The Islands of the Blessed

“One day he sighted a ship in the distance, making its way to Grim’s Island. It was the abbot of the Holy Isle, coming to check on his welfare. ‘Delighted to see you looking well,’ said the abbot, coming ashore. ‘Good Lord! What’s that?’ The mermaid was shuffling to and fro with loads of driftwood.

“‘Just a sea creature I trained to work,’ said Father Severus.

“‘But it’s female! And it’s naked!’

“‘It isn’t human,’ Father Severus said reasonably. ‘Many a monk lives with a cow and nothing is said.’

“‘It has the form of a human,’ said the abbot, squinting to make her out more clearly. ‘By blessed St. Bridget, it’s the ugliest woman I ever saw.’

“Then Father Severus took a closer look at her too. The mermaid had changed so gradually, he hadn’t paid attention. She was much larger, and the nails of her feet and hands had grown into claws. Her skin was rough, her teeth yellow, her hair was beginning to fall out and the clumps remaining were a rat’s nest. Her movements, never graceful on land, were now totally bestial. ‘She looked better when I got her,’ Father Severus admitted.”

“That is the way of fin folk,” the Bard put in. “When the females are immature, they are surpassingly beautiful. If they wed a human, they remain so all their lives. But if they marry one of their own kind or are spurned by a human, they change into the adult form: a sea hag.”

“A sea hag,” said Jack, full of wonder. He could make a magnificent poem out of this tale, as good as Beowulf or Olaf One-Brow rescuing Ivar the Boneless from trolls. Thorgil’s eyes were shining too.

“Unfortunately,” said Brother Aiden, “the abbot thought there had been quite enough meditating and praying on lonely islands. He accused Father Severus of shirking his duties to the monastery and ordered him to return at once. And so they packed up Columba’s robe and Fair Lamenting and departed.

“The mermaid—now sea hag—dived into the water and tried to follow them. The sailors rowed for all they were worth. Gradually, the sea hag fell behind, and the last they saw of her was a mop of dirty hair bobbing up and down in the waves.”

Everyone was silent after that. The Bard put more wood on the fire, and Thorgil, deep in thought, stroked Seafarer’s feathers. Brother Aiden bowed his head. Finally, Jack said, “That’s terrible. They abandoned her to die.”

“I was never sure whether she’d had the strength to return to Grim’s Island,” said the Bard. “Now it seems she drowned and became a draugr.”

“An undead spirit,” said Thorgil.

“And she’s here,” added Brother Aiden. 

Chapter Nine A PLEA FOR JUSTICE

As the Bard had suspected, John the Fletcher and his hunting party could find nothing. The draugr had vanished like morning mist. “She’s still out there, though,” the old man said as he and Jack mixed potions for sale in Bebba’s Town. “I instructed everyone to surround the houses and animal pens with holly branches. She won’t like walking on thorns. Once a sea hag has lost her tail, her feet are her weakest point.”

Jack lined up pots, which were colored to show what kind of pills they contained: red for fever, green for headaches, blue for stomach problems, and black for Beelzebub’s Remedy Against Flies.

“Draugrs can swell up to four times their size, you know,” said the Bard. “One climbed onto King Ivar’s hall while I lived there and almost brought the place down. It hammered on the roof with its heels. That sort of thing happens a lot after funerals in the Northland—they call it ‘house riding’.”

“House riding,” echoed Jack, carefully measuring pinches of dried wormwood into an elixir.

“On that occasion it was Ragnar Wet-Beard—he got the name from all the beer he swilled. One night he fell into a barrel and drowned. Add honey to that elixir, would you? The wormwood makes it bitter.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jack.

“Ragnar was simply lonely, poor soul. He’d wandered out of his tomb and seen his friends holding a wake. Once we realized the problem, we stocked his tomb with beer. And tied his big toes together so he couldn’t get far.”

Jack put his finger into his mouth before he remembered it was covered in wormwood. He ran outside to spit. House riding! It was typical of the Northmen to tolerate draugrs banging holes in their roofs. He was heartily glad nothing like that had happened while he was in the Northland.

Jack rinsed out his mouth and shaded his eyes, looking for Thorgil. She had taken Seafarer for a practice flight. The albatross had grown extremely attached to her, and Jack suspected he didn’t want to leave. She had taught Jack more Bird, but he knew he would never be as fluent as she. Still, he could say Come here and Stop that as well as Are you hungry? Seafarer generally was.