“There’s a lesson for you.” he said, smiling as he climbed into the jeep. “Never leave the house without a coat. Even if it is just to get something from your car.”
“I may just make a note of that.” I laughed. McTeigh didn’t smile at all however.
“If it is snowing you may not make it back inside before you become hypothermic.” he said sternly. “Just think before you leave the house.”
“I will. “I said, now especially eager to get back inside. I looked down the drive and saw the small stumps sticking out of the sea. “Used to be a jetty of some sort?” I asked and McTeigh nodded.
“When this place was a working farm I think they used it to set out a boat to fish. Long gone now though.”
“Indeed.” I said, and as he waved and drove away I scurried back into the house, closing the door firmly behind me and hurrying over to the huge blazing fire to warm myself.
My next task was to check that the telephone worked, cursing myself for not having tried it before McTeigh came, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did so. It was an old fashioned model, the number written in ink on a round piece of paper on the dial, and when I rang my agent he was not available and so I left him the number on a voicemail message, along with instructions of not to contact me unless he really needed to do so.
I busied myself about the house for an hour or so and had a light lunch of just some sardines on toast. I settled down in front of the log fire and rested back my head to relax. To my great surprise it was three hours later when I awoke, and dark already. The fire had burned down a little, but it was still going strong, the peat burning fiercely with strong flames, the smoke streaming up the chimney and out into the cold, dark night outside.
The room was in darkness now, as I had not had the need of any lights before this, and so the only light came from the fire itself. It did look rather splendid, I do have to say, and I was almost tempted to close my eyes once again, but I resisted the urge to do so, and crossed the room to turn on the lights. As I did so I saw through the window a new moon break through the clouds. It was only just starting to wax, but with no light pollution outside whatsoever it lit the drive in an eerie blue light, and down at the end of the drive, washed by the sea, the several long dark black stakes stood against the tide, almost as if watching me.
I shivered a little and went to make myself some food.
“In the year 995 after four years of looting, pillage and worse, our great king Olaf Tryggvason arrived back in the place known as Orkney and made a pronouncement of all of his peoples, of whom we were. During his absence he had been baptised into Christianity in the Scilly Isles and had taken an Irish princess of that weak religion for his wife. He demanded that we all be baptised and sworn into Christianity. “I want you and all of your subjects to be baptised.” He pronounced. “If you refuse I will have you killed immediately, and I swear that I will ravage every island with fire and steel that does not obey me.” We said we would be baptised, of course, for he was our king. Yet we did not.”
My second full day was taken with making the house as comfortable as possible. Not that it took much work you understand, but I am a little fussy about where things go and so on, and so it took me a little while. The laptop was the main thing really. After all, although I was taking a break it really was with the intention of trying to see if I could break my writer’s block. I was not quite settled enough to get under way as it were and I was careful not to force it, and so I just got the laptop set up on a small table in the living room ready to go when the urge hit me to write. I made myself breakfast having risen late and then set up my gloves and a scarf and hat by the sturdy wooden front door on the coat stand there, heeding McTeigh's words well. If I was to step outside I would not do so without being completely wrapped up, and so I moved the hat stand a little closer to the door, making it more or less impossible to get past it as you went to the door.
Just before noon I donned my winter wear, along with a pair of old walking boots I had the presence of mind to bring with me and decided to take a little walk around the house to get some fresh air. Then I would come back and have lunch, after which I would either start writing or have a nap; whichever urge took me first.
Once outside I was shocked at just how cold it was. The sky was grey and cloudless, but from the house window it was more or less impossible to tell just how windy it actually was outside, as there were no trees or hedges anywhere to be seen, the island being almost completely flat and featureless.
The wind when I got outside however was relentless. I found it pushing me almost down the drive towards the ruined pier, but I veered off into the gale along the shore and walked a little way, watching the sea rush at the shingle on the shore, the tide cresting and crashing against the small rock strewn beach. I walked a little further and then turned around to head back to the cottage, which looked remarkably striking against the dead, steely sky. It looked welcoming; a haven against the weather, and so I quickly strode back towards it, hunger beginning to make my stomach rumble, the thought of the return to the snug warmth inside driving my steps forward.
As I approached the house I felt a small wet speck land on my cheek, followed by another just another step forward. I looked up to the sky and saw the first snowflakes starting to fall, spiralling down from the sky and settling on the cold ground all around me. It only took me another twenty or so paces to reach the house, but by the time I had done so and opened the door to enter, the snow was falling heavily, gusting about the house in a somewhat reassuring manner. I hurried inside and stamped my feet on the doormat, closing the door thankfully behind me and going to make myself something to eat.
***
After lunch I settled down into my by now familiarly comfortable armchair by the log fire which I had previously stoked up, the level of it sufficient not to warrant fetching any more peat from the shed outside thankfully, for I was loathe to leave the house and go back out into the freezing cold again. I mulled for a moment or two over whether or not to pour myself a small whisky, but decided against it. Sleeping the afternoons away here was in itself a joyful way to spend your time, but I did not plan it to be every afternoon.
I looked at the laptop for a while and decided against it, for I did not feel ready yet. So I mooched about the living room and found a store of books on a bookshelf in the corner that I had not perused as of yet. It was a small collection consisting of no more than twenty books or so. They were all mostly historical works focusing on local history concerning the Orkney archipelago. This was only natural I thought, after all, Scapa Flow was nearby, being where the German fleet was scuttled at the end of the First World War and so this was an obvious inclusion in the collection. There were one or two books detailing the historical occupation of the islands by Vikings from Norway and so I picked up the most promising looking one of these and took it back to my armchair.
I am not really one for history, but I do pride myself on having a good basic knowledge of it. I write thrillers and crime fiction, so I rarely have use for it, but this book caught my attention straight away for it contained several items of information of which I was not aware.
Firstly, I had not known that the islands around Scotland were very heavily populated by Vikings. Norway was quite near to hand I suppose, but it was also fascinating to read that although the natural inhabitants of Scotland were the Picti (which I knew to some degree already), the ancestors of Scotland as we know it today are almost entirely a bastard combination of the Scoti tribe from Ireland and Vikings.
The Vikings however were illiterate. They left no writings other than the occasional carving, and any history we have of them is almost always written by the monasteries and religious places that the Vikings were so keen to plunder. Probably because that was where all of the wealth was I suppose. I found this quite amazing to read, and by midafternoon as darkness began to fall I would say I was well and truly hooked.
I rose to make myself a cup of tea and as I entered t
he kitchen and looked out onto the field in front of the house I was amazed to find that already it looked deep in snow, which was continuing to fall heavily around the house. I shivered half in delight at being safe and warm inside as the kettle boiled and then scurried back to my armchair and my history book.
I had been reading no more than five minutes when the phone nearby suddenly rang. The jarring bell of the old fashioned device made me nearly drop my tea cup, so startling was the sudden noise. I tutted to calm my beating heart and stood and picked up the phone.
“McTeigh here.” said my temporary landlord at the other end of the line, hardly waiting to speak after I had picked up the receiver. “Weather has broken I suspect. Storm blowing in. If you want to keep using the open fire, then if I were you I would grab a few slabs of peat from the shed and place them just inside the front door on the mat. They will be no use to you outside if you are snowed in. Don’t forget to take your coat though!”
“I will.” I said, and was about to make a polite excuse and get back to my chair when the line made a crackling sound and went dead. I replaced the receiver on the cradle and then picked it up again. Nothing. Obviously the weather had affected the phone lines. I did not bother checking my mobile phone as it had been getting no signal since I had arrived at the cottage, and there was of course no internet on the island at all either. In all effect I was completely cut off.
I must be frank and say that although I found the idea to be a little bit unsettling it was also oddly exciting. I did think of returning to the armchair but McTeigh had made the effort to call me to warn me about the peat and so I resolved to do something about it. I looked through the living room window and was shocked to see just how fast the snow was falling. I more or less ran to the hat stand and putting on my coat, boots, hat and gloves I opened the door, the wind rushing past me as I opened it as if it was trying to access the inside of the house itself. I looked over my shoulder to see the open fire blazing in the gale and so I stepped out into the wind and snow and pulled the front door closed behind me.
The wind was horrendous, almost pulling me from my feet, and the snow flung itself at my face and eyes as if trying to gouge them out. A low moaning sound came from the wind gusting about the cottage which unsettled me rather, and so I quickly made my way along the front of the house and towards the peat shed, dragging one of the peat slabs from the pile and slowly carrying it back into the house. I put it on the step and went back for another, and did this several times until four of the sods of peat were on the doorstep. They were all quite dirty as you would expect, and already my coat was literally soiled, but they were heavy and unwieldy, making them difficult to carry. By the time the fourth one was stacked on the outside of the step I was beginning to weaken. The snow and wind did not help either, and so I decided to call it a day at four and went and opened the front door.
There was a moment of panic as the door resisted my efforts to open it, but then it suddenly opened and I sprawled inside. I dragged the doormat to one side and made to stack the peat indoors. I could think of nothing worse than having the peat piled up outside the door and not being able to open it because of the snow. Also it prevented the peat from freezing as it would be inside, and so I stacked them inside the door on the rug, the snow melting into a small puddle around the door mat as it did so.
Once this was done I closed the thick wooden door too and removed my hat and gloves, and when removed took my coat off to the kitchen to wipe it down. It was not as bad as it first appeared and soon it was back on the hat stand, slowly drying in the warmth of the cottage. Shortly after it began to go dark and I stood in the living room watching the snow still falling heavily as the moon rose, still crescent like but lighting the falling snow in a beautiful colour of blue as it tumbled down to the ground.
I stood there for a good time and then made myself something to eat. After watching the snow for a short while whilst I was washing the dishes I had used I returned to the living room and yawning I took the Viking history book off to bed with me. I did not read much, settling into an easy sleep very soon after I got myself cosy, my last though before I slept was that outside in the dark and the pale blue moonlight, the snow was still falling.
***
“The farmers call us “gentiles”, or “gall”, but of these words I know nothing, nor does it concern me although it is often the last thing these peasant farmers scream at me as I kill them with sword or axe. They go to their God I am told, though how weak a people they must be to possess but one god to call upon in their time of need. I have yet to see their weak God save any of them when our ships glide into shore and we rush screaming through the dark towards their farms. Perhaps their God runs and hides himself in the wheat fields? That our good and powerful king Olaf Tryggvason should consider making us bow our heads to a god such as this is something I cannot contemplate! The all father Odin is but the head of our gods, the trickster Loki and Hel, Baldur and Thor being but others. Gods of fire and thunder, and crops and blood. These are gods that make sense. Not a god who cowers in the fields whilst his people are slain. I, Hakon, and my brothers Ulf and Sigurd have decided upon the path of Seidr, and although our warriors have cast us aside for such sorcery being unfitting to warriors such as us I care not. Valhalla awaits, whether we are warriors of Seidr or not. They are suspicious, my fellow warriors, and they ignore us mostly now, my two brothers and I. They whisper of dark sorcery, of the web of fate. There are some say that those who follow the way of Seidr can live forever, yet this is not why we do this, for Valhalla awaits, and one weak god will not allow us to enter the halls of the warrior when we die. The seething magic, I believe, will.”
The next morning, I rose before it was light and breakfasted heartily after lugging one of the peat sods onto the fire and then kindling it patiently whilst it began to burn. The smoke as it did so was quite fierce, but give it its due the chimney swallowed most of it, but the house suddenly had a loamy, earthy smell to it that was strangely pleasant but also unpleasant at the same time. I found it did not put me off my food however, which I ate heartily.
By the time I washed the dishes, day was breaking on the horizon and although I saw that it had actually stopped snowing, the amount of snow I saw on the pasture outside that ran down the drive to the sea was unexpectedly high. I don’t think I had ever seen snow that deep before, though i could of course only assess it from the window. Then I noticed the car in the drive, or to put it more accurately I noticed the snow drifted up around it, for the snow had more or less covered it, only the top arches of the windows, the roof and the roof rack being visible. I was now completely amazed. The snow must be at least four foot deep! Whistling to express amazement I went back to the living room and tried to open the front door. It took a little doing but I eventually managed it, snow being backed up against the door so when I opened it there was a square gap at the top of the door through which bright light shone.
“Four feet at least.” I gasped, and as the snow began to crumble inwards I quickly shut the door and leaned my back against it. Now I found myself in quite an unusual situation. I have said that I have never seen snow this deep before, and that was true enough. I walked back into the house. The smoke still flowed easily and freely up the chimney, and the log fire was burning brightly.
I went to the main heating and electric controls in the kitchen by the boiler and all as well there, the oil from the tank outside obviously still working as it should. I ran the hot tap and shortly after the water was steaming and hot. The lights of the house were on. I tested the radiator. Very hot.
So why was I so unsettled? I knew that this would make my return to writing difficult if I felt uneasy, and so I searched for the reason. The only thing I could figure out was unusual was that I could not leave the house if I needed to as the snow was piled against the door. I returned to the kitchen and a large walk in cupboard at the back of the room in which I had previously noticed a small broom, though I had not investigated any further, fo
r I felt it was unlikely that I would be spending my month of isolation, or holiday if you want to call it that, cleaning. I had a rummage around and was not really surprised to find in there a long, slim headed shovel, obviously designed for snow.
“I will clear the door.” I said, and set out to do so.
Of course a four foot deep snowdrift is not easy to shift, and although I spent the rest of the day - or until dark at least - shoveling the snow away from the door, at best I created a small ramp that rose steeply up into the snowdrift that covered the rest of the drive and the empty fields beyond. Still, once I had created this swathe in the field of snow I suddenly felt a lot better. Exhausted, yes, but now I felt that I had peace of mind. By now it was settling in for night and the temperature dropped accordingly, and so I decided that the progress that I had made was as good as I was going to make and so I returned indoors, closing the door behind me with an air of satisfaction.
Although it was getting dark it did so early this far north, it still being before four in the afternoon, and much too early for dinner. I rubbed my hands together before the peat smoking fire and went to make tea. Already the moon had risen outside, the crescent noticeably larger and brighter, and so I returned to the living room and on a whim sat myself down not in front of the fire but a short distance away in front of my laptop.
It was still switched on of course as I had left it, the blank word document staring at me defiantly. I placed my hands on the keyboard.
I could think of nothing. I sat there for a little while, waiting for whatever I normally did to happen, and it did not. Had I come this far and isolated myself so much for nothing? Cursing to myself I stood and went and retrieved the Viking history book from the bedroom where I had left it and settled back down into the armchair before the fire and began to read once again.
I read of the Viking pantheon, the gods I knew of and some I did not, and then I came across a section on their shamanistic rituals, the use of Seidr, which I must admit I struggled to understand. From what I could ascertain it seemed like it was a dream like trance state in which the seers would send out a summons; a curse or bane from the gods in which they believed. Seidr, or seething they called it, and though it was neither male nor female dominated, Odin for example, was not just the Viking’s chief god but also a practitioner of Seidr, it seemed quite difficult to get a handle on.
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