Twisting turning winding roads*

I was reading about country lanes (anything is better than the news) - a sunken lane in east Devon, that marks the division between two estates - pre-Norman, Anglo-Saxon estates that are recorded in 10th century documents, and probably existed long before that. A photo shows the lane and its embankments. This was the way of marking such boundaries: called a 'twofold ditch', but actually two high, hedged embankments, with a gap between them that, of course, becomes a thoroughfare. The legend on the picture adds, without further comment, that it was dug by slave labour

Of course, I searched for slavery in Saxon England. It was commonplace, apparently (did anyone ever try to teach me that?); initially the conquered population were enslaved, and the Saxon words for 'Briton' and 'slave' were used interchangably (not often mentioned on the last night if the Proms). Subsequently, those judged guilty of crimes and those captured in (local) battles were enslaved. During famines, some people sold themselves and their families into slavery as the only way to live

The line between paid labourer and enslaved person were more blurred than in the Americas of later centuries. The two would work together and there were ways in which enslaved people might regain their freedom (granted in a ceremony at a crossroads, so that the formerly enslaved could 'choose their own way'). And enslaved people had some rights. King Alfred issued a law fixing certain days as holidays for 'free men' and adding that "the four Wednesdays in the four Ember weeks are to be given to all slaves, to sell to whomsoever they please anything of what anyone has given them in God’s name, or of what they can earn in any of their spare time"

I've heard of Ember days but not Ember weeks. More searching. Three days in each of four weeks were set aside by the medieval church for prayer and fasting and specifically "to thank God for the gifts of nature, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy." Do the contemporary religious right expect that from their president-elect? 

We and our two neighbours have our own little hedged, sunken lane serving our house. Definitely not Saxon, but I will now remember the enslaved labourers as I use it. This gift-of-nature grows beside it, defiant of the gloom and sweet-smelling

*A sentimental family favourite by the Saw Doctors - especially when played while driving round the sunken lanes of Pembrokeshire