“I KNOW nothing of such arts” protested Imma. “But my brother Tunna is a priest,* and no doubt he thinks I am dead, and prays for my soul during mass. And were I now in that better place above,” he added thoughtfully, “the bonds upon my soul would be dissolved by his prayers just like this.”*
It was becoming clear that Imma was no peasant, and Ecgfrith promised to spare his life in return for the truth. When he heard he had been nursing a Mercian viper, he looked like thunder but kept his word, and sold Imma to a Frisian in London, then within the Kingdom of Kent. This Frisian, however, found that neither rope nor chain would hold this uncanny slave, especially in the mornings around nine; so when Hlothere, King of Kent, whose aunt Queen Ethelthryth had once employed Imma in her retinue, offered to buy Imma’s freedom, the deal was quickly done.
Later, Tunna explained to Imma that he had mistaken a mangled corpse on the battlefield for him, and said many prayers for the poor wretch’s soul during mass. “When was this?” asked Imma, suddenly. “Every morning,” replied Tunna. “Around nine.”
* Bede tells us that Tunna was a priest and the Abbot of a monastery in a place that he tells us (writing in Latin) was subsequently named Tunnacestir. The location remains unknown. The port of Immingham in Lincolnshire, whose name means ‘homestead of the people of Imma’, may possibly be connected with Ethelred’s thegn.
* The word Bede uses is poena, meaning punishment, torment or pain. If we believe as Bede did that Imma’s experience should teach us about prayer for the dead, then it follows that this ‘painful torment’ is best thought of as some kind of metaphorical fetters, a maddening, chafing hindrance to heaven, just when heaven is in sight. “I wear the chain I forged in life,” lamented Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” Bede’s purpose in telling this story is to reassure his readers that prayer can break the bonds of this chain, even on behalf of other people, whether living or dead. See Hebrews 2:14-15. See also There is No Liberty without Self-Control.