Historical Setting: 789 C.E. Jutland
The feast of the solstice is over but days don’t seem long.
I remind, “Marian, I would visit the seiðr after the feast.”
I still have my questions about the nature of literacy here and also, why this population is oddly, mostly middle-aged men.
“I can’t imagine why you would want to know that stuff. They aren’t Christian here. And you already heard her tell a story as she does. So, what is there to read?”
“I can’t know that without knowing what is written.”
“And how might that matter if you don’t even know the language?”
“I’m just asking for your help as I try to understand things. I expect I will know the language soon enough. I caught some of what was happening in the story, just not the reason why all that shape-changing happened.”
“There didn’t have to be a reason. It was a story.”
So today little Marian and I go to the seiðr. Marian says we need to take a gift so I bring a bundle of wood and Marian brings a skin of wine she says she stole from the community cache. That’s where our food comes from and it is the source of furs and the pelts we use. It may not be stealing, as I think it is for community sharing.
The seiðr answers the door seeming more haggard than at the feast last night. She isn’t animated by story. Her long silver locks are laying limp and her dress is uncinched, spreading wide and free, but also, large and unkempt. She lives in a house with lots of others, and it has the fragrance of mint tea, boiled dry, burned in an iron pot. She tells me where to put the wood and takes the wineskin from Marian, thanking the child profusely as she guzzles a good swell, then hangs the satchel of drink carefully next to one of the cloaks and her walking stick.
Marian explains who I am to the seiðr and all I understand of her explanation is “heit” because I did bring the wood for the fire.
“Ah-ha! viðarhlass!”
“She calls you ‘load of wood.’ She thinks she already knows you.”
She says something more and Marian translates.
“’Logs aren’t heat until they meet the fire.’ That’s what she said.” Marian interprets, “So it is probably something to make us think it into meaning. And making us think things into meaning is what a seiðr does.”
May we continue?
(Continues Tuesday, February 4, 2025)
Lazarus Ink 