At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(76)
He opened his journal again, turning it to the page where he’d copied out the poem found near Talfour’s body. “Any thoughts about Beowulf you care to offer would be wonderful.”
“Beowulf is actually a hot topic right now in the scholarly world,” she said. “And not because of the great eponymous warrior or even the monster Grendel.”
“Then what?”
“Grendel’s mother. Also known as the hell-bride or hell-dam. The terror-monger. The so-called swamp thing from hell. She is far more interesting than her son, who appears to be little more than a bloodthirsty monster. Interestingly, given our discussion today, it was likely seithr magic that Grendel’s mother used to melt Beowulf’s sword when he first came after her.”
“Is that what makes her so different?” Simon asked as he poured out the last of the tea. “I thought she was simply the second monster slain by Beowulf. Between his killing of Grendel and the death of the dragon. Part of a trifecta of evil.”
“Most nonscholars would agree, Simon. A trinity of monsters through which Beowulf makes his bones as a warrior. But Grendel’s mother is interesting for two reasons. The first is that she is very clearly defined as a woman. We are told she is a brymwulf—a she-wolf who has the likeness of a woman. She is introduced with the words ides and agl?cwif.”
Agl?c appears in the killer’s poem, Evan thought.
Simon asked, “What do those words mean?”
“They are words for lady and monster-wife. But bear in mind that agl?c is also used to refer to our hero, Beowulf. Some scholars have suggested that the word agl?c simply means someone who is more than human, like our studly Beowulf.”
“Fascinating,” Simon murmured.
Evan stopped writing. “You mentioned two things that make her interesting.”
“Indeed. Grendel’s mother, unlike her son and the dragon, appears to be playing by the rules of combat. She stays away from men and does not engage in battle with them until they murder her son and initiate a blood feud. Then she slips into the hall, murders a single warrior as the blood price, and retreats to her home beneath the sea to guard the body of her slain son. It’s important to note that she responds as any Viking warrior would—by seeking vengeance. This makes her less a monster and more a noble warrior.”
“You’re saying Beowulf was wrong in exacting revenge for her revenge?”
“If we’re playing by the rules of a blood feud, yes,” Christina said. “Once Grendel’s mother had taken the blood price for her son’s death, the feud should have been over.”
Evan flipped through his journal to his rough transliteration of the lines carved on the bones Tommy had found near Desser’s body.
blessing giver my blood-feud stillbirths your further crimes
His skin rose in goose bumps as if electricity suddenly filled the air. The killer was taking revenge for something. Talfour and Desser, perhaps unwittingly, had begun a blood feud with the killer.
This was useful information, of course. But he had nowhere to slot it. Not yet. The killer had not only gone to prodigious lengths to seek vengeance but had also invested a great deal of time in his poems. Which remained mostly mysteries. If he couldn’t reach the person lurking beneath the words, he’d have nothing to offer Addie and the police.
He went back to his page of notes. “Talk to me first about the form of the poem, if you would. If someone were, say, trying to emulate Old English poetry, what would they need to be aware of?”
Christina tapped her black-painted fingernails on the arm of the chair. “I’m a historian, not a professor of literature. But what I can tell you is that Old Norse and Old English poetry use a complex rhythmic structure known as dróttkv?tt, which most translators of Beowulf don’t even try to emulate. In addition to this difficult meter, skaldic or scoldic poetry—the name depends on what country the poet lives in—is especially known for embracing obscurity by using metaphors and wordplay and any number of riddles. In fact, I’ve heard it said that J. R. R. Tolkien got his idea for Gollum’s riddle game from the Nordic sagas.”
Evan felt something building inside him. Like a faint arrow beginning to glow, pointing him down the killer’s path. He looked at the line By Skollfud’s light I laid him low.
“You’re familiar with kennings, yes?” he asked.
“Of course. The metaphors known as kennings are one of the most fun aspects of medieval poetry.”
He tore a piece of paper out of his journal and wrote on it before pushing it across the table. “What do you make of Skollfud’s light? Would that simply mean daylight?”
She picked up the sheet. Her brow wrinkled. “It could be a kenning to mean the sun, yes. Skoll is the wolf who daily chases the sun, which he will one day devour.”
Evan nodded—he had earlier surmised as much.
But then she added, “To refer to the sun in this way suggests something else. Something beyond merely saying the sun or sunrise. A poet would use this very carefully, to mean something quite specific. Not merely an ordinary day.”
Both Evan and Simon leaned forward.
“What else could it mean?” Simon asked, apparently as curious as Evan.
“During Ragnar?k, the wolf Skoll will devour the sun. Then will come the end days, when all the earth-dead denizens of Hel and all those who drowned in the oceans of the world will come together to ride the great ship Naglfar into battle. And thus will begin the age of wolves.”