To Hrothgar was given such glory of war,
such honor of combat, that all his kin
obeyed him gladly till great grew his band
of youthful comrades.

It came in his mind
to bid his henchmen a hall uprear,
a master mead-house, mightier far
than ever was seen by the sons of earth,
and within it, then, to old and young
he would all allot that the Lord had sent him,
save only the land and the lives of his men.

Wide, I heard, was the work commanded,
for many a tribe this mid-earth round,
to fashion the folkstead. It fell, as he ordered,
in rapid achievement that ready it stood there,
of halls the noblest: Heorot he named it
whose message had might in many a land.

-Beowulf, Grunmere trans.

So runs the prologue of Beowulf, one of the oldest surviving tales written in English. King Hrothgar is a mighty man, mighty enough to have erected  his meadhall called Heorot. The noise and tumult of a great king’s court rouses the monster Grendel from his lair, who goes on a murderous rampage and slaughters many of the king’s thegns. What should have been a beacon of light and joy, evidence of Hrothgar’s  might, now becomes a deserted place.

The great man of the Geats, the hero Beowulf, arrives with a band of men, to slaughter Grendel and win much fame and fortune. Along the way, he kills the fiend’s mother and, later in life meets his end as a grey-bearded king who kills a dragon that threatens his kingdom, dying himself by a wound inflicted by that very same wyrm.

Imagine if you will, how the tale would have been told: a mead-hall with long benches and burning fires, long benches for the warriors and folk to sit at as food was served and mead was drunk from horns and cups; laughter and mirth as the chieftain sits  there, responsible for his people and his land.

Close by sit his trusted men, a body of men bound by oath and loyalty – all fierce fighters and practical sorts – and about their arms and necks they bear the gifts of their lord, recognition of their valour and service. Imagine the firelight glinting off metal, gleaming off weapons and worked jewellery.

Can you hear them call out loudly for a tale, a narration of mighty deeds and great things? Might you perhaps see someone shake their head, busy as they are with the business of feasting? Hear again the roar, the cajoling and the cursing of those assembled which ripples out in a wave of good-natured complaint to be met with a heavy sigh and a nod.

Rising to their feet, the scop makes their way forward.

Now the scop is smiling, slow and easy, with a quick tongue that flicks a few barbs in the direction of the more vocal or insulting detractors, to the delight of the crowd. A reminder then, if any were needed, that this one can make weapons out of words and ways out of songs. Meeting the eyes of all present, by the strength of gaze and a raised hand, silence falls.

Do you recall how that goes, how the silence comes – first as a drip, then as a trickle, then as a wave breaks over them all? The way you find yourselves adjusting into a familiar, comfortable position – allowing your body to prepare itself for the long haul – as you begin to listen, even before the storyteller speaks. It’s intriguing how easily you can do that; adopting an attitude of acceptance even before any sense of the story is known, because you are in a very real way placing yourself in the hands of the storyteller; you are giving them and I license to transport you.

For Hrothgar was a mighty man, and Heorot was a mighty hall, as befits a king. Mightier still was the fiend Grendel, for he drove Hrothgar from that place until the coming of Beowulf. Mightier than king or monster was Beowulf, and this you know – for were it otherwise, there would be no tale, would there?

Since all this is true, and since you are here reading these words, following me as I write them in the past, you are indulging in looking backward, aren’t you? So I’d like to make a suggestion – that now you realize how easily and simply you can look back, you turn that sight back over certain concepts with me now.

Consider then this tale of mighty men, of mothers and monsters – consider it as a beacon from over a thousand years ago; a gleaming treasure flickering in the fire-light.

Cen byþ cwicera gehwam, cuþ on fyre
blac ond beorhtlic, byrneþ oftust
ðær hi æþelingas inne restaþ.

The torch is known to every living man
by its pale, bright flame; it always burns
where princes sit within.

The best leaders are cunning – they know how to get the most out of their men and their environment. Cunning men and women then, these folk; knowledge, will and ability all combined into something, distilled down to some essence that sets them apart. They have the wherewithal; the ways and the means to inspire and to lead their followers to their goal in defiance of obstacles.

This means that a mighty individual is one who is capable of surviving where others fail; Beowulf kills the three monsters, doing the seemingly impossible, returning Heorot to Hrothgar, winning fame and becoming a king. Not bad for a man who casts aside his sword and wrestles with Grendel and tears the monster’s arm off, is it?

Can you picture it? Beowulf vs. Grendel; circling, waiting for the moment to strike, each looking for weakness in the other, when suddenly and without warning the Geat tosses the sword away and leaps on the monster who has torn men asunder and gobbled their flesh, cracked their bones and sucked out the very marrow!

Locked together in loathing, struggling and striving for the upper hand in a mead-hall surrounded by corpses and wounded men in the depths of the night, Grendel’s jaws are scant inches from Beowulf’s face as he snarls his hate…

Could you bear to meet that infernal look, a look that would kill you, and deal with the knowledge that if it fails there’s row upon row of razor teeth that would finish the job? Can you allow yourself to conceive of the strength of will that must have taken, to hold Grendel as close as any lover, to embrace your potential death and dismemberment, or does your heart quail within your chest at the thought of meeting that dread abyssal gaze up close and personal?

Not so for Beowulf! He tightens his grip and pulls the monster closer as claws rake his flesh and jaws snap; foul breath fills his lungs, his vision narrows and Grendel’s awful visage swells to fill the entire world. Then Beowulf, brave Beowulf of the Geats, Beowulf the wave-rider,  mighty Beowulf son of Ecgtheow…

Rips off Grendel’s arm. At the shoulder. With his bare hands.

How easily might you hear once more, here in the now, the roar that raised in the mead-halls? Do you know how raw that cry of exultation is, sent forth from myriad throats across a thousand years?  I think you do – and that is mighty fine! For this is what greets a hero’s deeds, an exultation, a joy which transcends time and space.

In that moment we are all elevated, all drawn in to dwell with those who hear, and the sense of it, the raw, unrestrained emotion rips through you; all those times you have punched the air, howled with laughter or felt the rightness of something deep inside – I’m certain you know of what I speak!

This is the sheer presence of it. The knowing of the power as it flows from an individual, the way they move, and the the way they act. We’ve all seen it – the way some people are inexorable, how their confidence marks them out, their progress a seemingly foregone conclusion. We recognize it, are aware of it subconsciously – something beyond mere physical prowess, beyond circumstance. Some part of our lizard brain is aware that they could do anything.

Watch them. Watch them closely. Danger, Will Robinson. Danger!

Then there’s the way that these people seem to be able to get away with murder. How do they do it, always landing on their feet, even in situations which would cause most people to grind to a soul-destroying halt? You know the feeling – when your options have fallen away and you’re staring at an impasse; dead-ended as the walls are closing in. It saps your strength, makes you wonder why you bother sometimes, right?

It’s exhausting, frustrating and, if you care about what you’re doing, not a little painful.

There’s only so much pain we can take, only so many times we can pound our fists against that wall, head-butt the desk, feel our heart gripped by despair, our guts twist in sick horror at the unfairness of a situation.

Only so much we can deal with; we reach the end of our tethers, finding the limits of our resources and feeling our resolve beginning to crumble, until eventually we have to let go and move on. Because you know, you can’t win ‘em all, can you?

Except, they seem to be able to. Those thrice gods-damn bastards, those lucky sods. It’s like some people were just given a greater portion of luck by the gods, by chance, by whatever the hell it is that deals with these things, isn’t it?

Here’s the thing though:

Most people find themselves thinking that way at some point or other in their lives, even if they know it’s irrational. I’d bet you good money that you can recall a moment when you thought something similar – and I’m certain I would win. The reason I’m so certain is that such a concept is very very old, and has been used in magic and various nefarious sorceries throughout the ages.

Have you perhaps idly wondered if it might be possible to…appropriate someone else’s luck – after all, they have bucketloads and wouldn’t miss a  little would they? Or maybe you’re of the school that says you make your own luck, and because of that you wonder what exactly these super-lucky people do to be that successful?

Repeatedly. Over and Over. Again and Again.

Gits.

Maybe you’re hungry for that edge – and I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you were. Look at the way the mighty are remembered, how they achieve virtual immortality. From Einstein and Socrates, to Beowulf and Jack the Giant-Killer – they are all legends. All of them are larger-than-life, enduring icons and heroes in the technical sense.

hero (1)

late 14c., “man of superhuman strength or courage,” from L. heros “hero,” from Gk. heros “demi-god” (a variant singular of which was heroe), originally “defender, protector,” from PIE base *ser- “to watch over, protect” (cf. L. servare “to save, deliver, preserve, protect”). Sense of “chief male character in a play, story, etc.” first recorded 1690s.

No longer just an ordinary human, almost half a god, raised above ordinary mortals. These are mighty men and women, by any stretch of the imagination – extraordinary people. Now, hopefully, if you have read my work, you’ll know by now that it’s the extra-ordinary that fascinates me, and if you’ve been following me through the paths and byways of this piece, you may begin to realize that there’s a connection here.

Maybe it’s obvious to you – that mighty means extra-ordinary, and if so then I congratulate you. By way of congratulation, I’d like to flash you a quick grin and note that I do tricksy things with words. Part of that tricksiness is to dig down into the roots of my native language, and by now you’re wondering what on earth Necropants are, or what they have to do with mighty folk.

We’ll get to the grisly couture, the deathly trousers, the pantaloons of peril soon – I promise.

Hidden in our everyday use of language are secrets that can be used to great effect; occult roots which when applied properly, can reveal secret paths to power. After all, the world is full of communication, full of mutual agreements of how things should be done – all  based on shared assumptions and empathy. It’s a tenet of neurolinguistic programming that you can change people’s internal states by judicious use of words alone. Sorcery on the other hand, is the art – and believe me, it is an Art far more than anything else – of changing things; an attack on the status quo of reality itself!

Accepting this, what if the words I’m using now – the words you are reading here – have deep roots which might be used to change things? What if our language, our stories, contains secrets our ancestors knew, what if mighty men and women was more than a mere descriptor?

might (v.)

O.E. mihte, meahte, originally the past tense of may (O.E. magen “to be able”), thus “*may-ed.” See may (v.). The first record of might-have-been is from 1848.

might (n.)

O.E. miht, earlier mæht, from P.Gmc. *makhtuz (cf. O.N. mattr, O.Fris., M.Du. macht, Ger. Macht, Goth. mahts), from PIE base *mag- “be able, have power” (see may (v.)).

Consider the above for a moment – that might is intrinsically linked to ability, that the mighty are more able than others, because they have more might. The luckier you are, the more opportunities you might (pun intended) have. There is some quality which is possessed by, or is intrinsic, to certain individuals.

What if it was in your interest to be able to take advantage of anything and everything, wouldn’t it be a good idea to align yourself with the ones who seem to know how to do this instinctively? What if, by aligning yourself with one of those people, you increased your chances of survival, and because of that, you became known as a mighty individual?

Such things form the basis of social engineering of course, but suppose we go even beyond that. Suppose we begin to notice that a culture of success tends to breed even more success, and that culture shares a root with cultus and cultivate. Suppose you could be able to cultivate might itself?

A little heretical perhaps, in these days when performance-enhancing drugs are cheating, when everyone is supposedly equal – or at least ideally so. But when we are dealing with survival, that may just go out the proverbial window – you would try to survive with all your might and main, wouldn’t you?

main (n.)

O.E. mægen (n.) “power, strength, force,” from P.Gmc. *maginam- “power,” from *mag- “be able, have power” (see may). Original sense preserved in phrase with might and main. Meaning “principal channel in a utility system” is first recorded 1727 in main drain; Used since 1540s for “continuous stretch of land or water.”

main (adj.)

early 13c., “large, bulky, strong,” from O.E. mægen- “power, strength, force,” used in compounds (see main (n.)), probably infl. by O.N. megenn (adj.) “strong, powerful.” Sense of “chief” is c.1400

I am pretty sure that the notion of mægen is a little alien to us today, and yet it could be said that some might find comfort in the notion that such things are hardly modern, or even New Age. On the contrary, it is a deeply old concept which is tightly bound with the world-view of those who came before us. Because of that, with our eyes turned backward, we are already hip-deep in waters that run through underground rivers beneath the words.

All it takes for us to understand these things is an open mind, and the realization that our ancestors held no illusions about the fact that life is precarious. The closest most people get to an ‘act of (G)od’ these days is an insurance policy!

So what does it mean to us, this faculty of concentrated ability, this elixir of luck and potency? Might you muse on it a little, allow yourself to be drawn into a heavy consideration of power and mastery, so that you can do what is required? Or perhaps you could let yourself drift back in time, to follow the lines of your blood and your thoughts back to the space where both converge into one?

In either case, may be confronted with the stark fact that in order to harness your full abilities, you would have to reject those things which limit you, in whatever form they may come. You may have to cast aside many dearly held beliefs about yourself, and more importantly, others around you.

For the issue is not one of ethics or morality, it is how you can maximize your ability and how you choose to affect the world. Everybody wants to be better at what they do, to follow their dreams and be greater than what their critics deem them capable of. Even those who simply desire to be content wish for the ability to be so without restriction.

Imagine what you could do if you divested yourself of all the things that hold you back, and then add to that the notion of being able to enhance those things which enliven and strengthen you, until they cause you to be so very much more than you had ever dreamed.

Imagine that out of next to nothing, you could somehow bring forth all you needed to wax and thrive well. Wouldn’t that be something to desire above anything else?

Would you wear a dead man’s skin? Would you dig him up, and peel the hide from his cold flesh, put a coin and a magical stave in the scrotum, then feel joy as they melded with your own body? For these are some of the things you must do, should you desire a pair of Nábrók, which literally translates as ‘Necropants.’

I first heard of the Necropants via a good friend who was giving a talk on runic magic and sorcery, and was reminded of them by a question asked on Jason Miller’s Strategic Sorcery blog. So Jason, if you read this, the entire post is indirectly your fault, all right?

Good.

Now, the rune-stave comes from Iceland, so I’ll let the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft do the explaining:

All of the signs and staves seen here can be found in Icelandic grimoires, some from the 17th century, some from later times though all of them seem to be related. The origin of this peculiar Icelandic magic is difficult to ascertain. Some signs seem to be derived from medieval mysticism and renaissance occultism, while others show some relation to runic culture and the old Germanic belief in Thor and Odinn. Much of the magic mentioned in court records can be found in grimoires kept in various manuscript collections. The purpose of the magic involved tells us something of the concerns of the lower classes that used them to lessen the burden of subsidence living in a harsh climate.

More information is available at the Museum site, which is full of wonderful things, including what is required to make the deathly trousers work properly:

If you want to make your own necropants (literally; nábrók) you have to get permission from a living man to use his skin after his dead. [sic] After he has been buried you must dig up his body and flay the skin of the corpse in one piece from the waist down. As soon as you step into the pants they will stick to your own skin. A coin must be stolen from a poor widow and placed in the scrotum along with the magical sign, nábrókarstafur, written on a piece of paper. Consequently the coin will draw money into the scrotum so it will never be empty, as long as the original coin is not removed. To ensure salvation the owner has to convince someone else to overtake the  pants and step into each leg as soon as he gets out of it. The necropants will thus keep the money-gathering nature for generations.

According to the commentary on the website, the coin stolen from the poor widow must be taken at Christmas, Whitsun or Easter. These three festivals all occur at times when pagan feasts occurred before the coming of Christianity – Yule, Summer’s Day and Eostur-monath respectively. Also that the sorcerer must make a pact with the man while still living, and that if the sorcerer died in the necropants, his body would be infested with lice.

This is particularly interesting since Early Christian doctrine held that the bodily Resurrection required the dead to be intact – those infested with lice would be unclean at best and rotten at worst, certainly not suitable for the Kingdom of Heaven. Add to this the fact that the sorcerer must find someone to stand in the right leg of the necropants before he steps out of the left, and we are left wondering if the notion of the via sinistra and all the associations with widdershins and leftness applied here also.

Further, the commentary states that wealth would be taken from ‘living persons’. Let’s consider this for a second:

A pact is made, wherein an individual agrees to let the sorcerer wear his skin after he is dead. The skin is synonymous with form and shape in many cultures, so could we be looking at an act which allows the sorcerer to take on the form of the dead? Note also the importance of the scrotum, the sac beneath the generative organ.

Into this is placed a coin stolen from a poor widow, echoing the biblical story of the widow in the temple:

¹And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

²And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

³And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:

⁴For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. -Luke  Ch.21

There are multiple ways to look at this theft – the coin may draw the blessings of God to the scrotum of the necropants in the form of money, the theft breaks through morality into necessity, or that the coin provides a magical link to money held by others. There are probably even more valid options, but they have been lost under over four centuries of time.

Regardless of the fact, we once again see the importance of the dead in Northern sorcery, and that of might. The notion of Mighty Dead who are not bound by mortal law or the structures of the human world is extremely important. Whether they be in service to the sorcerer through being bound by force, a sense of familial obligation or an altogether more wyrd pact, they are ever-present.

What is also fascinating is that the wealth is taken from the living – one might suppose that in elder days, the wealth might have been something far more esoteric, which in turn enabled the acquisition of what was necessary for survival. To requote the Museum:

The purpose of the magic involved tells us something of the concerns of the lower classes that used them to lessen the burden of subsidence living in a harsh climate.

The harshness of the environment is something that should never be understated – survival is not a right, despite what we would like to think. Is it any wonder that those exposed to the Elemental turn to magic of an equally visceral and Elemental nature? There’s absolutely no need to say more on the necessities of existence than to quote the saying Flags, flax, fodder and frig!

If you’ve read this far and not walked away in despair, indeed if you are as intrigued by these ideas as I am, then perhaps you might muse still further. As you digest all that I have written, as the concepts arrange themselves in a way that makes some kind of sense to you, perhaps you may find yourself considering all this again when you perform the necessities of your life – the eating, the drinking, the having sex, the way you can notice shifts in temperature as you cross a threshold…

All these things can serve as reminders, doorways into understanding the magic of mægen , the sorcery of survival, born of the icy North.

That said, does anyone want to give me their hides for some pantaloons of peril..?

I am writing this for no reason. There is no purpose, no end goal, just an extrusion, an extension, a growth; words upwelling, evoking and recalling: I remember staring at a tree yesterday from a distance as its branches swayed in the warm summer breeze and the leaves stirred, whispering in their sussurating voices.

Imagine then, if you will, the warmth of summer on skin; the heat that seems to thicken the air and enrich it with a variety of scents excited by the sun. The smell of hair and flesh and the subtle perfumes of the worlds, all woven together; city, town and countryside all rising to meet the sky, that azure blue dome that kisses the cold velvet lips of the void.

If this were Ancient Egypt, that arched back, that slow and infinite curve, would be Nut, the goddess arched above the black land of Elder Khem; the red land of blazing heat and liquid tongue. If this were the land of pyramid and stellar river, of solar barque and Seven Gates, then my shape might be different, my voice might be different.

I might be a black-faced Pharaoh, the serpent springing from my brow; the snake all silvered gold with eyes of glittering lapis lazuli, bluer than blue and brighter than fire. Or, if that doesn’t come easy, brought to mind double quick and strong as stone…then I could come to you as a dog-faced god, dark of muzzle and white of teeth.

Kin to the wolf-lords of far distant lands I would be, with lolling, laughing tongue and lazy loping gait as I fill your mouth and slip the words of Opening behind your teeth and bury them like the bones of knowledge, hidden deep within your tongue.

Still again and yet to come, I might stand with sceptre in hand, bright as blood and red as earth, lord of storms and stranger ways, hawk’s-head kin with bright spear and roaring strength, to drive the serpent back in the night-black Nile of the Deep-Below; lend the gods my arm so that the sun might rise anew.

All of these could I be, were this that land of magic, all of these allowed by ancient pact, lit by moon, etched by the hand of curved-beak and unwinking eye. Those oh-so potent words written by a smiling ibis-head in an ink made of blood, spit and semen and drawn from between the stars – those words, these words which would bind and set you free to dream so strongly, to summon up ancient wisdoms and deep roots untouched by time!

By those dreams, rich and strange would I sit before you and smile, raise a hand and bid you welcome! By that mystery that stirs within your heart, though it may be long forgotten, I might rise from the hiding place, the secret and impregnable fortress which rests amidst the seas of wild and inexorable, unstoppable imagination.

By all these things, by the reading of these words, their evocation and conjuring within your mind, and by your very attention to the same, could a great change come upon you, might the scales fall from your eyes and you may allow yourself to see truly once more.

Would that this were that land where all these things are possible, would that I might invite you to sup with me at the source…

Alas, this is a different land, this land of summer, where I stared at a tree amidst the green. So green it was that you would forget the sand and silence of Khem, the black earth rendered fertile by the Nile. So green and pleasant that you might forget the perfumed incenses and the glyphs and the spells and the ancient temples, the hymns of praise raised to gods of old, the multitude of wonders lying there in your memory.

So soft were those whisperings of leaves, there in that yesterday. Softer than the silks and satins adorning smooth bodies in service to ancient understandings. Softer even than the suppleness of flesh, gleaming in torchlight as rites were performed to blend deity and humankind into a thing of wonder and strangeness.

Forget all these then, I beg you, though they may rise to mind as you drift to sleep, or set your mind loose while the flesh is busy. Forget them, for they are not what we are about, here and now. Here and now, we are about the green and the whisper of the wind, about the summer sun and long nights beneath a sky of endless twilight.

Here then, the words that bind and twist and shiver and set images to dance in the mind and inflame the soul; these words are carved in wood, painted on rock, breathed to life and risted by blood. Runes they are, and Mysteries too, just as the glyphs in that far southern land of sand and wonder held keys long etched in stone.

For as I stared yesterday, I saw those leaves anew. I watched them unfold, uncurl as you might uncurl your fingers, might stretch your back and circle your head to loosen the tension, ease the restriction in your muscles even now, or sometime yet.

The ease of the movement, the flow of it, like a cat sprawled on a windowsill; all lazy yawn and purring pleasure at touch and warmth and life – this I saw, this I beheld, this I knew inside myself.

Do you know, have you seen such ease all about you in times past? Or perhaps you have forgotten it. Perhaps it lies sleeping, waiting to be wakened at the proper, perfect time.

Whichever, be it sleeping, or awake and aware, nestled within, the truth of it is shown in what I saw, revealed to me in that stare, in that frozen moment of epiphany in summer’s light. For you it may be different, whoever you are, and that is right and good.

I am, after all, all I ever was. No matter which land I may have dwelt within, no matter what earth I called my home, whether that be the black or the red of Egypt, or the rocky shores and roaring spume of the Island-in-the-Sea. If I laid my head on granite or swam beneath storm-tossed lakes and walked over ground carved by glaciers countless years before, it did not, and does not matter still.

I spoke and sang, I brought forth the Mysteries, I pulled aside the curtain, rent the veil and opened the door. So as I sat before that tree, and became aware of the uncompromising beauty of each leaf, the merciless fractal relationships of growth and vitality; as it whispered to me of leaf and branch and questing root seeking the sweet waters of the Deep Below in spite of stone and pavement and works of man; as all this came upon me do you know how I felt, can you imagine how the shock of it bubbled up within me like a boiling cauldron?

Even now, as I write this, I am transported to that very threshold, to that very sense of climactic tension, the awareness rising like a wave, moving like sap within that very same tree; as each letter follows its fellow, syllables making words, making phrases, making sentences, making sense!

The words find a way, weird though it is; the trees grow, the leaves unfurl. From seed to shoot, to root and branch, stretching high and seeking low, onward wyrd shall ever flow! And by the noun and by the verb, by the plant and by the herb, by the ever lasting word…we find our road, our journey right, and so we live and wax in might!

Stronger now than ever before, the words reveal unwritten law, reveal to us the hidden shore that lies beneath the world of men. So now we see the path before us bright, merciless and unyielding in the light of dawn and dusk; the in-between, that hour most blue,when all seems strange and new.

Thus we stand as trees upon the beach, the depths of the earth at our feet and the stars within our reach, our fingertips brushing heavens, yet capable of stooping down to hells. Here we drink of freezing wells, the waters crystal clear and burning like fire, visions of your life appear; from birth to death, from womb to pyre – all are carried on desire!

For death is not the issue here, nor life at all, but that which quickens the seed and sets the tree to be tall! That which gives nourishment to ravens despite their feeding on the dead, perching there on fleshless head with unending smile; that which is the memory of mortality, the burning of the world’s fire until only black ash remains!

What is it that burns, what is it that drives; what invisible concatenation of events; what confluence of contact, what coming together of circumstances gives rise to the terrible fury of existence?

Unassuaged of purpose, unyielding and cold beyond cold, seemingly insatiable, there is within, a terror. A terror which is never still, which is ever moving, uncaring of obstacle or barrier, that seeks no goal for it is complete in and of itself.

This is stone medicine, storm medicine; smoke on the wind made of rime and frost that nurtures and preserves, recalls survival and disrupts the notion of stasis. Have you ever become aware of your own breathing and found yourself suddenly gasping for air as the rhythm ceases, as stillness occurs?

Now, in that disruption we find a truth, harsh and uncaring though it may be. Severe in its focus, the tree grows, the glacier moves and the fire burns. Would you know more of it, allow yourself to open that door, and in doing so run a risk that you will never be able to return? Or perhaps you would rather board up the the door and pretend it does not exist, wall it up and attempt to forget the howl of the wind in the night that means the wildness is unleashed, despite your attempts to convince yourself otherwise.

Maybe you will not notice the way that same wind sounds eerily like voices as it rattles your windows, or the way there is an invisible presence behind the roar and rumble of the storm; a silent voice speaking in a way that bypasses hearing and language, reaching inside you and setting you to shiver in spite of your walls and roof and sanity.

Such things are not held by locked doors, not swayed by disbelief or rationality; a million years of evolution tells you this is true, the reflexes and responses that kept your ancestors alive and surviving have no truck with such things. You recognize this, even if you are not yet fully aware of it.

It keeps you awake at night, trickles into your dreams and manifests as strangeness, sets you to loop along old paths to reinforce the urgency. You must survive, you are not safe, never safe completely.

Perhaps you might start at shadows; those times when something flickers at the corner of your eye, or a familiar shape is somehow infused with menace.

An angle, a building, a particular arrangement of lines; these can become unnerving; a cold shiver up your spine as you recall a disturbing memory, a snatch of everyday speech suddenly becomes meaningless babble, then reconstitutes itself and twists into a message from somewhere deep and dark, the buried bones gone yellow and rotten with sublimation and age.

In cities it bleeds through architecture, the hollow spaces contrast with the thrumming hive – the solid with the void, the flies on garbage in crooked alleyways that the civilized would rather ignore. The world behind the world; the world behind the wallpaper that is no world at all, no place of safety and peace.

There is a fierceness there, an awful joy which does not care for your concerns, beyond boundaries and restrictions and within them also. The walls may melt, may breathe, may give ground to your shadows, site your terrors and bring the inexorable nature of it home to you.

Can you imagine what that would be like, to have it seize you, until your fastness becomes your prison? Are you capable of entertaining such a notion, playing with it now, as if you were a child, as utterly single-minded in your play as you were back then, in defiance of apparent rationality?

Because if you are, then you are on that crooked path already. All that remains is the choice, and you are presented with that choice every day, and now that you have read, now that you have tasted and seen these words, the threshold can reveal itself, visible everywhere you look, lurking behind your sight and around every corner.

It is fine to be afraid, whether it strikes suddenly, or slowly as a nagging unease. Equally, you may find yourself exhilarated by it, your heart racing and the blood pumping as the excitement rises.

Both of these are valid ways, and whichever occurs to you, and whenever it begins, believe me when I say that what lies over that threshold is way beyond the ordinary. It is in fact – and grammar, and spell, in truth and faith – an extra-ordinary thing.

For beyond that that threshold lies the the Other world, whose denizens are Otherworldly by definition. The nourishment found there is unlike anything else, its sights are endless in permutation and possibility, its movements near endless in configuration.

Already it has reached to you, in songs and stories, old tales and patterns you did not notice because they were ancient and ubiquitous. Consider then, all those things you have heard, that slipped silently inside your mind to work with subtle influence upon your life; recall those icons and narratives which you have had passed down to you, their nature cloaked and hidden – truly occult.

As you consider them, as you brush the dust from them to peer at their faded colours anew, as you feel the heaviness and richness of their worth, you can taste their heady mix.

Embrace the intoxication then, as you wish, and feel the crooked grins spreading across inhuman faces as they welcome you across the threshold.

“Hello. It’s nice to see you again.”