The Falcons of Fire and Ice (59 page)

Once a draugr had been raised by a sorcerer he or she would have to do the sorcerer’s bidding, which generally meant seeking out a particular man or a family against which the sorcerer had a grudge to wreak vengeance on them.

The family would often be fooled into taking the draugr into their household, believing him or her to be a stranger in need of hospitality or a servant seeking employment. Once there, not only would the draugr consume all their precious reserves of food, he or she would cause havoc – maddening livestock, spoiling crops, and terrorizing anyone who stayed in the house overnight. Whatever a man’s personality had been in life, once dead he became cruel and malicious, bent on hurting the living in every way he could.

Since a draugr appeared to be a living person, it was useful to know the signs by which they could be detected. One clue that you were being addressed by a draugr was the repetition of a word or a phrase in a verse-like taunt. But the word or phrase could only be repeated by the draugr twice, for any repetition of a word three times in succession was said to invoke the Holy Trinity, at which point the draugr would be forced back into the grave.

Once the draugr had completed whatever task it had been raised to accomplish, the sorcerer had to be able to send it back into the grave, otherwise it would follow him and his descendants for nine generations, all the while growing stronger. Forcing the corpse to return to the grave was not something to be undertaken without considerable risk, for the draugr would not return to his lonely tomb willingly and was likely to seize the sorcerer in a vice-like grip and carry him down into the grave with him.

Mummy

The use of human corpses in medicine is recorded as far back as ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece. But even as recently as the eighteenth century, mummy was still included in European herbals. As early as the twelfth century, tombs in Egypt were being ransacked for embalmed corpses, and throughout the Middle Ages there was a lively trade in embalmed bodies, looted by Syrian merchants from Egyptian tombs, which were sold to European apothecaries to make mummy.

It was considered such an important medicine that no apothecary’s shelf would have been complete without it. Mummy mixed with other ingredients could treat abscesses, skin complaints, paralysis, epilepsy, diseases of the liver, heart, lungs, spleen and stomach as well as treat wounds and serve as an antidote to poison. Little wonder that the wealthy liked to have a stock of it to hand.

Mummy was also used to treat ailments in valuable horses, hunting hounds and falcons. It was listed by the medieval writer Pero López de Ayala, chancellor of Castile, as one of the sixty essential preparations which a falconer should always have to hand. López believed that mummy was the most efficacious ingredient in the treatment of any wounds on a falcon, and according to him the best-quality mummy was obtained from the human head. Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493–1541) invented
balsam of mummy
and
treacle of mummy
which both proved to be very popular. It could also be dispensed in the form of tinctures, elixirs, pills, ointments and powders.

When the supply of ancient Egyptian corpses began to run out, the merchants and apothecaries were forced to use modern cadavers. In
Othello
Shakespeare refers to a handkerchief that was said to be ‘dy’d in mummy, which the skilful conserved of maidens’ hearts’. Some herbalists, such as John Parkinson (1567–1650), were still of the opinion that the best mummy was obtained from bodies which had been embalmed in the Egyptian manner, but others, like Oswald Croll (1580–1609), recommended that mummy should be made from the corpse of a hanged criminal, preferably of ruddy complexion and around twenty-four years old.

Hid-woman

The tall woman, Heidrun, who befriends Eydis and Isabela, is a
huldukona
, a hid-woman, meaning a ‘hidden woman’, which the Icelandic people thought a safer term to utter aloud than
álfur
or elf. The name Heidrun comes from the old Norse
heiðr
meaning ‘health’ and
rún
meaning ‘secret’.

Huldufólk
were certainly not ‘little people’. They were the same size or taller than humans and thought to inhabit caves or dwell on farms which were invisible to most human eyes. They lived in a parallel human-like society under the leadership of a king, engaging in activities such as farming, fishing and even holding religious services with their own consecrated priests.

Humans sometimes feared them as child stealers, bringers of curses and misfortune, often vengeful and malicious. Others regarded them as creatures who would help, protect and reward the good and innocent, and punish the guilty.
Huldufólk
often mingled with humans and the only way to tell them apart was by some small physical abnormality, for example the lack of a division between the nostrils or a ridge instead of a groove on the upper lip. Belief in these creatures was very strong in Iceland and many tales are told of encounters with them as late as the nineteenth century.

There are several Icelandic myths surrounding the origin of the hidden people. Some say they were the race of people who inhabited Iceland long before the Vikings and fled into the caves when the Vikings appeared. Others say they were shamans, priests and priestesses who worshipped the old gods and were driven into hiding after the fall of the old religion and the coming of Christianity.

But a Christian legend recounts that when God made an unannounced visit to Adam and Eve, Eve presented the children she had washed to him, but hid those she hadn’t had time to bathe because she was ashamed. Asked if she had any more children, she said no, and God declared, ‘Whoever is concealed from my sight, will be hidden also from human eyes.’ These hidden children were the ancestors of the
Huldufólk
.

Another legend tells of the time when Lucifer led a rebellion against God and was cast out of heaven down into hell with the fallen angels. But there was a group of angels who refused to join the armies of either God or on the Devil, so they were thrown down on to earth to live inside the mountains. There they can perform both good and evil but to a degree far greater than any human.

Wildlife

Fausto failed to catch rabbits and mountain hares because although foreigners always assumed the hare and rabbit must live in Iceland, as such creatures abounded in the rest of Europe, in fact there is no evidence they ever did, despite a law being introduced in 1914 to protect these elusive animals. Over the centuries, several attempts were made to bring them in and establish them as game animals, but it would appear none survived the first winter.

The gyrfalcon or gerfalcon or gyrfalco, as readers will have already gathered, was the most prized and valuable of all the birds used in falconry and remains so today. Gyrfalcons from Iceland, Northern Greenland and Kamchatka can be brilliant white with brown/black barred scapulars and wing feathers which the Spanish called
letradod
because the marks look like the lines drawn by a quill pen. But the plumage of the mature birds can range from white to dark grey and have huge variation in the brown markings on the body, and darkness of beak and talons. The whiter the mature bird, the greater was, and is, its value.

In the nineteenth century, some ornithologists claimed that the birds found in different countries were in fact different species, because of the variation in colour and size. But modern taxonomists agree with the medieval falconers that all of the birds found in these different countries are in fact one species – the gyrfalcon,
Falco rusticolus
. Some modern scientists have suggested that the colour variation is too wide to be able to separate the gyrfalcons into different subspecies, but others have identified six different subspecies based on size and colour.

It is likely that some variants of gyrfalcons no longer exist today. Early descriptions of prize gyrfalcons suggest that in the Middle Ages there may have been wild gyrfalcons who were more pure white than any known today. Their possible loss may be due to changes in climate and food supplies or possibly interbreeding with darker-plumaged birds. Certainly some centuries-old breeding sites for falcons in Iceland are known to have been destroyed by volcanic activity.

The so-called ‘white falcon’ found in Iceland is slightly larger than the gyrfalcons of Greenland and Norway, and with its pure white plumage or livery, except for the elegant dark markings on the upper part of the body, would have been the most sought after for royal falconries. From the description of the markings, the Icelandic white falcon appears to be the type of gyrfalcon owned by one of the most avid exponents of falconry, Emperor Frederick II. This would appear to be confirmed by other early writers on falconry who say the gyrfalcons from Iceland are whiter and larger than those from Norway and therefore more prized by kings, though not necessarily better hunting birds than the Norwegian gyrfalcon.

Emperor Frederick II believed the term gyrfalcon or girofalcon came from the Greek
hiero
, meaning ‘sacred’, or
kyrio
meaning ‘lord’, hence
kyrofalcon
– ‘lord of the falcons’. However, others dismissed this as pure romance, and since that time there have been countless arguments about how the birds got their name, some claiming the origin to be variously Persian, Latin or Norse, among many others. This is not helped by the many modifications to the name as it has passed into the various European languages. The English falconers, for example called it
jerfalcon
, or just
jer
, with
jerkin
used as the name of the tiercel or male. But the meaning and origin of the name continue to remain as mysterious and elusive as the bird itself.

Glossary

Badstofa
– This was the long common bedroom and living hall of Iceland farmhouses which even up to the nineteenth century had probably changed little since Viking times. In later years, in wealthier homes, the turf walls were usually wood panelled, and the floors of beaten earth were covered with wooden planks. But there was a great scarcity of wood in Iceland and poorer people simply couldn’t afford to use it for walls or floors, so when it rained hard the earth floors turned to muddy puddles. Windows were either absent or kept to a minimum to conserve heat, and those few windows were glazed with fish skin or animal membranes which admitted a similar amount of light as you would get through a sheet of greaseproof paper.

The communal beds, stuffed with hay, seaweed and leaves, were used for seating during the day. Meals were cooked and eaten in the badstofa. Spinning, weaving and other crafts would also be carried out here, especially in the long winters, but there was no other domestic furniture in the badstofa, such as cupboards, tables or chairs. Clothes and personal belongings would be stored in chests or boxes kept in the separate store room, along with the food supplies.

Basilisk
– A mythical beast also known as the cockatrice. In the time of the Ancient Greeks it was described as a giant serpent, but from the Middle Ages onwards it was a four-legged cock with a serpent’s tail that ended either in a sting or another head. Its eyes could turn any living thing to stone. Wherever its gaze fell, it turned that place into a desert and its venom was deadly. It was only afraid of two things – the crowing of a cockerel, and a weasel, which was the only creature unaffected by its stare. The prudent traveller in the Middle Ages would therefore arm himself with a cage containing a cockerel or a weasel before exploring a foreign land.

Caravels
– Two-or three-masted, ocean-going ships, which were used to travel long distances at sea. They carried around 50 to 60 tons of cargo and provisions. They were between 50 and 70 feet long and 19 to 25 feet broad. Such a ship would be crewed by approximately twenty to twenty-five men. They were sturdy and fast, so were often used for exploring distant lands. The early caravels were
lateen-rigged
, meaning they had three triangular sails which allowed them to change course rapidly. However, increasingly caravels were rigged with a square sail for the fore and main sail, using the triangular sail only for the rear mizzen mast. This allowed them to achieve faster speeds in a steady wind.

Castrati
– Since women were forbidden to sing in church choirs, and boys’ voices broke just a couple of years after they were fully trained, the Church needed to find a way of preserving the angelic voices they needed. From the fourth century onwards, boys between the ages of eight and twelve had their testicles removed to prevent their voices from breaking. This left them as adults able to achieve full sexual function, but they were, of course, sterile. Throughout Europe, castration centres were established in monasteries to create castrati for the choirs. By the fifteenth century, castrati were well established in all the best Catholic church choirs in Europe, including the Vatican. Alessandro Moreschi was the last known castrato in the Vatican choir. He is believed to have been castrated around the year 1866. His voice was captured on recordings made between 1902 and 1904, and he died in 1922.

Cookbox
– Ships were built of wood, the timbers coated in tallow and tar, and the gaps caulked with crushed hemp and pitch, materials so flammable that even a small fire could quickly engulf a vessel and all lives might be lost if it was far from shore. Yet the sailors needed to cook food and heat metal for the blacksmith to make repairs. So they used a cookbox, which was enclosed on three sides and underneath by high metal sheets which minimized the risk of sparks escaping and also shielded the flames from the wind. The floor of the box was raised on wooden runners to allow the heat underneath to dissipate and not warp the planks of the decks. The fires were lit on bricks which lined the bottom of the cookbox. Cooking pots stood on iron grids above the fire, but their handles could be hooked to a metal rod which was inserted through the sides of the box. This ensured that in rough weather the huge pots could swing freely on the metal rod and thus remain upright through the roll of the ship without spilling their scalding contents on to the deck or men.