Night of the Animals

For Annmarie

      
And every night when his brethren were abed, Cuthbert would go and stand in the cold water all naked up to the chin till it were midnight, and then he would come out, and when he came to land he might not stand for feebleness and faintness, but oft fell down to the ground. And after a time as he lay thus, there came two otters which licked every place of his body, and then went again to the water that they came from. And then Cuthbert arose all whole.

   
—from The Life of Saint Cuthbert, 

The Golden Legend
, ca.
A.D.
1260

The novel employs language from both fading and emerging dialects and slang of Birmingham, the Black Country, old Worcestershire, and the Clee Hills region of England, from Guyana, as well as future-set, speculative words and phrases along with common phrases from British English. With more arcane or esoteric regionalisms, or opaque terms, footnotes are added where I felt they would help readers better appreciate the story.