by Brian Bates
Soon I heard footsteps. I sat very still and then in the open doorway a woman appeared, carrying a pail of water. She was the most enchanting woman I had ever seen; hair golden as harvest, part-braided but wind-blown under a leather headband, hazel eyes bright and sparkling as soon as she saw me she smiled broadly, her teeth white and prominent.
‘Hello, Brand.’
I was astonished to hear her speak my name and to hear her treat my presence as normal, expected, welcome. I knew now that I had seen her somewhere before, long ago, though I could not think where.
The woman swept into the room, took off a light, butter-coloured cloak and hung it on a wooden peg behind the door. Then she sat on the chair opposite me and arranged her long tunic over her knees. Her eyes were devastating and I could not take my gaze from her.
She smiled again, a little shyly, and I realized that I was staring I looked away quickly, blushing with embarrassment.
‘How did you come to know my name?’ I blustered clumsily.
‘Woden pointed you out to me on your first night in the forest,’ she replied pleasantly, her voice warm and slightly husky, her gaze direct. ‘Since then I have watched you. Habrok the Hawk, your guardian spirit, surveyed your progress each dawn and reported to me. The moon watched over you by night and the sun tracked you by day. At dusk and dawn I listened to your activities from the rivers and streams. I have been here far longer than you realize, Brand. Ever since Woden marked you out on your first night in the forest.’
I believed her. I knew that she spoke the truth.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, staring at her again.
‘Are you hungry?’ she said, raising her eyebrows.
I nodded eagerly. I was not at all hungry, but I was willing to do whatever was necessary to prolong my time with her. The woman rose from the table and spooned some hot oatmeal from a pan over the fire. I noticed that she wore fine shoes of kid buckled with silver, though her tunic was simple. She lifted a stone at the back of the room and from a space dug in the floor she brought out a pitcher. Placing the bowl of oatmeal on the table, she poured creamy goats milk from the pitcher.
I begin to spoon the oatmeal slowly, making a special effort to eat neatly.
The woman sat down again. ‘Brand, we must determine what it is you wish to know,’ she said gently, holding me with her eyes again.
I did not know what to answer. I did not know who she was or what she could tell me. Suddenly it struck me that she might be a spirit or even a goddess and I knew immediately what she meant.
‘I am here to learn about the ways of wyrd,’ I said, after carefully swallowing my mouthful.
She giggled suddenly, surprisingly. In contrast with her honey voice, her laugh was light and child-like and I loved the sound of it.
‘Wulf said it all started with the giants,’ I said awkwardly, desperate to establish the fact that I was not completely ignorant. The woman laughed again, lightly, her teeth shining. She unhooked a rabbit-skin bag from her belt and placed it on the table, then got up from her chair and went to an oak chest, opened the lid and took out a white linen cloth. I pushed my bowl to one side and watched her closely.
She opened the cloth and spread it over the table. I noticed that she wore rings on all the fingers of her left hand; plain gold bands, several on each linger. Her hands were exquisite.
The woman sat in her chair and produced from the rabbit-skin a collection of small wooden sticks. She laid them on the white cloth and I gasped when I saw them. They looked just like the rune-sticks I had cut my self, which Wulf had broken and buried in the ground days ago. I could see the crudely cut marks; they were definitely my sticks, though they all looked as if they had never been broken.
I looked back into the woman’s eyes.
‘Are you going to foretell my future?’ I asked eagerly.
She shook her head. ‘I know the fates of all men and women, for I can read their threads of wyrd,’ she said. ‘But I do not prophesy. Your future is for you to live, not for me to tell.’
She picked up the pile of rune-sticks and tossed them in the air. When they fluttered and bounced back on to the white cloth, nine of them landed face upwards; seven were face down. The woman began to pick up the rune-sticks that faced upwards, beginning with those in the middle of the cloth and working out towards the end. Reaching again into her rabbit-skin, she placed an empty rune-stave on the table, then slipped from a sheath at her belt a small, highly decorated knife with a thin, sharply pointed blade. With the knife she carved into the blank stave all the runes that had landed face upwards and as she carved, she spoke.
‘I have learned all there is to know about the runes. I know how to cut them, how to read them, how to stain them and how to prove them I know also how to evoke them, how to sacre them and how to send them.’ She glanced up at me, her eyes clear and compelling ‘Especially how to send them,’ she repeated.
She pointed to the first rune she had carved: ‘You must learn to become invisible and to melt into the air like morning mist. I shall teach you.’
She pointed to the second. ‘But you must first know about the Beginning. You must know that in ancient days there existed nothing, neither sand nor sea, earth nor sky. There was only a mighty void with two contrasting regions, flame and frost; and these two together create the worlds. You must know the secrets of the mighty void.’
Her tongue slipped between her teeth as she looked closely at the next rune.
‘The One who ruled from the Beginning had twelve names: first All father, second Lord of Hosts, third Lord of the Spear, fourth Smiter, then All-Knowing Fulfiller of Wishes, Farspoken, Shaker, Burner, Destroyer, Protector and Gelding. I know the significance of each of those names and each one takes a lifetime to tell. You shall learn them all.’
She placed her finger on the fourth rune she had carved and I watched her face in wonder. She was utterly compelling and I soaked up every word she uttered.
‘The next rune tells that it is Frostyfax who each morning sprinkles Middle-Earth with dew from his bit; he is Night’s horse. Day’s horse is Shinyfax, who illumines all the earth and sky with the light from his golden coat. You shall learn how to ride these two mighty steeds through the Underworld, Middle-Earth and into the spirit-world.
‘These other runes will grant many powers: of healing and recovering the souls of the sick; of blunting the edges of enemy swords, be they metal or sharp tongues.’
She finished carving the sixth rune and moved to the seventh:
‘This seventh rune will empower you to free yourself from the bonds of evil sorcerers by smashing open the fetters of spells or catching a flying arrow aimed at your heart, be it feather-flighted or evil-minded action. An eighth rune teaches you to work with wildfire—to make it, to use it, to know it. And a ninth, to turn the hate of a person to love. These are powers, granted to you by the runes, that I can teach you if you wish to stay.’
I swallowed hard. I knew that I should be seeking my soul to save me from certain death, but I knew also that I wanted more than anything to learn the secrets of which she spoke. If I did not search for my soul, I did not know whether I would survive long enough in this world of spirits to learn all of the powers granted by the runes, but I could make a beginning I had come this far, endured this much and I wanted to know the ways of wyrd.
‘I am here to recover my soul, which was captured by the spirits,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘Without my soul I will die, for my body cannot survive long with only a shadow-soul. But I may never find my soul, whereas I have found you. I will stay. I wish to learn.’
She watched me closely, her eyes seeing all.
‘You would follow these teaching sooner than recover your soul? You would choose wisdom and death over assured life?’
I swallowed hard again and nodded. I had experienced wonderful things with Wulf and the prospect of learning more meant more to me than years of ignorant life.
She smiled radiantly and looked at me with moist
eyes.
‘You need do no more,’ she said. ‘I know these secrets; I have been taught by the spirits. And you shall know them too, for they are already yours. I am your soul.’
I was stunned. I gazed at her in utter amazement.
‘When you return with me to Middle-Earth, I shall be within you. The secrets will be yours.’
‘How can I do that?’
She laughed suddenly, her mirth bubbling like a spring. She was a most powerful woman: a strange and alluring combination of child, lover and mother. She reached out, took my hand and led me from the cottage into the trees at the back of the house, where a broad stream whirled rapidly down the hillside. A large, fallen oak stretched from the bank into the middle of the wide stream, like an unfinished bridge. The woman pointed to the branches of the tree, hanging over the water like giant fingers.
‘Move to the end of the trunk,’ she murmured.
I climbed on to the horizontal tree. The base of the trunk was covered with stream-bank vegetation, but as I crawled along it the rough bark was dry and warm I crept along the trunk until I was sitting in the branches, the stream gurgling beneath me. The woman followed nimbly and sat next to me. Slowly she drew her knife from the sheath.
‘Bend over the water as far as you can reach,’ she said, whispering hoarsely above the sound of the water.
I looked at her in confusion and she indicated the downstream side of the tree.
‘Bend your head over the water,’ she instructed. ‘You must leave a small sacrifice to the spirit-world for the return of your soul.’
Her voice echoed in my ears, although she was still whispering. I held on to a branch and leaned my head out over the water. She grasped my hair and pushed my head further, and I clung desperately to the branches in order to avoid being pitched into the stream. Then I felt something cold and hard on my neck and I closed my eyes. A stinging stab of pain shot through my neck. I jerked involuntarily and felt something warm trickling wetly down. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood dripping from my neck into the water. The woman leaned right over me, watching the blood disappear into the stream I heard her counting and when she reached nine, she spoke loudly:
‘Water Spirit, take this sacrifice and depart with it. Let Brand and his soul be reunited in return.’
Suddenly and silently she was in the water. I knelt in the branches of the fallen oak and watched her wade towards the middle of the broad stream. The water surged to her waist, but no higher. She turned to face upstream towards the mountain, raised her hands above her head and began to sink slowly, the water swirling and snatching at her longhair. Her head dipped under, followed by her hands.
I waited for her to re-emerge. An age went by and still she did not reappear. In sudden panic I stripped off my shoes and tunic, jumped into the water and started to wade towards the middle. Suddenly she rose from the water naked, her skin smooth and glistening. She seemed iridescent and it almost hurt my eyes to look at her. We embraced.
The ripple of water sent a thrill through me and the stream swept us off our feet and carried us along with the current. I rolled and glimpsed the side of the mountain towering above. The sight took my breath away; far above me on the mountainside loomed a gigantic face, the lustrous eyes fringed by a leather crown. It was the woman, in my arms and on the mountainside.
Her mouth pouted and a shower of brilliant stars poured into the stream like a waterfall and covered me like drops of spray which blinded me with their crystal radiance. The hissing sparkles filled my ears with an ecstatic sound like rushing wind and I thought to myself, ‘This, too, is God’s world: I have seen it for the first time.’
Then I felt an enormous impact, my knees and body buckled and I sank to the bottom of the water.
Epilogue
I FELT myself being dragged up through the water like a fish on a line and I exploded into the air with a mighty gasp. Someone hauled me out of the stream and I could hear my body slapping onto rocks, gagging, coughing and wheezing until I could breathe. I looked around for the woman but she was not there. Then I heard a movement behind me; with a shout I turned to greet her, but squatting behind me was the familiar figure of Wulf.
‘Where is she?’ I gasped.
Wulf smiled enigmatically.
‘You have journeyed into the spirit-world and retrieved your soul, Brand.’
Then I remembered. Slowly I sank on to my back and wrapped my arms around my stomach. My soul was inside me and it felt wonderful. I lay there for a longtime, coughing sporadically but feeling ecstatically happy. I could not talk and even if I had been able, I would not have known what to say, for no words could describe my experience. But I knew that I did not have to talk; Wulf knew where I had been.
The rosy-hued light told me that it was early morning and I knew it would be a warm day. Then I realized that I was naked. I looked at the river behind Wulf and suddenly I knew where I was. Stretching far above us was an almost sheer chalk cliff and a cascade of water showered down the side into the deep stream at the bottom. Near the top of the cliff I could see the lip of the ridge from which I had jumped with my guardian. My mind went back to the night of singing and all the anguish I had endured. I smiled happily to myself. I had succeeded in journeying to the spirit-world, I had recovered my soul and, most important of all, I had glimpsed wonders that I knew were the province of God Himself.
Wulf walked up to me and placed my shoes and tunic by my side. I smiled my thanks and dressed; he pulled me to my feet and we walked back through the sun-dappled forest towards the camp. At first I felt shaky and unsteady, but as the day wore on I began to feel supremely strong. By mid-afternoon we had arrived back at the shelter and I felt tremendously better. I strolled down to the river to catch fish for supper while Wulf laid a fresh fire. Squatting on the familiar rock, I threw bait into the water. Slowly, carefully, lovingly, I reviewed in my mind the events leading to my journey to the Earth’s Rim and the woman who had turned out to be my soul. And I knew that I had experienced the world of our Lord as never before; my love for Him filled my heart. But Eappa had been right; my personal mission in the forest of the pagans had brought me closer to the Almighty, though Eappa could never have guessed the nature of that experience.
At the end of the summer, I would have to return to the Mission and tell Eappa all I knew, though there was precious little of it which I could convey in words. But I could tell him that when the Word of Almighty God was spread in this forest it would fall on fertile ground, for the kingdom of the pagans truly contained spiritual secrets that were as much apart of God’s world as the land from which we came.
When I had caught a fish, I cleaned and gutted it, then carried it up the slope to the fire-pit. Wulf wrapped it in leaves and pushed it into the glowing embers to bake.
Suddenly I noticed a neatly packed bundle near the entrance to the shelter and realized it contained my belongings. I turned to Wulf in surprise.
‘I have finished my task,’ he said quietly, looking at me with clear, kind eyes. ‘I have served as your guide into our ways of wyrd and helped you to journey into the spirit-world. It is time for you to return to your masters.’
I was shocked. ‘But Wulf, there are weeks yet before ships anchor to avoid the cold clamp of winter. I do not need to travel before the summer is spent.’
He smiled warmly.
‘Brand, there is nothing more I can teach you. All the knowledge you seek is now within you. It will take you a lifetime to learn the secrets in your soul, but you cannot learn them from me.’
He leaned forward and rolled the cooking fish over with a stick.
‘I will guide you to a ship,’ he said quietly. ‘It will take only two days and you can obtain passage back to your Mission.’
I looked down the slope towards the river. The warm day was sinking into a soft dusk, gentle and subtle. I felt overwhelming sadness. I did not want to leave.
Suddenly Wulf stood and disappeared into the shelter. When he re-emerged he was carryin
g something wrapped in a piece of linen.
‘You may travel with me this summer if you wish,’ he said. ‘If you do, I will not be your guide, for only you can find the knowledge within you. Or I can take you to the coast to find a boat. I shall need your decision by dawn. In the meantime, here are some things to help you in your decision.’
He laid the linen parcel on the grass in front of me and I saw that there were two folded sides, each concealing an object. Wulf flipped back both sides of the cloth simultaneously and I gasped in amazement; lying on one side of the cloth was my bronze crucifix, clean and shining and on the other, astonishingly, the long knife forged by the dwarf of the Underworld with which he had cut me to pieces. I would have recognized that knife anywhere.
But I knew what I wanted to do; I did not need to ponder a decision overnight. I reached out and picked up the crucifix, kissed it and fastened it around my neck. Wulf looked down quickly and started to wrap up the knife, but I put out a hand to stop him. Then I picked up the knife and slipped it into my sheath at my belt.
‘I will stay,’ I said happily. ‘I am a servant of Almighty God, but it is in the world of wyrd that I experienced His wonder. There is time enough to return to the Mission. I wish to stay here and get to know the secrets within me.’
Slowly, very slowly, a grin spread across Wulf’s face. He started to chuckle, his infectious laughter bubbling out like water from a spring I began to chuckle too, feeling a bond of brotherhood with Wulf—a bond that could never be broken. Our laughter splashed around the clearing and sent the crows wheeling out of the trees to speed away downriver in a tumbling twisting zigzag flight. I watched the pattern of their flight and I understood.
Bibliography
THE FOLLOWING list of references is intended to serve both as a bibliography of the main sources on which the research for this book was based, and as a guide to the literature for readers who may wish to pursue their own lines of inquiry into Anglo-Saxon and other traditions of sorcery. To keep the bibliography to manageable proportions, I have listed only those Anglo-Saxon references that contributed directly in someway to the writing of this book, omitting the many more general works which provided invaluable background and perspective. Some of the references in this section include extensive bibliographies which will serve as guides to further reading.
