When Women Were Dragons(27)

I know because I checked.

And I noticed my mother checking. Her face became wan and tight. She closed her eyes.

“Well. It looks like we have a lot of work to do.”

And that’s what we did.

I wasn’t allowed to see Sonja that day.

In AD 785, a young priest by the name of Aengus traveled to the fishing village of Kilpatrick on the island of Rathlan, where he took residence in the local church. He was the first parish priest in the village who was able to write, and so took it upon himself to maintain an exhaustive account of his time on that rocky, wild coast. He was not a particularly adept writer—his pen wandered between Gaelic and Latin, adding bits of Old Norse and Welsh, and often twisted the languages beyond comprehensibility. Still, his account is vital, as it is the only surviving account of the Viking attack on the islands, as well as Aengus’s own culpability for the disaster.

During his time on the island, Aengus had become preoccupied with the study of knots. This was not unusual in a fishing community where knotwork had multiple purposes—both practical and mystical. Knots formed the villagers’ fishing nets and fencing for their animals; knots secured the rigging and allowed their boats to survive the near-constant storms. They knitted dense knots into the wool of their jackets and heavy cloaks to help shed the rain and keep them warm at sea. The magic of knots was well known, and accepted within the bounds of Christianity. Women tied knots to improve fishing, and knots to protect boats, and knots to keep the sharks away. They tied knots for good weather and knots to make their wombs bear and knots to find a true love and knots to send their rivals away. Each clan had its signature knot, and it was customary for young brides to design a new knot combining her clan with his, to represent the union of families, as well as a knot specific to each of their subsequent children. These she would keep with her always, tied around her waist under her clothes. She would not undo those knots in her lifetime.

Kilpatrick, at the time, was said to be guarded by a number of water dragons who lived in the harbor and in the underwater caves nearby. These water dragons were considered kin, as every year, a certain number of adolescent girls would walk to the water and transform into the wild beasts, sliding into the waves. They never returned to their girl selves. They could be seen from time to time, playing in the surf, or looking after the boats belonging to their fathers or brothers or former fiancés. They minded the sea and kept the beaches free from marauding pirates or the sneaking ships of Greeks or Britons or bloodthirsty Danes. Bards sang songs about these water dragons, and they found their way into carvings on barrows and castle walls, as well as church frescoes and paintings and illuminated texts. Aengus writes of them matter-of-factly, in the same way he might detail the existence of a seabird or a peat bog.

In one entry, a young man named Maol comes to the priest in a desperate state. He is in love with a girl and wants to make her his bride, but the girl has refused. Her parents told him that the girl’s older sister had gone into the water and left her skin behind, and that the younger girl was sure to follow, and that was that. Maol weeps and beats his chest. He tells the priest that he can have no other bride, that she is his only love. If she were to enter the waves, then he would follow, though it would mean his certain death. Aengus—alarmed for the young man’s safety and soul, for it would surely mean an eternity in Hell—sends Maol home and tells him that the Lord will show him the way. Aengus then turns to his previous research on the practice of knots. After a month of serious study (and exhaustive notes), he travels to the young man’s home. He shows him a knot that, once tied around the young woman in secret, will prevent the change from occurring. She will not be able to undo it, such is the power of this knot.

It works. The couple is married within the week.

In Aengus’s journal on the date of the wedding, he describes a lovely young woman whose tearful eyes kept wandering away, tilting ever to the sea. He was impressed with her innocence, and her saintly acceptance of her life to come. Word spread of Aengus’s success in saving Maol from certain death by heartbreak, and the priest’s knots became something of a phenomenon. Men arrived from villages across the island, and even from the islands beyond, hoping for a knot to prevent change. Or a knot to ensure discipline. A knot for quiet. A knot for obedience. A knot for docility. A knot for happiness in demeanor. And, most important, a knot to help the holder find a water dragon out at sea, to seize her, hold her, and turn her back. Men by the dozens took to the water. Very soon, there were no more shining scales playing in the water. There were no more bright eyes minding the horizon. There were no more wide, ferocious jaws following the fishing boats and keeping them safe. The harbor, for the first time in recorded memory, was unguarded.

The Vikings raided Rathlin in 795. It was a fast, brutal, and nearly complete destruction. The village of Kilpatrick was burned to the ground, including the original church and its adjoining cottage where the priest lived. Nearly every soul was lost. By some miracle, Aengus’s journals survived. The last entry was written entirely in Latin—bad Latin, but understandable in its way. In it, the doomed priest says this:

“It was hubris, of course it was hubris, to think that I could have the power to bind that which must not be bound, alter what should not be altered, and change the hearts of those who wish not to be changed. It is my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault, and I do not think that even our Lord who suffers for our sake will suffer my presence in the next world. Perhaps this is as it should be. Instead I must use my last fleeting moments on this earth to declare my sins to those I have sinned against, and beg their pardon. I am sorry, oh glinting, gilded girls of the waves! I am sorry, oh girls of tooth and claw, oh girls of sinew and scale, girls of speed and intellect and power! Forgive me, or not, it is all the same. May my last sorrowful breath be a testament to my wrongs against you, and to the terrible audacity of men.”