PURKESS THE CHARCOAL BURNER

The picture below is taken from a book by Allen W. Seaby called Purkess the Charcoal Burner - A Tale of the New Forest first published in 1946. The book is a fictional account of the life of the son of Purkess, the charcoal burner. The book includes the incident where the son and his father find the body of King William the second. Quite why the author choose to use a different spelling of the name Purkis from that inscribed on the Rufus Stone is unknown to me, but if anyone knows why I would be interested to hear.

The book tells the story of Richard Purkess as he learns the trade of his father, the way of life in the forest, incidents from his youth including a visit to an armoury making chain mail, the Winchester Fair, his sister getting lost in the forest, visits from aristocracy on hunting expeditions, a forest fire and the death of his father. After his father's death he assumes responsibility for the family. The book continues with his rise to a knighthood, ( not quite the equivalent honour of today's knighthood ), his marriage, the start of his own family, and his battles fighting for King Henry against the Norman barons.

The book is aimed at the young teenager, and is an easy read. At times it suggests the cruelty and hardship of the time, with a character who has been blinded as punishment for supposedly poaching a deer and a priest fleeing into a hut pursued by wolves driven by hunger to attack man during a hard winter.

Click on the ' thumbnail ' picture of Rufus' body to view the page on which the charcoal burners make their gruesome discovery. The text is shown alongside the full illustration from the book.