Authors: Brian Bates
Mighty horse of hel,
Way-tamer of wyrd,
Winged steed of Woden, Star-stallion,
bearer of secrets, Amble,
trot, canter and gallop.
Summoned by Middle-Earth spells.
Let me hear your tread,
Return these spirits to the land of the dead
He repeated the refrain twice more, like a private prayer, and the sound had a strange effect on me. The atmosphere in the small enclosure felt heavy and oppressive and I had difficulty in breathing. My back ran with sweat.
Abruptly, Wulf stopped singing stepped away from the horse, strode towards me and reached for his long staff which he had propped against the fence. As he turned back towards the horse I glimpsed his eyes. They burned with an eerie intensity, like emeralds, and immediately I felt a sensation as if a cold breeze had cut across the back of my neck and someone had pulled my head forward. Wulf padded back to the animal and my head jerked upright, feeling airy and light as a feather. I shook my head vigorously to clear it, but I could not rid myself of a disturbing dizziness.
Wulf raised his staff high above his head, held it there for an instant, then with a chilling shriek he cracked the wooden shaft down hard on the horse’s back. Immediately the horse bolted in a frenzied canter around the small enclosure, his head rising and plunging. Wulf bounded over the fence and I scrambled after him, tearing my tunic on the hazel hurdles. The crowd of onlookers burst into life, laughing and clapping and the horse-keeper gripped Wulf’s hand emotionally, tears brimming in his eyes.
I glanced back at the horse suspiciously. As I watched, the animal gradually slowed down and eventually ambled to the corner of the enclosure, pulling calmly at a small pile of hay. He gleamed with sweat and his stomach still appeared swollen, but his demeanour had altered entirely; he no longer breathed in wheezing gasps, his rigid stance had disappeared and he was eating readily.
‘The horse was elf-shot,’ Wulf announced loudly, the faces crowding around him shiny-eyed and admiring. ‘Pierced all over with elves’ arrows. The animal’s life-force was leaking out through the arrow-holes like a rotten water barrel. My power-plant mixture restored the life-force of the animal while I did battle with the elves.’
I tried to conceal my embarrassment and disappointment; in Mercia, elves were figures of common superstition among the peasants and condemned as devils by the monks. I felt sure that there must be a worthier explanation to account for Wulf s astonishing feat of healing.
‘I could hardly see him for arrow-holes,’ he went on. ‘I could feel the holes where the arrows penetrated his hide, and indentations made by arrows that bounced off him.’
‘You could feel the holes with your fingers?’ someone asked, excitedly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then I cut rune symbols of power around the horse’s flanks so that the horse would not be vulnerable to a fresh attack by elves. There is no point in healing an animal if it is immediately vulnerable to another attack. Then I cut a power ring in the horse’s ear, to give me entry into the inside of the horse where I attacked the elves, with help from the horse’s guardian spirit. I attacked them with a look of power. My look weakened their grip on the horse and I immediately hit the animal with my staff and all the elves’ arrows fell out.’
Wulf peered over at me to gain my reaction, a broad smile creeping across his face.
I thought his explanation was preposterous. He begin to chuckle. ‘Elves are small,’ he continued, smiling indicating with his hand a height of about one foot. ‘An elf is as much short of human size as a giant towers above it.’ It was clear to everyone that Wulf was now talking for my benefit and eyes turned on me. ‘There are different kinds of elves: light elves and dark elves, for example. Light elves are slender and slight. They appear beautiful to us. The dark elves, on the other hand, are ill-shaped, with coarse clothing and appear ugly. The light elves are associated with the realms of the gods, but that does not mean you can always trust them. If you approach them wrongly they will behave like dark elves. In fact, even when you know the elves intimately, it is often difficult to tell at first what kind you are dealing with. The dark elves are by far the most dangerous; they even masquerade as pale elves to entrap you.’
Wulf seemed to be finding much amusement in his discourse and enjoying the rapt attention, but I felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of disappointment. I recognized the connections between Wulf’s elves and the devils about which I had been warned by Eappa. He had told me of the evil creatures of pagan superstition who capture the souls of ignorant people in opposition to the Word of God, and I knew that Eappa would be pleased by my diligent reporting of Wulf’s belief in elves. But I realized, with a sense of guilt, that I had hoped for something more from Wulf, for I could not reconcile my wonder at his healing powers with his description of devil-spirits as an explanation of his cure of the horse.
Still stunned by what I had seen, I walked back slowly towards the guest-house while Wulf remained at the stable amid the admiring throng. In a dreamy state I entered, sat on my mattress, leaned forward and buried my face in my hands. Carefully, deliberately, I pictured in my mind every detail of the procedures Wulf had followed in healing the horse. I knew that I had witnessed a display of healing power far outside my experience. And although I had heard tell of miraculous cures by the brethren, they were achieved by the grace of God: I did not know the source of Wulf’s power, unless it be devils. But the stories of elves and invisible arrows, while obviously of use to the pagans in ordering the world of our Lord that was far beyond their understanding nevertheless seemed pathetically primitive and unworthy of his abilities.
Yet again, I reviewed in my mind the procedures he had used. I began to think that the real secret of his cure must surely lie in the dried plant mixture he had fed to the horse, for I could not see how the power of devils could be used for such good purpose.
Then, in the soft light of the room, I saw piled against his bed four or five linen sacks, identical to the one from which he had taken the powder to give to the horse. I sat quietly for a moment, gathering my courage and my wits. Then stealthily I crawled to the doorway, pulled open the door and peered outside. The compound was deserted. I went across the porch and on to the path outside, looking towards the Western perimeter of the settlement. In the distance I could see people drifting back in twos and threes towards the work huts, chattering animatedly. I could not see Wulf amongst them and assumed that he was still at the stable.
Hurrying back into the house, I went straight to Wulf’s side of the room and began to examine the largest sack. It had a heavily pungent odour. I patted the sack with my palms and could feel many different objects inside.
Next I tried another sack. This one was soft and crackled under my hands and felt as if it might be full of leaves and dried plants. Turning my attention to the top of the sack, I pulled gingerly at the tightly bound drawstring to loosen the knots.
Suddenly there was a sound behind me. I whirled around towards the doorway, but the door was still shut. My eyes swept the shadows along the floor, looking for a rat or mouse, but could see nothing. Then I saw feet. In horror, I looked up into Wulf’s eyes. He was sitting in one comer of the room, in the shadows watching me like a hawk.
I leaped away from the sacks as if they had bitten me and sat down heavily on my bed.
‘How long...when...did you come in here?’ My voice was tight with alarm.
Wulf smiled superciliously, but said nothing. I was desperate, embarrassed, on the defensive. Instinctively, I struck out.
‘My priests tell me that the sorcerers of your land use trickery to gain the allegiance of the peasants. That your stories of elves are fabrications. And if not that, then they are evil, for it means you are consorting with devils.’
There was a silence. I sat stiffly, holding my breath, waiting for an explosion of anger from Wulf. But there was none. To my astonishment he chuckled.
‘It is true that some sorcerers try to impress with trickery. But the people usually see through that. Recently there was a sorcerer in this area who could swallow a burning brand and sharp pieces of flint. But for all this, he was still not considered to be a powerful sorcerer for he could not always summon the spirits.’
Wulf stood up, walked over to his bed and rearranged the sacks as they had been before I had interfered with them.
‘If you are so interested in the plants I use, you can come with me into the forest tomorrow, in search of more power-plants. Meeting you at the beach and bringing you here has delayed my hunting.’
I looked at him in surprise. Not once had it occurred to me that I had been doing anything other than accompanying him on his usual business. And when I thought of the reception he had received at the settlement—the gifts, the guest-house and the arrangements for the healing sessions—it seemed inconceivable that his arrival had not been anticipated.
‘But Wulf, surely they expected you at the settlement or the horse might have died. They must have sent for you?’
He shook his head firmly. ‘They never know when to expect me. Of course I went to the settlement to heal the horse, but it was sick because it was important that you saw it healed, just as the two warriors fought because it was vital for you to understand how we deal with death.’
I stared at him blankly.
‘Everything that has happened took place because you arrived. If you had not come here, the warrior might still be alive and the horse might not have been sick. A man has been killed, and a horse healed, for your benefit.’
For a moment I was shocked but then, suddenly, I understood. Although the battle between the thanes must have been fortuitous, the horse healing had been carefully prearranged to convince me of Wulf’s powers. I thanked God for forcing the truth from the mouth of the charlatan, although since I had been taken in completely by the deception I could not understand why Wulf should now be freely admitting to it. Eappa’s warning sounded in my ears: ‘Beware of the heathen, for they have the cunning of the devil.’
‘The horse was made to appear sick so that you could fake a cure,’ I stated coldly. ‘The cure was a fraud.’
Wulf chuckled. ‘Of course. We had a serious discussion with the horse and explained to him that he must pretend to be sick.’
Wulf’s sarcasm left me unconvinced, for the animal’s sickness could have been induced by some herbal means before my arrival.
‘The horse was really sick,’ Wulf insisted. ‘But if we had not come to the settlement, perhaps it would not have been sick.’
‘Are you saying that our going to the settlement made it sick?’
‘I did not say that. We no more made the horse sick than its being sick made us go to the settlement. It is not a question of one thing causing the other. Rather, they arise together, held up by the web of wyrd. Your Mission, the dead warrior, the sick horse and my presence were bound together as surely as sun, showers and a rainbow. Sorcery killed the warrior and made the horse sick, just as sorcery delivered you to our shores to witness these events.’
‘You mean, charms were cast, binding spells made?’ My words clacked from a dry mouth. Being tricked was abominable, but the thought of being an unwitting victim of sorcery was more than I could stomach.
Wulf looked at me non-committally, his expression calm and relaxed.
‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘By sorcery, I mean the forces that rule Middle-Earth. I have told you that, for the sorcerer, everything vibrates the web of wyrd, whether it is an act of the gods or the movement of the tiniest insect. Your arrival trembled the web. The flight of the ravens trembled the web. My presence vibrates the web. The battle of warriors and the sick horse trembled the web. All our lives are locked together in the shimmering world of wyrd in which all things are enmeshed and connected to one another by the threads of wyrd.’
I had been impressed by Wulf’s explanation of a web which contained all things, but now that I was supposedly caught within it, the idea seemed sinister and I could not accept it.
Wulf reached over and fingered the sleeve of my tunic. ‘The weave of this cloth reveals to us the pattern of wyrd,’ he said. ‘Your individual destiny is laid out on a loom. All the incidents in your life, all the dreams, thoughts, fears, are a pattern woven on to the loom. The duration of your life is measured by the vertical thread, held taut by the weights of life-force. The horizontal threads of the loom are the forces to be encountered during the course of your life, rather than days and nights. The pattern woven on to this loom is the pattern of your life, and the pattern is woven by the Three Sisters of Wyrd.’
I breathed a deep sigh of relief for I knew now that Wulf had not attempted to delude me and that his healing exploits were genuine. His error was simply in believing that disparate events were joined in some way other than being part of God’s Kingdom. Only by the hand of the Lord could events be connected without regard to time or location. And in the Three Sisters of Wyrd I knew now the basis for his bizarre beliefs; in Mercia I had heard that warriors told tales of female spirits, three wild women who were dealers in death, choosing in battle those who would die and those who would live. But in truth the teaching of Christ the Saviour would not allow us to believe such superstition, for it rested on the blasphemous belief that our lives were under the control of such spirits. My memory fed me Eappa’s words: ‘When the Creator made mankind, he gave free will to the first people.’ Confidently, I retaliated.
‘Wulf, I cannot allow myself to believe that life is controlled by such forces, for our God teaches that individuals are born of free will. Even when people transgress God’s command and obey the devil, they become guilty through their own free will.’
Wulf looked at me, his brow furrowed in obvious puzzlement.
‘The devil? Is this a spirit?’
I felt a spasm of unease. ‘He is not to be dwelt on, Wulf. Know only that he is anathema to our God.’
‘But how are people influenced by this “devil”, if he is not a spirit with powers?’