Authors: Geoff Smith
Freed at last, I lay exhausted and unable even to think what kind of wonder had just occurred, as the full weight of all my terrors finally bore down on me. But even as I drifted towards oblivion, I looked up in the dull glimmer of Cadroc’s torch, which lay fallen at the bog’s edge, to see vaguely a figure standing over me. I could only suppose that it must be Taeppa, but I could not see its face or form clearly, only sense its eyes upon me as my head sank wearily to the ground. But it seemed then I knew a strange vision – that for a moment it was I who stood above myself, looking down at my own body as it emerged from out of the yawning darkness, wet and slithering and crying into the night as it gasped and struggled to draw breath. It looked to me like a thing newly born
.
Once more my head jerked upwards, but now I saw no sign there of any figure. I lay quite alone. But there came the overpowering certainty that Taeppa
needed me
.
I lurched to my feet, snatching up the dying torch, and stumbled away into the mist and darkness until I came to the place where he lay. He had not moved and seemed to be dead, but then I found he was still breathing faintly. With a strength beyond any I knew remained in me, I grasped him under his arms and raised him, dragging him back onto the island where I found our bonfire still smouldering. I rebuilt it until it began to blaze again. In its light, I examined the wound on the back of Taeppa’s head: a hideous gash which still gushed blood from beneath the matted tangle of his hair. There was clean water in his canteen, so I washed the blood away, but as I did so there came a deep feeling of hesitation and doubt within me, for it seemed that two sides of my being were even now locked in conflict. As I looked at Taeppa I seemed to know with a desperate sense of urgency what it was I must do, but still in some fearful part of me I held back from it. Yet beyond this there came to me a feeling of resolution and clarity, with a growing certainty that my doubts were only the echo of old beliefs which no longer served me and must in turn give way to something greater.
I took Taeppa’s bone-handled knife from his belt, then thrust its blade deep into the heart of the fire. And when I drew it hot from the flames, I summoned all my strength, faith and conviction as the words of the pagan spell came from inside me, deep and clear and unfaltering:
‘I entreat the great ones, keepers of the heavens,
Earth I ask, and sky; and the gods’ high hall,
And the fair holy goddess, to grant this gift of healing.’
Then I laid the burning knife, again and again, onto the gaping wound, and watched in wonder as the seared flesh was knitted together to staunch the blood, while the sight of it seemed to reflect a great joining and healing of something inside me: the profound sense of a numinous power and wisdom that felt truly like the ancient spirit of all my people, reaching out to welcome me home.
Now I took Taeppa’s leather bag and found inside it his jar of salve, which I applied to his wound while I recited more of the half remembered words of his charms. But the sheer intensity of all these things finally overcame me, and I must have fallen exhausted into a deep sleep.
I awoke with the dawn and looked about me in growing wonder at the silvery strands of shining mist that shone in the waking light as it gently suffused the darkness, and the Isle of the Dead appeared to become suddenly transformed and imbued with a subtle and mystical beauty which seemed astounding and unworldly to my eyes. And in those few moments I imagined something remarkable – that perhaps light and darkness were themselves things that existed as one beneath a greater reality, and the purpose of their eternal struggle was not to gain victory, but something far deeper. It was to achieve harmony, balance and growth. I turned to look out into the fog-shrouded marshes, then remembered how I had fallen deep into the pit, and stared into the face of death, and cried out that a man might be whatever he chose to be. Then my life had been saved by a miracle. It had been given back to me.
Now I looked again in Taeppa’s bag and found some linen bandages inside it. As I began to bind his head, Taeppa started to stir and finally opened his eyes to look up at me.
‘What has happened?’ he said, as he flinched with pain.
‘Be still,’ I told him. ‘All is well. The enemy is dead.’
‘What was the enemy?’ he murmured, his wits confused. ‘A man or a monster?’
‘A man and a monster!’ I answered. ‘But in truth I cannot say which one was which.’
When the mist began to clear, the island was deeply tranquil, and already it was hard to believe that in the night such horrors could have occurred there. At Taeppa’s insistence I took his cloak to spread over poor Aelfric’s body to leave him as decently as we could. I spoke a prayer over him, not a liturgy of the Church but words which came from my own heart. Then we set off.
Taeppa was still weak and disoriented, and badly needed rest and care. He clung to me for support as I retraced the safe path of our own tracks through the marsh from the previous day, and then onward. At last I saw the sign of smoke spiralling into the cloudy sky in the distance, and after hours of slow and wearisome progress I stumbled back into the village at Sceaf’s ford, where women cried out in alarm, as the savage-looking men rushed up thrusting their knives and axes towards us. We must have been a dreadful sight, soaked in mud and blood. But in anger and exhaustion I swept out my arm at them and shouted:
‘Put down your weapons! The monster is dead. But this man is injured.’
They backed away and lowered their blades as they recognised that we were indeed only men.
Taeppa was taken at once and put to bed, while I stood outside and with relief pulled off my mud-encrusted robe for the women to take and clean, while buckets of water were brought for me to bathe myself as the villagers crowded about me to hear my news. The Fenland monster was a creature controlled by a mad Christian, I told them – a terror created so the Church might then be seen to contain it. But both of them now lay buried beneath the marshes.
Soon I rested, but that evening I was brought to the village hall, where a feast had been prepared in my honour. When I entered the hall, the men rose from their benches out of respect and were not seated again until I was escorted into the chair of the high guest. Indeed it was much like the first evening I had spent on my journey into the Fens. But I was entirely a different man. That night I felt truly alive. I laughed and danced with the village women, and rejoiced among those people, and sang with them their old songs of gods and heroes and monsters. I knew a sense of freedom and fellowship in their company that previously I could not have imagined. I drank beer until my head was spinning, and when the great joints of meat were served up, I grew suddenly aware as I smelt them that I felt more hungry than I had ever been before. I was simply ravenous. And as I gorged myself happily, I understood that I was breaking the fast which had been my whole life.
The dawn is almost here, and with it our companionship must end. There is little more to tell, only to say that I soon journeyed back across the Fens to the place of my hermitage. And when next Ailisa came, much concerned by my sudden departure, I took her for the first time into my arms. And when later I broke my vows, I did so gladly, knowing at last that my reconciliation with God was complete. Thus it was that I returned from my long exile to become human again – to be a man at long last
.
For I have looked deep into the abyss and seen there what may become of those who are cast out and driven to exclusion. So it was also that the bleak swampland which had once been the place of my penance became instead my beloved sanctuary and home. My whole world was transformed about me, for I saw it now with the true vision of the soul. Ailisa became my wife, and mother to our children, and our lives together have been blessed, for the outside world could not touch us there. You will see that I still wear the symbol of the Cross, but I wear it now upon the robe of a shaman, for I found in Taeppa a willing teacher and true friend. Since I passed through the fire, I have been the servant of no doctrine or creed save that of my own will and conscience. For the Church has given up its search for knowledge and truth in the pursuit of worldly power. It now exists principally to serve the interests and ambitions of those within it, and has become so dominant that even kings have been known to lay down their authority for the greater prize of an abbotship or bishopric. Entranced by the baubles of today, our world has cast aside the wisdom of the ages. But it may not always be so, for who can see clearly into the future? I must hope that to the enlightened men of posterity, the turmoil of these times will seem like only the petty squabbling of children. I hold fast to my faith that tomorrow will be better, and mankind will be drawn stumbling onward towards the light. For I know that light may be found in unlikely ways, and that it shines most brightly within the darkness.
The pagan Anglo-Saxon culture was oral, not written, so what information we possess about it comes from the works of Christian monks who were basically hostile to their subject. However, a wealth of information survives from medieval Scandinavia – and in particular Iceland – which was converted to Christianity much later than the rest of Europe, in the numerous sagas and works of men like Snorri Sturlusson, who in the 13th century had a clear sense of nostalgic affection for the traditions of the pre-Christian past.
It is not possible to provide a very accurate map of seventh-century England, given that my story is set at different times during that century, since the boundaries of the lands were constantly changing as kingdoms competed for territory and power, and smaller lands were absorbed into larger ones. The land of Elmet gives a good example of the vicissitudes of the times. At the beginning of the seventh-century Elmet occupied an area roughly equivalent to the later West Riding of Yorkshire. It was an independent Romano-British frontier state, bordered by the Anglian lands of Deira (eastern Yorkshire), Lindsey (Lincolnshire), and Mercia (the Midlands), and the Brythonic land of South Rheged (approximately Lancashire). In around 604, King Athelfrith of Bernicia (an Anglian kingdom in the North-East located between the River Tees and the Firth of Forth) invaded Deira to the south, and drove out its ruling dynasty, joining both lands into what would become the kingdom of Northumbria. A Deiran prince, Edwin (whose later and somewhat tortuous conversion to Christianity is recounted at length in Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
) was forced into exile and for years became a fugitive from the agents of Athelfrith, who sought to exterminate him as a dangerous rival. Another Deiran prince, Edwin’s nephew Hereric, took refuge with the King of Elmet, Ceredig, who then betrayed and murdered him at Athelfrith’s instigation.
The same tactic was employed with King Redwald of East Anglia, while he gave refuge to Edwin, to whom Athelfrith sent envoys, at first offering rich rewards to kill or surrender Edwin, but finally threatening war. Redwald vacillated, but was persuaded by his queen to support Edwin. The armies of East Anglia and Northumbria clashed at the Battle of the River Idle in 616, where Redwald was victorious and Athelfrith was slain, clearing the way for Edwin to be installed as the new king of the whole of Northumbria. The powerful alliance between Redwald and Edwin now secured for Redwald the title of
bretwalda
or ‘Britain-ruler’, a position of pre-eminence over the other Anglo-Saxon kings in Britain.
Edwin next invaded and annexed Elmet, expelling King Ceredig in revenge for the murder of Hereric, or perhaps using this as a pretext for his actions – if any were needed, since it marked the beginning of an aggressive policy of westward expansion into British territory, with Edwin extending his overlordship far into those lands, so that he was able to claim the status of
bretwalda
for himself upon Redwald’s death. But these successes fostered animosity. In around 632 the Christian King Cadwallon of Gwynedd, war-leader of the Britons, formed an unlikely alliance with the pagan Angle, Penda of Mercia, who combined their forces to defeat and kill Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase. Cadwallon went on to ravage and briefly conquer Northumbria – until he too died in battle – and Elmet presumably regained independence under British rule (at least this is what I have inferred for the purposes of the novel) until finally it was seized by Penda, then probably became as a bone between two dogs – alternately a province of Mercia and Northumbria during their continuing struggles for supremacy. Writing in the eighth-century, Bede refers simply to the Forest of Elmet.
Such was the turbulence and instability of the age. Into this toxic mix of shifting alliances between Britons and Anglo-Saxons, Celtic Christians and pagans, came the Roman Church – successor to the Roman Empire, and as an enduring symbol of Rome’s past glory still the main power-broker of Western Europe – determined to extend its sphere of political influence and control, and sweep away all opposition; to conquer new territories (or re-conquer old ones) by now claiming authority over the souls rather than the bodies of its subject peoples. Paganism and Celtic Christianity were by comparison uncoordinated and localised, lacking the cohesion to stand for long against the organised assault of the Roman Church – although it might be argued that with saints to take the place of heathen gods, and the symbol of the Cross to replace the idols the Christians affected to despise, paganism was never truly abandoned but merely repackaged, retaining enough of its original content to make it palatable to heathen converts. Kings, who as pagans were little more than tribal chieftains and warlords, were no doubt often keen to convert, since to become Christian was to improve their status by adopting a faith which spoke of divinely ordained royal power (although of course, according to the word of Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century in the doctrine of the Two Swords, a king’s authority was secondary to that of the Church, being merely temporal instead of spiritual) and enter a greater world of wide international connections – to start to become ‘civilised’ after the Roman fashion. Those who did resist were doubtless soon made to feel backward-looking and unenlightened – always a standard ploy by those determined to gain power over the minds of others.