Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Jutland
The seiðr has chosen to teach me things of this new world where I find myself now. We’ve walked miles along a shore, and now we are in a larger village where rune stones are placed as monuments to heroes. But learning the names of Norsemen who died as heroes for a king, doesn’t make me yearn for this life. It doesn’t even appease my curiosity. Apparently, writing is not really a thing here. Carving art and story into stone or metal or wood for keeps becomes the sacred scrolls of these people.
She asks me, guessing at my long life, “So why do you keep asking about writing? Touchstones with names give credence to our stories. So why do Christians need the full gospels all laid out in letters?”
“You make it sound as though written stories are simply a failure of memory. But in Christianity, gospels and writings about saints (hagiography) tell the stories over and over again with one foot on earth and the other in heaven. The written word seems empowered to speak beyond the tangible earth. Even with a good memory, I can only tell the stories of Christians from a mortal, earthly point of view.”
“Thank you, I’m glad to know you don’t mean to speak for Christian heaven.”
“Well actually the unseen things of Spirit are the very things that all of us who are skin and bones, and all of the touches and senses of the physical creation, speak for. The Creator makes all of earth its rune stone.”
“If that were so, then Creation would speak of courage and honor and power. And that is not so. The powers of nature may seem great, but they fail us, so people have to fight through adversity.”
“Well, maybe in nature, the virtues of heroism aren’t limited to people. Where is there any fledgling bird on the edge of a nest that isn’t also showing courage and honor? Is not flying, its power? And what of the wolf cubs exploring the hunt. And surely, a sapling oak just up from the acorn, breaking through the earth is heroic.”
“That’s nothing like human heroism, risking one’s life for honor’s sake. – winning a battle.”
Dear God, I fear maybe honor and courage have become euphemisms for brutal force — gaining the win at any cost. Now I’ve awakened in this strange world made of the same familiar stuff of old kings, driving these people to become senseless, brutal monsters of themselves. What could have led them to this?
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 