Speaking of Frankness and Destruction

Reading partially through Jack Whyte's book, The Eagle, a work of Arthurian legend, King Arthur confers with one of his knights as they survey the ruins of a once magnificent villa. What they see before them is, as the King puts it, "Wanton destructive savagery, ruination and defilement for the pure love of creating chaos and havoc." The destruction reminds him of an east Germanic tribe most notably remembered for the sacking of Rome in 455. The reputation they earned for themselves, the King says, "will never be forgotten, for whenever cultured men see violence and destruction on this kind of scale, they will recall the tribe known as the Vandals."


In the same book Whyte spoke of the early French as being reputedly wonderful horsemen credited with bringing the stirruped saddle to western Europe. He went on to say that from the time of their first appearance in the Roman Empire, along the Rhine River in the third century, they had a reputation for being blunt spoken and utterly tactless, probably because their original tongue contained few of the subtleties of Latin or Greek. To this day we still use the term "speaking frankly" to denote directness and an unwillingness to mince one's words.


Jack Whyte, "The Eagle" (published by the Penguin Group 2005) frankly p. 10 of Arthur's Note
Vandals p. 62