground for when Christ returns.”
Would look after them.
It might be the nicest thing Gogmagog’s ever said. Or maybe he just gets lonely between Arthur’s visits.
“I’m here to make sure no more people rebel,” he replies lamely.
When you kill them, throw them in sea.
Arthur throws the little wad of grass he’s been collecting in Gogmagog’s direction.
“Will you come up to see me if I do?” England thinks maybe his people would stop marching to London if there was a giant keeping watch.
Gogmagog rumbles. Not today little kingdom.
“Not little. You said I was bigger now.”
Gogmagog rumbles again, slower, lower, as if he is sinking further into the depths. Sea more big.
1690
England is getting tired of waiting. He’s managed to escape London for a while, but he can’t sit on the clifftop for days on end waiting for Gogmagog to answer him. His new Dutch king is in a bad mood. Parliament had just passed a new bill limiting the prerogative of the crown to exact excessive justice, impose financial burden, or practice violence against England’s people.[6] It’s a sensible bill, and Arthur admires the thought behind it. In his coat pocket he has a copy of John Locke’s newest book on the human mind and how humans acquire knowledge. It feels like its weighing him down on one side.
“I’m going to leave in a minute,” he threatens. It’s a cold grey day. He pulls out a handful of grass and lets it float through his fingers on the wind. He feels a little bit like Alfred, the petulant, impatient child that he is.
“Gogmagog!”
There’s no response and Arthur growls in outrage. Fine. He takes the book out of his pocket and starts reading where he left off.
‘…that the existence of God is made clear to us in so many ways, and the obedience we owe him agrees so much with the light of reason, that a great part of mankind proclaim the law of nature…’[7]
He’s so distracted that he almost misses the faint grumbling from the depths of the sea.
Wæs þū hāl little kingdom.
England ignores Gogmagog for a brief second, making sure to finish the sentence he’s on, before closing the book and sliding it back into his pocket.
“Took you long enough.”
There’s a long silence and England wonders if he imagined him.
The land is loud.
“The land?” England frowns.
Loud. Underground.
“Oh mining. It’s the mining you can hear. They’ve started using gunpowder. It’s a much more efficient way to mine for ore.”[8]
Make stop?
“I can’t. We need the copper and the tin in the ground to make bronze for cannons.”
Gogmagog doesn’t reply and the wind whips into England’s clothes, chilling him.
“Don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing?” he asks.
There’s no response.
“Will you not come up to see me?” England demands. If he could witness Gogmagog then perhaps he could understand him better. It’s not fair that Gogmagog expects him to keep coming back on pure faith alone.
“Are you even there?” England stands up and yells into the wind, angry.
A low rumble echoes up from underneath England’s feet but there’s no answer.
“Fine, have it your way!” England snarls, turning on his heel.
He looks back over his shoulder and pauses, just in case. The sea is flat, grey like the sky, and the hump of black rock in the water is unmoving and implacable. All of a sudden, despite his recent growth and his wardship of his new colonies, Arthur feels very young and very, very small.
He turns and storms away. “I didn’t want to talk to you anyway!”
1802
Arthur very nearly doesn’t bother. He’s travelling on the road from Totnes to Plymouth on business. The Royal Society of London has sent some scientists into Cornwall to work out why the tin and copper-miners all die so young.[9] Arthur is accompanying them, glad for the break from London and maps and kings and councils. They’re barely a couple of hours into the journey when Arthur calls out for the carriage to stop.
“Sir?” one of the scientists, Cooper, enquires when England steps out.
“I’ll meet you in Plymouth later. I have an old acquaintance in the area I have business with.”
“Very good sir.”
The walk from the road to the bay is bracing, criss-crossed with stone walls and sheep placidly grazing on the neatly divided farmland. By the time he reaches the coast he’s tired, hungry, and thinking about the warm hearth he could be sat in front of in Plymouth by now if he’d only stayed in the carriage. It’s almost evening, and the sky is putting on an eye-watering display of orange and pink clouds over his head.
England settles himself on the edge of the cliff.
It feels silly to talk to the hump of rock standing out from under the waves. But he’s come all this way.
“I’m here,” he says finally, with little conviction.
Nothing happens. Arthur huffs and pulls out a handful of grass to inspect it. Red fescue. Common bent. A sprig of purple thrift. The sunset reaches its glorious crescendo, sinking like molten ore from a crucible into the horizon.
“There will be a war again soon. I can feel it. France’s new consul is pushing for it.”[10]
England’s not sure why he’s confessing. He hasn’t been Catholic for a long time. But it feels cathartic to finally speak out loud what everyone in London is too afraid to say in words.
There’s no response from the rocks. Of course there isn’t, he tells himself. He doesn’t even bother to ask Gogmagog to come up to see him.
Angry with himself for wasting his time, Arthur stands and turns his back on the sea.
1936
England had been in the area when he’d heard of a shipwreck being towed and beached just beyond Salcombe harbour. They’re worried about the hull splitting and thousands of tons of rotten grain leaching into the water.[11] A gaggle of amused spectators are peering over the cliff edge, with the youngest daring each other to crawl closer, all under the watchful eye of the farmer’s son. Each time a new visitor walks up the boy thrusts his hand out expectantly, explaining it’s a shilling to cross these farmlands and look at the wreck. Arthur pays the boy and peers over the cliff edge. It’s a pretty ship, a Finnish clipper with tall elegant masts. The water around it is turning a murky brown as the ship leaches oil and grain out of the compromised hull. Shame it wrecked.
Arthur looks past the crowd to the stack of black rock breaching the sea just off the headland of the bay.
For a second he entertains the ludicrous thought of speaking to it.
Arthur scoffs and mutters under his breath quietly enough that no-one else can hear him. “Foolish. There’s nothing there.”
Something grumbles in his bones. No-one else seems to notice, though. It’s a hot day and he hasn’t eaten or drank anything in a while. Indigestion. He tells himself firmly.[12]
2026
The clifftops around Salcombe are well-managed. Arthur has walked across them via a neatly kept trail with helpful National Trust posts directing him to stay away from the edge.[13] After a quick glance to check he was alone he had left the path, wading through the long grass to sit on the top of the cliff over Starehole Bay. From stair, one of his very old Gaelic words meaning passage. Or crossing. Arthur can almost feel Alistair frowning with disapproval at his shoddy translation.
The wind is always brisk here, ripping up from the Atlantic to hurtle down his coastline. It tastes like salt and something wild. The hump of rock off the point of the coast is still there, but it looks greener than England remembers. As if it hasn’t moved for a very long time.
He dares not say anything out loud. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. Some hum. Some faint rumbling stir of life. He keeps looking out to the opposite end of the cove and the jagged edge of the headland. Maybe if he pretends to not be paying attention it will happen. He plaits grass between his fingers absently, just so he has something to do.
The cliffs in this bay are inert volcanic schist, as the helpful information board had informed him at the start of the trail. Arthur risks another look at the sea stack. Nothing happens.
“Are you…there?”
He feels faintly ridiculous. The boy who never grew up, still trying to talk to giants.
“I’m here. I’m…” he pauses. There’s no word adequate, and he’s still learning how to take accountability for the last few centuries. “I’m sorry I forgot.”
There’s no sign that anyone has heard him.
He waits for a very long time.
Eventually, England gets up to leave, abandoning the plait and brushing the dust off his jeans. He turns his back and starts to pick his way back up the grassy bank to find the path.
A sigh deep from the ocean stops him in his tracks. The sea crashes and seabirds scream behind him as something large moves below the surface, breaching like a great whale, hands resting on the cliff face to support a dripping body rising from the seabed.
A deep, gentle voice rumbles up his spine, clearer than it’s ever been.
Wæs þū hāl little kingdom.
Historical notes
[1] At Trematon castle, a Norman stronghold.
[2] Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Historia Regum Britanniae”, finished around 1136. The ‘first men’ that England and Gogmagog are talking about are the legendary figures of Brutus of Troy and his men, including Corineus who, according to Geoffrey, slew the giants that lived in England and established human settlements. Corineus killed Gogmagog, king of the giants, and threw him off the coast of Cornwall near Plymouth. The nearby Starehole Bay, where I set this story, is in Devon under modern boundaries, but having visited the area it’s one of the more remote spots on that bit of coastline and has a sea stack, so I’ve set it as Gogmagog’s resting spot.
[3] There are many versions of the Arthurian myths and legends stretching back centuries, but Arthur is thinking about Malory’s ‘Le morte d'Arthur’ in this case, which was first printed in 1485 and would probably have been accessible to him in the 1490s.
[4] The Cornish Rebellion of 1497, put down by King Henry VII at Blackheath outside London, was raised over heavy taxation imposed on the Cornish.
[5] Hanging, drawing, and quartering became the accepted punishment for treason in England sometime around the fourteenth century, though the practice is much older.
[6] The Bill of Rights, 1689.
[7] From John Locke’s "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", published in 1690.
[8] Developed in 1689 in Somerset.
[9] Arsenic. It’s arsenic.
[10] Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power in 1799.
[11] This is a real case of a clipper ship called Herzogin Cecilie running aground in the area in the summer of 1936 and being beached at Starehole bay.
[12] This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek reference from Arthur to “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.
[13] The National Trust is a heritage and natural conservation charity which looks after almost 900 miles of coastline in England and Wales.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
A fic exploring hunger and cannibalism as metaphors for war and assimilation, and England's relationship to conquest across several historical moments.
---
“And what do you say when someone invites you to eat at their hearth?” William prompts him. England can’t take his eyes off Cymru’s writhing flesh.
Tears threaten to escape from England’s eyes. “Thank you, sire,” he says miserably.
“Good, England. Now eat your dinner.”
---
England swears, deliriously, that he can feel France’s lip wriggling in his stomach, contorting to fit France’s stretched mouth even though it’s no longer attached to him. France is going to bite through him to get to it. Tear through him. Pull out England’s intestines like ropes.
Afaik the only early written sources that survive of Boudicca are Roman. We know about her because of writers like Tacitus and Cassio Dio. The only British "source" that proves she might have been real is the soot layer in Colchester from when it got burnt down, which is estimated to be the Boudican destruction horizon. Her name might not even be Boudicca, which just means "victorious woman". We can't really say for sure exactly who or what she was.
All this to say that whatever the "spirit of England" is that animates Arthur was once in a woman who fought the Romans and almost won and it died with her, slumbering for generations of Roman rule. Centuries later a babe is found on Glastonbury Tor by a many times daughter of the daughters of Boudicca. The scrawny child Wessex devours his heptarchy brothers and a queen long dead crawls out of the soot of Colchester, still angry and leaving fire in her wake. And she blesses little Wessex with the ashes of Roman rubble to finish the job. And Brittonic-Roman-Saxon mutt England goes on to build an empire so vast that even Rome disappears in its shadow.
Sorry I've been away and busy preparing for my new job but been thinking musing pondering in the meantime about mercy.
What it means for a nation to show mercy, knowing it might come back to bite them in a century. What it means for a nation to grit their teeth and refuse to ask for quarter even when they're done they're through they're barely standing upright in exhaustion. How surrender is a near-universal concept across cultures: it takes no words to understand what it means when your opponent kneels with their sword held out. How nations are caught between huge amounts of political responsibility to never lose never surrender never stop and their very human fragility. How mercy often comes at the price of loyalty and submission. What it means for a nation, an unkillable centuries-old proud nation, to reach the point where they do plead for respite.
You can take this the horny route if you want but honestly I think it's just a super interesting way of conceptualising the nation-human dynamic. Does being functionally immortal remove your capacity to show mercy and to surrender or actually does that never go away.
