Tag: beren

Howl

Getting around to this. Where The Brides of Death comes from. Overloading on symbolism and call-forwards with Beren.

…

The night of the masks had come again, on the full moon of the last harvest. The last sheath had been gathered, bound, and hallowed in the name of the giver of fruits, and now balance would shift to another, she of grief and winter, and the nights would grow longer than the days. After tonight, the lords and ladies of growing things and warmth would step down from their thrones. With promise the tools of harvest were stored beside the seeds for next year’s planting. The blistering days of the last twilight of summer would become distant memory after tonight, the winds blowing only cold from the north and the pines preserving the only remnant of color. Here came the night of sorrow and memory, but also the night of hope and defiance.

Illuminated by towering bonfires built in the cleared and now empty fields, the people gathered to listen and sing their history. They brought their torches and wreaths and some the masks that hung face down and hidden the rest of the year. This ritual of sacred history was shared only on the full moon before the turn to winter. Once all had gathered around the tallest bonfire did the silence break. The wise woman began the songs in a voice that was strong and piercing, and those that did not sing joined her with clapping hands or feet. What was sung were old melodies, the most ancient songs, for half the words no longer had meaning, and of their significance only the wise woman knew in full. Of the words they still understood were chants for running, for long journeys and sorrow and desperate hope. No names were spoken that night, for none had survived to be recalled. Memory needed the dance and the masks more than the words.

Once they had no fields, no harvest, no food, no home. Once they had only darkness and hunger, travelling ever westward in the hope of freedom and safety. Once only the moon had known them. Only the moon knew their journey and all the words to the songs they had sung.

Once long before they had possessed fields and homes, but no freedom, for their harvests had not been their own. Once long before their great enemy had claimed them as their own.

In the flickering of bonfires and moonlight, the people hid their faces behind masks of their enemies. They disguised themselves as snarling wolves and monsters, chalk-white fangs and black fur capes lined with wooden beads that rattled and shook as they cavorted and danced. The ones hidden beneath the masks of wolves howled and laughed, stamped their feet and forgot their voices. Hunched over like the beasts that their masks mimicked, they curved fingers like claws. Running to the edges of the field they disappeared in the darkness, then leaped back out to weave patterns and circles in what remained of the winnowed grain. Others unmasked dressed themselves in their simplest garments, the white of undyed cloth bright against the glow of moonlight. They danced in counterpoint with garlands of autumn flowers and leaves crowning their heads, and streaks of ash ran like tear tracks down their faces. The ash came from what had been gathered from their hearths as the people dosed all the fires that morning. On this night the only lit flames would be out in the middle of the harvested fields. They danced for their ancestors who fled from the first fields, those who left homes and hearth for the unknown wilds, running before the wolves of the enemy. Their dance was steadier, forming rings of joined hands and staying close to the bonfire. Until the ones in masks leaped out. Then the hands would break apart, the dancers in white scatter. In mock horror they screamed and skipped away from grasping hands of those masked like wolves. Back and forth went this dance, while the rest sang and rattled strings of bone and beads and clapped and chanted.

A boy spun and leaped free of his older cousins, his laughter rising above the crackle of the bonfire, the rattle of beads, clapping of hands, and stomping of feet. Last year he had been a wolf, and he had howled loudest behind his painted fangs. No one had been a better or more believable wolf. This year he was his ancestor, defying the enemy by running free of the wolves. No one could touch him. The boy spun once more in the air, his white tunic spotted with soot and ash, gray as the moon that witnessed his daring leaps.

The wise woman finally rejoined the dancers with a new crown atop her white-streaked hair, one with three pieces of polished rock crystal instead of flowers, a cloak of black wool across her shoulders. On the finest chair from the feasting hall whom none would remember having fetched and just as mysteriously would none remember returning the chair to the hall once the dawn rose did the wise woman sit enthroned. Surrounded by torches, her face was recast fey and strange. Her eyes heavy-lidded surveyed the dancers before her, and with hand gestures slow and imperious she bellowed that her wolves bring to her the brightest sacrifice. Her piercing voice was pitched low and cold, the mask of the enemy.

In a leaping frenzy the dancers in wolf masks began to ring the bonfire, howling the last song as the dancers in white fetched torches to light. The boy paused and smiled, teeth as bright as the painted fangs of his cousins as he held out his hands. Each grabbed one arm and hoisted their laughing cousin into the air, carrying him through a gauntlet of other dancers, unlit torches crossed above their heads. To their great aunt enthroned with a black crown they brought the boy, and in the enemy’s deep voice she demanded to know who they had brought before her. Ritual words she called out; his name she desired, the labor of his hands, the bounty of his fields.

The boy knew his role, that he was supposed to pretend to be afraid of his great aunt, of the enemy enthroned and crowned, but that he must shout defiance, give no name, as the dancers in masks bowed low and waited for the shout that would allow them to remove their snarling wolf-faces. Together everyone would dip the torches into the bonfire to begin the last procession from the fields back to the feasting hall where they would drink and feast until the dawn. The hearths would be re-lit and masks hidden. Still, the boy could not halt his laughter as the wise woman loomed above him, the pieces of crystal in her crown reflecting off the harvest moon like true gems. Laughter and pride danced in her gray eyes as the boy, released by his pair of cousins, stood and stepped forward. A bold one, she called him, the hint of a smile at the corner of her frowning mouth. Once more she demanded his name, and the dancers shifted awkwardly. The boy could not break tradition.

He wanted to shout his name for all to hear and proclaim it would not matter anyway, for the enemy could not catch him. He wanted to turn the simple taunt into a new song of defiance, to list all that his people had accomplished and would now that they were free. He wanted to sing until the moon heard his voice. To howl like the wolves, forget once more he was a boy. Wanted to lean close and whisper into the wise woman’s ear that she did not frighten him. To kiss her eyes and break the spell that made her terrible and fey. To brush his fingers against the crown of dark branches and pluck free the three pieces of clear stone.

Family and wolves

squirrelwrangler:

As the Great Wolf of Angband lunges toward Elu Thingol, King of Doriath, the fetid breath reeking of poison and blackened meat, thorn splinters and broken spears flying through the air and the screams of his soldiers and the baying of the Hound of Valinor overshadowing all, he has time for one frozen thought. ’This is how Elmo died. My little brother slain by the fell wolf-shapes of the Enemy. And my nephew, too, eaten by a werewolf. Is this the last thing they saw, these teeth. Did he call out for me, a desperate reflex for his big brother to save him?’

Then there is a body between him and the red jaws, saving him. The human, Elu thinks coldly in one part of his mind, like the faint echo from a distant cave, but louder is the part of him that screams, ’Beren, Family, Lúthien’s, Son,“ whispers, ”family, Finrod, son, Elmo, brother,’ and continues to scream as the Great Wolf flings the body aside. Thingol barely hears the snarl of Huan slamming into the wolf, the fury of teeth and claw as two titanic mirror images savage each other in the twilight. He stares at the body crumpled in front of him, the boy covered in blood, the pale face missing that infuriating, arrogant, familiar, oddly-endearing smirk. “Beren,” he calls, taking in the sight of all the blood, crawls towards the boy, shrugs away the hands of his men that try to restrain him and check for his injuries. He doesn’t matter; Beren does. Lúthien’s Beren, his daughter’s love, his new son-in-law, saved my life, son, family, little son little nephew little brother can’t be dead can’t be dead like Elmo is dead. Thingol kneels at Beren’s side, cradles the boy’s face, feels for the heartbeat, ignores the dark red that is seeping into the grey fabric. Behind them are the howls of the Great Wolf and Hound, trumpeting the echo of the wars of the Valar, the titanic struggle from before the mighty spirits’ entry into Arda, and it is nothing but noise.

Beren’s eyes focus finally through the pain and looks up at Thingol. The king is aware he is speaking desperately, yammering to the boy reassurances that the healers will save him, the wounds be cleansed, that Beren will live. That the human was beyond foolish, stupid. Why did he try to hold the wolf off with a spear in one hand, arrogant unthinking boy; didn’t he remember how successful the last attempt had been? Foolish boy who thought he could do the impossible, always so reckless. Elu isn’t even sure if he’s calling Beren by the right name, for there is something wrong with his vision, the face is blurred, and he can’t tell if that bold smirk – ’why is he smiling, that idiot, you never listen, you never listen to me, that’s why Mother and Father have me watch over you constantly, you’ll need a keeper until you’re as tall as me, you’d run off and get yourself snatched up by the Dark Hunters, you’re so reckless’ – belongs to his brother or the human his daughter dragged home.

“You aren’t going to die on me,” Elwë commands, and he knows not who he is truly addressing, only that yet again he will be disobeyed.

“But Carcharoth avoided him, and bursting form the thorns leaped suddenly upon Thingol. Swiftly Beren strode before him with a spear, but Carcharoth swept it aside and felled him, biting at his breast. In that moment Huan leaped from the thicket upon the back of the Wolf, and they fell together fighting bitterly; and no battle of wolf and hound has been like to it, for in the baying of Huan was heard the voice of the horns of Oromë and the wrath of the Valar, but in the howls of Carcharoth was the hate of Morgoth and malice crueller than teeth of steel; and the rocks were rent by their clamour and fell from on high and choked the falls of Esgalduin. There they fought to the death; but Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren, seeing that he was sorely hurt.”

The Survivor’s Guilt Coda to the Band of the Red Hand series I’m writing:

Beren had done this before.

This was one of the thoughts, slow and cold, that came to Beren in his insurmountable grief as he cradled the cooling corpse of beloved Finrod, king and friend. Blind hands feeling in the dark at the gaping wounds on Finrod’s chest where the wolf had scored with venomed fangs, fingers dipping into the blood that has overwhelmed his remaining senses, he wished for light to see and was thankful he could not. Strange that the blood which slid across and stuck to his fingers smelled exactly like that which leaked from mortal things. That the scent was over-familiar.

He had been here before, Barahir’s son. On the shores of Aeluin, rushing alone and wild with grief and rage into the orcs’ camp to slay that one holding aloft a dismembered hand, he knew this. For two years he had known this numbness.

Beren carried dead men’s names, the names of comrades that had left him behind. Not by choice, but what difference in the end? He alone had been there to pick up those burdens. He lived then, even though he had not desired to. He should have joined them, the names he carried in a solo dirge. The memories had driven him to his knees some days, made him curl in abandoned fox dens and weep, willed the coldness to seep into his bones and stop his thoughts, that he was singing what should have been a choir. Other days the rage and sorrow gave him the determination to climb after the enemy. His had been the only voice that remained to speak those names, to sing their deeds against the great foe and preserve their glory, to recall their joys and sorrows, and to carry on their defiance against the enemy with all his monsters and orcs. In battle Beren had called their names. In the silence of a dying forest he had whispered them. For two years Beren had carried the weight of twelve dead men: of doughty Dagnir and Ragnor, Radhruin, Dairuin and Gildor, Gorlim and Urthel, Arthad and Hathaldir, his cousins Belegund and Baragund, and his father Barahir. Kin and comrades, and all had died, leaving but Beren to survive.

Another twelve now, and this time, waiting for the last wolf to come, Beren knew he would not linger on alone. Pulling back the hand covered in Finrod’s blood, Beren waited and began to compose his song. A new list of names, ones just as dear, and like before only Beren left behind to recall their names. Of doughty Arodreth and Ethirdor, Aglar, Consael and Heledir, Tacholdir and Bân, Gadwar and Fân, Edrahil, and his king Felagund.

This time there would be no empty years afterward, alone but for the trees and the shy creatures of feather and fur that aided him in a long and fruitless fight against the enemy. No long years with words worn away until he forgot the names and remembered only the grief and vengeance-call that their deaths had burdened him with. No stumbling numb and dumb and mad into a starlight glen where a wondrous vision sang and danced and for a while lifted the burden of grief and rage.

He had joined his voice in a duet, that fey and joyous summer, he that had lost his voice.

To think of Lúthien hurt more than the rest of his sorrows. There his thoughts could not dwell, for he knew this time would have not a reprieve.

He had done this before and knew what should happen next, what his next steps were, the next lines to sing.

‘This time I shall join the names of his dead’ – such was the thought of Beren.

So why did he smell flowers?