The Skogsra, Also Called The Hulder, Live Deep In The Forest, Feasting On The Souls Of Men Who Follow

The Boat (Virgin with Corona) (Odilon Redon, 1898)

Swedish painter and illustrator John Bauer (1882-1918)

Thralls of Skuld - Prologue

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 "Long is the way, 

long must thou wander, 

But long is love as well; 

Thou mayst find, perchance, 

what thou fain wouldst have. 

If Skuld her favor will give.

- Verse 4 of Grougaldr (Groa’s Spell) from Svipsdagsmol in The Poetic Edda

The fates of all living things were utterly and hopelessly implacable. The only thing within the control of mortals was how they lived through their destiny and met the death that had been spun for them. The Norns, named Uðr, Veðrandi and Skuld, weaved the Web of Wyrd, the very fabric of all that had been, all that was now, and all that would come to be. In Midgard, the mortals knew it was no use trying to appease the Norns, whose web was absolute. That was why the Norns were not worshipped like the Æsir and the Vanir, who could change the outcomes of wars, shorten the merciless winters, and decide the yield of the harvests. The Norn’s just were - and so was fate. All of this was well known.

Eira did not agree with that in the least.

She had been there the day Ulf's children had been taken by the nøkke. The screams that cut through the damp pine forest that day still rang in her ears sometimes. It had sat in her throat for months. A lump, threatening to well up and flow over at the slightest encouragement. Sometimes the dull greyness of the sky, like the one that had watched them that day, was enough to make her chest catch with terror and the tears well up in her eyes. Looking at Ulf was the worst. She barely could, for so long, when the grimness of death had still been painted on his face, dragging down his shoulders. If the shame and desperation she felt in her heart for what had happened was anything to go by, Ulf must have been a shell of a man in those months.

She was not sure if she had seen it out of the corner of her eyes or not. Years later, when she could not sleep, she vividly imagined how the monster, in the shape of an enticing white horse, had egged on the children, whinnying and inviting, until they had grabbed its tail in playfulness.

When she turned to look, both children were being pulled forcefully from the rivershore into the murky waters by that invisible string. She had sprinted the few steps until she reached the shore, looking desperately into the waters. They had been playing on the rocks just behind a gorge, where the current of the river was roaring and fast. The children had been gone even before Eira’s desperate outcry had made Ulf turn around to look. The deathly silence that ensued had settled permanently into the pits of her stomach. The only thing in the world that kept moving was the river as it thundered on, unphased by what had transpired. 

Where Ulf had blamed the inevitable will of the Gods and the Norn's web, Eira had blamed herself. She was the one who had pointed Ulf in the direction of the fishing snares further down the river, as she had gone to open the trap closer to the children. Ulf said the deaths had already been woven before any of them had woken that day. Eira knew in her heart that she could have changed the outcome, could have tugged the string of the web of Wyrd in another direction. She knew not how, but it pulled at her to think of it, over and over again.

It had festered in her a deep belief that there ought to be a way to challenge the decree of divine order, which decided unjustly who should live and who should die.

Nicola Samorì - In principio era la fine (2016)Olio su tavola - 40 x 30 cm

Thralls of Skuld - Chapter 5: Freyja's Gift

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In the first days of healing she had been hazy and weak from the pain. She had been confined to her small house, close by the cluster of longhouses that belonged to Unn’s family and a few other neighbours. Unn stayed in her house, changing her dressings while singing songs of healing Galdr. Eira slept through the days, and in turn spent many nights awake. They shared Eira’s bed at night, like sisters did. Unn woke early before the break of every day, just as Eira was beginning to blink her eyes more slowly, overcome by sleep, and Unn started singing over her again. Unn had looked weary on those days, the dark purple under her eyes sinking into her usually plump face.

Unn had been horrified, at first, by the gravity of Eira’s wound, shocked that she was still alive. But as the days went on, Unn’s shock turned to disbelief at Eira’s speed of recovery. Eira wondered if Unn had visited the vølve again in her absence, but she did not ask. She had many, more pressing questions gnawing at her mind.

As Eira’s strength gathered, Unn returned to her own home. Still unable to sleep, Eira took to sitting outside in the late evening hours. She walked slowly to the grave mounds at the back of her estate, shrouding herself in a woolen plait to keep the chill of the night at bay. She would lean against a tree or sit atop of the small grassy hills, the resting place of her ancestors, sighing deeply with the pain she still felt as she moved through the world. And there, she would open her heart to the nature around her, hoping that an answer might reveal itself to her. 

She went over what had happened on the battlefield again and again, the many impressions having faded into distortion. It was clear that the force had come from her, Magnus had confirmed as much. But even he could not explain the nature of it. Had it come from her hands, as it did with the legendary battle mages, or from the earth around her? It could have been some divine intervention from above her. How had she felt when it happened? What had she done the moment before? She did not remember. 

Then she moved onto thinking what an odd coincidence it was, that somehow high levels of magick seemed to be swirling around the sleepy villagers of Eiklund, with the vølve’s arrival and inexplicable events visiting both herself and Unn in a short span of time. It seemed like the stuff of myths.

Some nights she drew the rune of Eiwaz in the soil at her feet, thinking it would evoke some sort of revelation, although she did not know which kind she was looking for. After casting the rune, she would sit for hours looking into the darkness, searching for a physical manifestation of an answer. 

She lost herself to thinking, and her mind would often land on how the children of Ulf never got to be buried in their ancestral home of Eiklund. As if struck by the thought itself, she would stand up as fast as she could, and scuttle home. She could not push away the idea that she might see them, the little blond children, in the ghostly form of gengangere - spirits that walked the earth again, driven by things left unresolved.

The thought visited her again and again. She was starting to think that perhaps it meant something, the thought stuck in her mind like a spanner in a wheel. The day the children died was the first day Eira questioned what was natural and unnatural in this world, what must be, and what, perhaps, need not be. Maybe it was the seed that had been planted, which had later bloomed into her own super natural actions in Svidland. Perhaps she had somehow… 

A movement in the darkness startled her. She gasped audibly, preparing herself to stand, but knew that would be futile. She was still weak, and in any case she could not defend herself from spirits.

“Who goes there?” she called, telling herself it could not be them. It was a single, dark shape, much too big to be the young children. She sat gaping and waiting for it to near her, when she saw that it was the vølve. The waiflike woman moved much like she expected a spirit would, almost floating. She was walking straight towards Eira. 

Eira was dumbfounded. She had never seen the vølve leave the surroundings of her small abode outside of Eiklund.

“Do you find what you seek?” The vølves voice was whispery and rasping, but it had a sing-songy quality to it. As if the songs required for her magick had settled permanently in her voice.

Eira was still stunned by the vølve’s unexpected presence, and thought hard to look for an appropriate answer. “I am not sure what I seek”, she said finally.

“I am sure you are finding more than you think.”

“Why have you come here?” Eira observed the vølve’s light, delicate features. Her skin and hair were both almost the colour of fresh fallen snow, but her face looked youthful. Eira did not know why she had expected a vølve to look deeply furrowed and lined, like the famed Elli who was old age in human form. Her eyes were pale too, and they did not look directly at Eira. Instead, they floated as if between worlds. If it had not just been the two of them, it would be unclear if she was addressing Eira at all.

“I have been waiting for something to be set in motion. It seems that it has now happened.” 

The vølve was standing beneath Eira, who was seated halfway up on side of a grassy burial mound. The vølve was incredibly tall, thin like a draugr, but almost meeting Eira’s eye sight. 

Eira’s brows furrowed, the confusion of the nonsensical statement gripping her, making her wonder if she had fallen asleep without noticing. She decided to ask the vølve a question that had been on her mind for weeks. “You taught Unn seiðr?”

“Yes.” the vølve replied matter-of-factly. 

“Why?” asked Eira. 

“For the same reason that I am here for you now.” the vølve replied, as if that would explain everything. Eira felt a pull of impatience, unprepared to be disturbed by nonsensical riddles on this night of introspection. But she knew that it must be something significant that had moved the vølve to seek her out. Eira for the second time asked her why. 

“I came to tell you a story.” The vølve stood unmoving at the foot of the small hill, looking up at Eira, or perhaps at something behind her or inside her, as she continued her whispering song:

“The first war of time was between the Æsir and Vanir. It was a war that has since been unmatched in force and violence, waging on endlessly, neither side gaining grounds, until both the Æsir of Asgard and Vanir of Vanaheim agreed to strike a truce. Do you know what happened next?”

The impatience gripped Eira again. The vølve had come to her home, in the middle of the night, to tell her fables of skaldic poetry, children’s stories? Of course Eira knew, every child had heard of the legendary creation and divine history of the universe a hundred times over.

“They exchanged hostages,” Eira replied, willing her voice to be neutral, patient. “Some of the best Æsir were sent to Vanaheim, and likewise Vanir were sent to Asgard.”

The vølve shook her head slightly, murmuring dismissively “Yes yes, of course, but not that.” as if Eira’s answer was too glaringly obvious. “I mean what happened with Freyja. The seiðr.” Eira now listened more attentively, as the vølve sang on: “The hostages who came to Asgard were three: Njordr and his children, Freyr and Freyja. Njordr, who guards the sea and Freyr who guards the fields and prosperity of nature, were both named overseers of sacrifices from the mortals of Midgard. Their vanir magic still casts the rains of spring and the waves of the ocean to this day.”

As she continued, Eira noticed how the vølve swayed slightly as she spoke, like a seedling tree in the late summer breeze. Eira still questioned whether she was fully awake.

“Freyja also came to Asgard, beautiful Freyja who wields the most important forces of mortal life and doom. Love and war, and above all, seiðr. Freyja’s knowledge, power and skill is almost without equal. Except, of course, for Odinn, who is the Æsir allfather and in his own right a God of exceptional power and knowledge. 

As unison of the Vanir and Æsir settled in Asgard, it was Freyja who shared her seiðr with the Æsir. She bestowed this gift of unification to Odinn, teaching him to alter destiny and weave prophecy. Freyja did so generously, without corruption or fear of being overcome by her former foe.” 

The vølve’s melodic flow of whispers stilled. After a moment of silence, she asked Eira “Do you understand?”

Eira did in fact not understand anything. She strained to fit the pieces together. “Seiðr can be taught.” Eira started slowly. This was not new wisdom that had been bestowed upon her, and she thought she might be missing the mark as she followed up with: “Like how men of the Jarl’s court are taught magick?”

The highborne wielded much more powerful magick than the simple galdr and runes that the common people relied on. It was not quite the legendary manipulation of the natural world and bending of fate that the Vanir and Odinn wielded, but highborne magick-wielders could heal complex wounds and cause incredible magickal damage. Some could even spur simple but effective illusions. There were also stories of mortals changing their day of death, pushing it in front of them through the Gods’ mercy. Many suspected that was why the King Gorm, known as Gorm the Old, was still fierce at his old age. His wife was said to be blessed with strong traces of seiðr.

But all of that was not readily relevant to Eira. Those people were born with Odinn’s blood - and she was not.

“Magick is bound by blood lines.” Eira was shaping her answer slowly. “Odinn was not just the king of the Gods in Asgard. It is fabled how he once walked often in Midgard, siring many noble bloodlines. When he left to rule over Asgard, he placed his mortal sons as rulers, bestowing upon them some of his magick. Thus, magick can only be passed down through bloodlines, or obtained through deals with the Gods.” 

That was the reason, aside from puritan elitism of course, why marriages between high-magick wielding individuals and the common people were forbidden. Some said the only reason the commoners had their rudimentary magick in the first place, was due to frivolous copulation through the ages. Eira thought maybe the vølve was alluding to this - the nature of how magick was learned and taught, trickling from the goddess Freyja through Odinn to mortals in Midgard.

Lost in her thoughts for a moment, the vølve’s soft tutting brought Eira back to the present. “The magick wielded by men is not the magick I speak of. Seiðr, real seiðr can weave threads into the Web of Wyrd, commanding spirits and bending time. With real seiðr, the unseen can be made seen, and the seen made unseen. Real seiðr can alter destiny.”.

Eira wondered if the vølve somehow knew, as the pale lady recited her deepest desires back to her. If the vølve knew the depths of her despair as she thought of all those senseless sorrows that need not happen in Midgard while the Kings and Gods feasted in their halls.

“This seiðr, it is meant to be shared, Eira. In the spirit of Freyja. I have waited for you to be ready.“ 

“You have been waiting for me?” Eira sputtered. She knew that what had happened in Svidland had been an exceptional force of something entirely inexplicable. She knew that it was unheard of for a commoner to wield battle magick of the kind that had flown from her. It had not been in her control, and to this day she was still not sure it had truly come from her. She told the vølve as much.

“I am not talking about what happened in Svidland. You are practicing seiðr right now.” the vølve continued, a wistful smile floating in her eyes with her last few words: “Well, at least you are trying to.”

Now, Eira had really lost the plot of what was happening. She groaned loudly, struck by a sudden sharp headache as her blood pressure rose and the wound on her neck pulsed. The vølve was unphased by her exclamation. 

“Seiðr requires a deep connection to the threads of the world. Sitting out, like you have done for days, is the simplest, yet purest form of seiðr there is. If you just listen..” the vølve’s words trailed off softly. She lifted her chin slightly to the dark, cloudy night sky stretching endlessly above them, half closing her eyelids as if listening intently to something in the air. Eira only now realised that she had been holding her own breath for a long time, as the vølve took in a long, slow lungful of air and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“It is late,” the vølve broke the silence. “You will find seiðr is not just at your fingertips, Eira, but all around you. I encourage you to look for it.” and with that, the vølve whirled around and walked into the night.

Christopher Funk

In reading direct anecdotes from people who believed in vættir, back in the 1800s, there is this sense that the vættir were already endangered before these people were born, and that the vættir are all but gone now. They speak of their grandparents' experiences, of things they saw in their childhood and stories that everyone knew about, but which took place a generation or more ago. They talk about how vættir "used to" live in that hill over there, or how the old house down the road "had" a vættr in the attic before it was torn down. It feels post-apocalyptic. Like they lived through an extinction event and are left to tell the tales of mammoths and aurochsen. The great enlightenment lit up the dark woods and farms and hills of rural communities and killed off the vættir en masse, forcing the last ones to retreat to the attics of madmen and storytellers.

Thralls of Skuld - Chapter 1: As The Seasons Turned The Tides

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In the land of the Danir, the late summer was filled with a bustle unlike any other time of the year. The harvesting of barley and wheats and haymaking kept the hands of the farmers busy, filling the air with the husky scent of grains.

Boys arrived from the summer pastures with cattle and sheep. The livestock returned fattened enough to keep through the winter, and the boys were filled with the experiences of leaving home on their own for the first time. Those who had returned short of sheep, which had veered off on dangerous roads or fallen prey to the wolves, looked downtrodden, worried about their fathers’ disapproving gazes. The ones who returned successful stood a foot taller than when they had left, emboldened by the spirit of Thor, who was not only a God of strength and thunder, but also the kind of maturation that often happened in the transition from boyhood to manhood. The boys had no doubt felt it in those months alone in the land. Alongside the return of the herders, tradesmen left for the tradecenter in Lejre to trade off their surplus wares and acquire winter supplies.

Offerings were made across the land to Freyr, the beautiful Vanir God of bountiful harvests and fertility. Those who knew how, burned runes of Nauthiz and Wunjo for endurance and good fortune for the coming months, knowing that Jera, the rune of fertility, would no longer do them any good. Others whispered simple rites of galdr, a throaty and rhythmic song to enchant their scythes for the final harvest of the year, hoping to turn the Gods in their favor and keep their harvested grain from catching rot in their storage chambers.

The village of Eiklund, too, was abuzz with the vital preparations before a long and harsh frost grabbed the lands. It was a larger settlement, with more than a dozen longhouses scattered across the grassy and lushly forested environs. The weather was milder here, away from the harsh and windy coast of Selund, the large island where Eiklund lay.

Eira found herself dragged into the woods every day by Unn, who wanted to forage the forest floor for the gifts of the last days of summer. Berries, mushrooms and medicinal herbs were abundant in the dense forests, which was just a few hours hike from Eiklund. Unn was enthusiastic in her plans for the big bundles of angelica and yarrow they found, remembering the strengthening tinctures her grandmother used to make from the dried herbs in wintertime. Eira was more excited for the bilberries and lingonberries, which she would use for marmalade, and the hazelnuts which would taste sweet like honey once they reached the dead of winter.

The days were still mild. Rays of sun broke through the canopies throughout the day, making the task light work. The two women did not mind spending many days in only each other’s company. They were more like sisters than friends, in both good and bad ways. Still, it was clear that they were not related. Unn was blonde, tall and plump with a soft and friendly face. Eira was shorter, her body strong and her hair long and auburn. She had a chiseled face with a strong jaw and dark brows that often fell naturally into a slight frown.

One day, they had returned painfully late in the evening to Eiklund because Unn had insisted on continuing their gathering “for just one more hour”, for almost three hours. The next day, Eira showed up with supplies for camping overnight. If they were going to spend all day out there, they might as well do so without the hassle of scurrying home late in the treacherous half-dark of dusk.

They had spent that evening in a makeshift campsite, sharing stories of the inhabitants of Eiklund and draughts of freshly brewed late-summer beer. As the hours stretched into the night, their conversation had slowed to slurred confessions about life. Unn missed her grandmother terribly, who had been her last living family member. Unn’s mother and father had died after a cough took hold of them when they were still supposed to have many years left in Midgard. Unn’s brother had died in battle. The grandfather, more mercifully, died of old age, reuniting him with his children in death in Niflheim.

Unn’s grandmother had been the village herbalist and healer, and spent the last years of her life passing on her skills to Unn. When dysentery had taken the grandmother, her final gift to Unn was teaching her how to care for the dying, and after, how to prepare them for burial. Unn had not wanted to learn it, not like that. But now, over the bonfire, she admitted to Eira that she was glad their last days together were spent learning instead of fretting and grieving.

The grief never came, not truly. After her grandmother’s death, Unn had taken over her duties as a healer for the community, although she still had things to learn. But Unn was studious and hardworking, and Eira helped her as often as she could. 

Unn often thanked Eira wholeheartedly for her help, believing that Eira did it simply from the goodness of her heart and the sisterly bond they shared. In truth, Eira had a keen interest in the skills and magick of healing and herbalism. Being a warrior herself, she saw the difference those skills made on the battlefield. 

Evoking Eira’s namesake, the Goddess of healing and mercy, Eir, was something no commoner knew how to do. Healing magick was reserved for the noble Jarl’s, their family, advisors and favoured fighters. A highborne warrior who knew how to incite healing galdr on the battlefield often saved wounded warriors from bleeding out before they could be attended to. For warriors of Eira’s station, all they could hope was to be able to carry the surviving injured back to the closest healer after the battle ended, before the cold fever of rot took hold. Then, the healers would work the kind of simpler herbalism that Unn was now foraging to prepare for.

The timely preparation of the healing ingredients was vital this late summer. Unn had been nervous since Jarl Ingmar’s men had brought news to Eiklund of an impending war. The Jarl, whose jarldom reached from the northern coast of Selund and into the countryside where Eiklund laid, had recently sent his men around the jarldom to raise their banners and swear their fealty, announcing that Jarl Ingmar had finally bent his knee to King Gorm.

In just a few years, the ambitious Gorm had consolidated the independent jarldoms across the land of the Danir into one united country. Jarl Ingmar was one of the last jarls to be convinced of the King’s vision of a united kingdom. Deeply entrenched in his own decade-old bloodfeud with the neighbouring Jarl Thorstein, Ingmar had seen the unison of the jarldoms as an admission of defeat. Yet, with a wrath and force that could only be explained as godly intervention, Gorm had managed to break every single jarl into either loyalty or submission.

After waging internal battles to solidify his rule over the Danir Jarls, Gorm has turned his eye towards the land of the Sviar. He was now calling upon the forces of his jarls to raise their banners under him and campaign into Svidland. Effectively, King Gorm had freed the people of Eiklund from one blood stained doom, only to bind them into another.

Unn had fretted, knowing she would be without her grandmother to care for the casualties.

Eira, on the other hand, had been excited. She had remarked herself as an exceptional shieldmaiden under Jarl Ingmar’s constitution. In the last few years of territorial warring between Ingmar and his neighbour Jarl Thorstein, Ingmar’s land had become famed for breeding a strong and stubborn kind of people, suitable for warfare. That was why their villages were first to be visited when it came to calling for axes.

Eira, coming from modest roots and destined for nothing great, had seen her natural skills as a fighter as an equal curse and blessing. She told Unn as much that night in the forest, where they had shared admissions over beer and bonfire. “Fighting feels like grabbing fate by its balls, escaping the grip of the Norns for just a moment. As if I can control the outcome of my life, instead of being left to the whims and mercies of Jarls or the Gods, as we are in every other aspect of life.”

“Do you really feel that you have no control over your own destiny?”

“Do you not?” Eira was both curious and provoking. “The Jarls decide when we fight, the Gods decide when we die. All we get to decide is what to put in our mouths, given the Gods have blessed us with a bountiful harvest enough to fill our bellies.” 

Unn shrugged, and began thoughtfully: “When my parents died, I felt like that. Like my life had been decided by something out of my control, knowing only the Norns hold the power to do that.” She weighed her words for a moment before continuing “But most of the time I believe that I can influence the outcome. That’s why I wanted to be a healer like my grandmother.”

That makes two of us, thought Eira, but she did not speak it. She yearned to be in charge of both life and death, believing that if she wielded the same authority to make decisions as the Jarls and Kings, many innocent lives might have been spared. It was probably naïve, thinking that might and lordship would not corrupt her, the same way it did to those who were born into it.

“Beer makes you think too much of fate and power,” Unn poked at her. It was true. “Let us rest, tomorrow you can take control of someone’s life by collecting enough yarrow to save your brethren’s lives in the months to come.”

As Eira laid to rest on the ground, still warm from the abundance of sun they had been blessed with that day, she thought of the many injustices borne to her community from the will of the Gods. When she thought of that injustice, which she did often, she thought especially of her shield-brother Geir.

Geir was one of the most famed living fighters of his station in the land of the Danir. While Geir was not of a bloodline important enough to sit at the high table of wartime decision-making, he was often chosen as warband leader to lead scores of warriors on the battlefield. He was almost impossibly strong, resembling Thor himself, exceptionally large and fiery-haired with thundering eyes. More importantly he was smarter than any other person on the battlefield. Where other warband leaders fought with a fierceful belief in sheer strength, Geir saw holes in their defence and patterns in their attacks, guiding the shield walls this way and that. He was quick to make decisions, almost always anticipating correctly, each and every time overpowering the enemy through wit as well as skill.

Geir’s wife, Siv, had bore him four sons, but only one had survived. A quiet boy of five summers, born in the shadow of the death of his kin before him and after him, Geir revered that boy like a gift from the Goddess Freyja herself. Once, a neighbour had jested that Geir, the best warrior on all of Selund, had taken all the strength for himself and left nothing for his kin to survive on this earth. Eira had found the jest cruel, and with a biting look silenced anyone who might think to laugh. She knew that perhaps the cruellest part was the hint of truth, knowing that the Gods indeed enacted these cruel ironies in Midgard, seemingly intent to not let anyone receiving their favor live a life too easy.

The last time Siv had been pregnant was two winters ago. In the cold dead of night, she had woken bloodied and birthed a still child. The wails of that night had woken the neighbours, and Eira knew that they were not only from Siv. The bereavement had settled on Geir’s face like curdled milk for more than a year.

Siv, a quietly resolute woman, had gone to Unn the next day, requesting a tincture to keep her bleeding at bay, and prayed to Freyja to still her womb. Unn, a helpless gossip with access to too much information from her occupation, had told Eira, but also rushed that she must not tell anyone, especially not Geir. Eira knew that Siv could not take another heartbreak, and forgave her for never telling her husband. At the same time, Eira knew that the only reason the scorned mask had lifted from Geir’s face, returning a booming laughter to his lips and life to his eyes, was the belief that he would yet father another child.

Such were the many fates of the people Eira called her neighbours, friends, shield brethren and sisters. Some took staunch devotion to the Gods, believing they might turn the tide of their fates with reverence. Others, under no illusion that they might have control or influence over the Gods, settled to just live their life on earth, accepting all of the occasional cruelty and glory it entailed. Eira thought those latter people were the true thralls of whichever fate Skuld, the Norn weaver of the future, had decided for them.

Jarl Ingmar’s bloodfeud with Jarl Thorstein had spun the destiny of many. The politics of bloodlines and the ruling class ranged far beyond their mundane concerns - it was not born from the will of the commoner. But as it spilled from the halls of nobility into animosity in the settlements of the commoners over the last decades, so had the bloodshed. Some had emerged victorious, like Geir and even Eira. The fierce battlefield between the two jarls had been a place for warriors to prove themselves and gain the favor of the Gods, the Jarl and the people. Others had died, screaming and writhing in agony, entire settlements engulfed by magickal fires set by humans birthed from evil spirits.

Eira had often marvelled at how the Jarl’s most favored men would not dirty their hands on the battlefield like true warriors. Born to nobility, they learned from a young age the ways of complex magick, wisdom that was forbidden to the commoners. Yet, instead of fighting on the battlefield, the highborns wielded their magick in cruel and unforgivable ways, stealing from both themselves and their victims the chance to live forever in Valhalla or Folkvangr. That glorious afterlife was only given to those who died on the battlefield. The highborne left the commoners to fight out their petty wars on the battlefield with rudimentary magick. The commoners hoped, often futilely, that a simple weapon incantation or rune casting might turn the battle in their favor, knowing full well that either Jarl and their mages could end the feud in a duel of magick, if they only dared face each other.Musings over the impunity of Gods and men alike often consumed her when she closed her eyes at night. This evening, the beer had laid a soft blanket over her mind, lulling her to sleep before the anger took hold of her and catapulted her into sleeplessness. She embraced Nótt’s cloak as the night enveloped her.

Forde Abbey