Authors: Brian Bates
A third time the sorcerer reached into the linen bag and this time pulled out a small pouch of the type used for storing finger rings. He picked open the knots on a drawstring threaded with tiny beads and poured the contents of the pouch into the glazed pot. Then he dipped a taper into the fire until it popped into flame and, slowly and deliberately, passed the burning taper back and forth over the bowl. The taper went out. All around me the clapping and humming crashed rhythmically into my ears, as the Wolfman relit the taper and again applied it to the bowl. Wreathes of copper-coloured smoke spiralled slowly from the circle of small stones; immediately he discarded the taper, leaned over and blew steadily into the bowl. He exhaled powerfully, hissing like a striking snake, and the burning power-plants crackled, popped and glowed deep red, smoke pungent as altar incense billowing into the air. The smoke drifted around my head like a shroud and I sniffed at it cautiously. At once the hairs inside my nose prickled and stiffened as if frozen by a winter frost and I felt a tightness in my throat. My eyes began to stream tears and a moment later my ears buzzed and hummed. It was a disturbingly powerful sensation and I shut my eyes tightly in an effort to regain control of my senses.
When I opened my eyes, the sorcerer was leaning directly over the smoking substance, his face close to the bowl, breathing deeply and rhythmically. Incredibly, the wolf-skin expanded and contracted like a weapon-smith’s bellows as he pumped his body full of the orange smoke. I watched in horrified fascination, my head still floating from the merest whiff of the smoke. I could not conceive how he could fill his lungs with it.
The Wolfman exhaled into the bowl with a long, slow, controlled hiss, took one more mighty breath and gradually, his body trembling with effort, slowly raised himself to a sitting position. His lips were clamped tightly shut and his face and throat swelled like those of a bullfrog until I thought he would burst. He sat rigidly, staring unblinking into the firelight, his eyes glistening and streaming.
Suddenly the sorcerer’s mouth snapped open and he belched streams of smoke like an enraged dragon. Immediately the humming and clapping ceased. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the heavy breathing of the packed audience, sounding like some monstrous, trapped animal.
Someone brought the Wolfman a bowl of water and he rose to his feet and stepped jerkily around the fire, drinking noisily, wisps of smoke escaping in thin streams from the corners of his mouth. He went around the rope perimeter three times, drinking the water, then discarded the bowl and picked up a very large linen sack he had placed near the blanket. He drew from it bundles of large green leaves and flung them onto the fire. The smothered flames hissed, red embers glowed balefully through heaps of greenery and streams of smoke surged, swirling towards the thatch. The sorcerer sat down. In the sudden gloom I could see his black, motionless figure in front of the fire, staring into the embers. He hiccoughed loudly once, then again and the entire wolf-skin shivered.
People behind me stirred and, under cover of virtual darkness, shifted position but the atmosphere in the dramatic setting still crackled with anticipation. Suddenly the sorcerer started talking, his voice loud and jerky, seeming to shudder from his body rather than coming from his mouth. I strained to understand what he was saying, but either he was making up the sounds or the strange dialect was too alien for me to follow. Then his utterances became more melodious, almost singing, though his voice retained an eerie, distant quality—rising, falling, trembling, There were lulls when his voice faded almost to a whisper, followed by great bursts of chatter, intense, rapid speaking, screeches, laughter and groans. He yawned, belched, chuckled and clapped his hands in time to his interminable sing-song. Gradually the Wolfman quietened down and the only sounds he made were hiccoughs and occasional mutterings; eventually even those subsided. Silence. I hardly dared to breathe.
Suddenly, without warning, the silence was shattered by loud cawing sounds as if a raven were swooping over our heads. I jumped with alarm, staring wildly about me in the darkness. Then came chirpings, whistles and cries as if the room had been invaded by hundreds of birds of every description, followed shortly after by the wailing of a baby awakened by the noise. I sat absolutely petrified.
The sorcerer’s voice cut through the tumult and all sounds ceased instantly. Flames began to lick through the foliage strewn on the fire, sizzling and steaming, and soon the air was thick with an astringent aroma. The sorcerer rose and began to turn in a circle, slowly at first, barely moving his feet, but his voice was strong and resonant.
The spirits are here.
Eagle-spirit you have come
to take me where dead men dwell
I shall enter all alone, wolf-bold,
to retrieve the woman’s lost soul.
The sorcerer began twirling around in a circle, still slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he spun like a whirlwind, the only sound the rhythmic thump of his foot on the ground as he spun on the other. His wolf-skin flailed around him, whipping and snapping, tail flying like a hunting wolf charging in for the kill, voice rising to a higher pitch.
I run along with blinding speed,
and fly over the waving fields of corn,
looking down along the rivers,
topping hills and treetops tall,
through sailing clouds through the stars,
into the land of the Mighty Ones.
He dropped to a crouch. The fire spluttered as flames fought through the fresh, choking foliage. The gigantic wolf-shape began to glide around the fire, head and neck scooped low, and I watched in awe; he seemed to have grown bigger and bigger while singing, until now, enormous, he filled the entire Spirit Circle, with the audience crammed back against the walls.
Now, we plunge down, down, down
towards the ground,
over moon shadows marching
in giants’ footsteps
across the land.
I see below me in a crop field
a sick woman’s soul in corn-spirits’ hands.
He crouched absolutely motionless, back and hind-quarters arched, and fell silent. Nobody moved. Holding my breath, I shifted my gaze slowly over the room. The firelight splashed a red glow over stones, feathers and other objects festooned along the entire length of the rope and above I saw flame flashes of sweating faces and attentive, unblinking eyes.
Suddenly the Wolfman leapt into the air with a howl and staggered around the Spirit Circle snarling and growling, seeming to totter on hind legs, the bright eyes of the wolf-head blazing blood-lust. His right arm stretched high over his head, above the wolf-skin. I squinted up into the dark roof thatch and saw a long stalk of corn appear as if from nowhere, grasped in his hand.
A whining voice rasped:
Corn spirit, I have you,
My fangs pierce your flesh
Your battle armour is rent and torn,
Your nine layers will be stripped,
and when the last is put to flames,
this woman’s soul will be free.
The corn stalk bobbed and weaved high in the air as the sorcerer moved around the circle. The voice snarled again:
Nine were corn spirit’s layers,
Nine layers of power,
Nine were the links of armour
But nine now I lower.
Nine becomes eight!
He tore off an ear of corn with his free hand, wheeled around the fire and flung it into the flames.
‘And eight becomes seven.’
He tore off another ear and threw it into the fire.
‘And seven becomes six.’
The corn stalk whipped and cracked above the Wolfman’s head.
‘And the six becomes five.’
As the next ear of corn sizzled into the flames I heard the word ‘five’ on the lips of people around me.
‘And the five becomes four.’
This time the room rumbled with voices chanting, but then, to my horror, the corn stalk began to flail about in the sorcerer’s hand as if it had a life of its own, the violence of its movement flinging him around the Spirit Circle. I shrank back against the rope to avoid his staggering feet.
‘And the four becomes three.’
The audience roared approval as another ear of corn smacked into the flames, while the Wolfman clung on grimly to the corn stalk, his whirling wolf-cloak dispersing fire-smoke until my eyes streamed.
I tried to keep focus on the corn stalk’s desperate struggle to escape his grasp.
‘And the three becomes two.’
People behind me screamed the words with the sorcerer and pushed against the rope; I had to brace my feet and lean back to avoid being pitched into the fire.
‘And the two becomes one.’
The audience roared as the Wolfman was literally thrown around the Spirit Circle, his wolf-head fangs snarling and growling, saliva flying in a foaming spray from the jaws.
‘And the one becomes none,’ he shrieked, tearing off a final kernel and dashing it into the flames. The corn stalk wrenched itself free at last and plunged screaming into the fire.
The crowded room exploded into uproar and at the same time the woman’s head pitched forward out of my hands. She half rose, spinning around towards me; then the Wolfman swooped down, snatched away the leaf-pack still clinging to her face and flung it into the fire. Grasping the woman’s arms, he hauled her to her feet, while the audience stood as one and I rose with them.
The sick woman, seeming totally dazed, stood facing towards me and I caught a glimpse of her face. It was red, but the grotesque swelling had completely disappeared. People rushed past me, stepping over the rope into the Spirit Circle, chattering, shouting and laughing, I fought my way back towards the woman, struggling for a second look at her face, but I could not get near her: crowds of people were hugging, touching and kissing her. Then someone lifted her up and she appeared high above the throng, lit by the flicker of fading firelight. There was no doubt that her face was healed. I was stunned. Never before had I witnessed such dramatic healing powers.
Rhythmic clapping and stamping thundered deafeningly around the Spirit Circle and my head reeled with power-plant fumes. I struggled towards the door, then I saw the sorcerer standing directly in front of me, the wolfs-head thrown back, his hair matted with sweat. He drank deeply from an ale pitcher and behind him I saw baskets of cakes and trenchers of meat being piled near the fire. General revelry was taking over.
The sorcerer lowered the drinking vessel and looked directly at me, his eyes clear, bright and penetrating
‘Did you see it?’ he shouted hoarsely above the din. ‘Did you see the corn spirit?’
I did not know what to say. I could not say ‘No’, for I had just witnessed the most exhilarating event of my life. I had seen wonders I had not thought possible. I took the leather pitcher from the sorcerer, closed my eyes and swallowed the cool liquid. Then I passed the vessel back to him, cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted back:
‘Yes. I saw!’
Dizzy and light-headed, I stepped to the door and slipped out of the Spirit House into the chill dampness of the night. The midnight moon loomed majestically between towering clouds. Grey fire-smoke drifted and curled from the smoke-hole of the Spirit House, turning to silver in the moonlight; beneath the eaves, chinks of light flickered eerily in gaps around the door frame. Below, at the bottom of the hill, thatched roofs glistened with dew against the forest shadows and the very air seemed to shimmer with a spiritual force. I wandered slowly across the clearing, away from the noise of festivities filtering from the Spirit House, and found a seat at the edge of the forest astride the roots of an oak. The sights and sounds of the night’s sorcery clamoured through my mind and at the centre of it all, images of the sorcerer chanting, singing, dancing and snarling beneath his wolf-skin. Excitedly, but carefully, I rehearsed in my mind all the details of the pagan ritual. When I had finished, I leaned back against the oak-trunk and spoke out loud the Lord’s Prayer, looking up towards Heaven, far above the fading Saxon stars.
* * *
The night of the sorcerer’s Spirit Circle is etched indelibly in my memory, for his healing power was an important thread in the web of events which led me inexorably into the world of Saxon sorcery. Only days before, I had landed on the Saxon shore as a servant of Almighty God, pledged to bring the light of our Saviour into the dark lands of the pagans. In His service, during that remarkable summer in the Year of Our Lord 674, I was to encounter soul spirits and death demons, guardians and goddesses, and under the guidance of the Wolfman I was to learn the secrets of Saxon sorcery.
In the following pages I have recounted my experience as accurately as I can, for I believe that the lessons of the Wolfman are for people of all places and all times. In all humility, I dedicate this manuscript to spiritual seekers everywhere.
THE DRAGON-PROWED wave cutter struck sail, drifted slowly through the morning mist and beached in a sheltered cove on the Saxon shore. Grey waves lapped at the stilled oars. I climbed stiffly into the chill water and stood, feet clamped by the cold, watching the boat and oarsmen slip silently out to sea, straining my eyes until the saffron sail melted into the mist. Then, scanning the beach anxiously, I waded ashore. There was no sign of the promised guide. I stood alone on the brink of the pagan wilderness.
Gulls wheeled warning of my presence and waves foamed on to the shingle with a sinister hiss. My eyes searched the cliff-tops uneasily as they loomed through floating fingers of mist; in my Mercian homeland the midwinter past had been marked by fireballs in the sky and the peasants, seeing flying dragons spitting flame, had reverted in panic to the worship of devils and demons. Normally the stone boundaries of the Mercian monastery isolated me from such upheavals; the life of an apprentice scribe was almost totally contained within the cloisters. But now the events of midwinter seemed portentous indeed: with a party of monks I had journeyed South through the great forests to establish a mission at the court of the Saxon King, And now, in the warm, early days of summer, I stood deep in the pagan kingdom, sent from the mission to gather details of heathen customs and beliefs. I slipped a hand inside my tunic to finger the bronze crucifix, hanging heavy and reassuring around my neck.