Centuries: 1300: Briggs

The Briggs are a hard-working family. Joshua Briggs was a woodworker. He and his wife Elizabeth had three boys to their name:

Samson

Jessua

Adam

Despite their father's never-ending push, none of them wanted to take up the wood-working trade. Samson did by default, but he was never happy; Jessua craved the home and hearth; and Adam had a voice that called to everyone around him.

The year began bright with a marriage. Samson Briggs married Warin Smith, and Warin took the Brigg's last name to maintain the family estate.

Thankfully, he took the woodworking job too, so Samson could pursue better culinary options for both of them, and a rewarding garden to keep them alive and flourishing.

Jessua and Adam found and married brothers, Bowen and Roland Vickers. They moved nearby to live with their husbands.

Samson kept the Briggs' house standing, but only thanks to Warin by his side.

Samson and his brothers lost their father and mother in the spring of this year. Their father had died first - his temper so bad it ate him from the inside out. One moment he yelled, the next, he was gone.

His mother had to work double-time to keep up with tasks, but the work took its toll, and disease took her too.

And the house got so much quieter after that.

But the love remained. And one could argue there was far more love around with his parents dead than alive.

When summer rolled around, life had found a balance. Chores, hunting, harvesting, and crafting during the day.

The nights were filled with joy and laughter. Adam and Roland opened up a tavern, and Jessua and Bowen happily supplied their family with eggs and milk from their livestock.

Roland, Bowen, and Warin would gather for hunting trips when the meat supplies ran low and the great mixing spoon grazed the bottom of the stew-pot.

It wasn't until the midst of summer that Samson felt a new life growing within him.

He was elated to hear of his fortune, but his elation soon became misery. This pregnancy, for several reasons, took tolls on him that threatened him in more ways than just growing pains.

He was dizzy daily, and the headaches that came kept him up at night. He was growing worse long into the end of autumn. He emptied their meager savings to visit the town physician each time he came into the village and there was nothing uncovered.