The Hanged Man: Part 3: Samhain
Post #24: In which a new cycle begins and a young man chooses authenticity ...
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Morfran, directing his attention back to the dancers, watched each take from dawn shadows a birch twig broom and sweep the clearing of every trace of their presence. When they finished, the winter carpet of leaves, twigs and damp hollows looked untouched and undisturbed. They left the clearing and made their way between the trees, moving wearily now. Morfran followed at a distance, though he was certain they knew of his presence. He’d made eye contact with more than one during the night’s dancing. He familiar shape of the bathhouse came into view.
This time the door was unlocked. The dancers filed in, the last one leaving the door open. Hesitantly, he stepped in behind them, accepting the implied invitation. One by one, they took off their robes, which Morfran now saw, by the light of a glowing skull, were made of fine white linen, and left them in a crumpled pile on the bench in the anteroom. The stove radiated heat. Morfran shut the outside door and removed his own clothing. He realized he was cold.
The last figure disappeared into the sauna room and shut the door. Morfran stood alone outside it, wondering what he would find inside. It was hard to be confident without his clothes on, but his concept of nakedness had become confused during the night. He felt he’d seen far more than bare skin beneath the dancers’ robes. Or fur. Or feathers or scales… He shook his head and pushed the door open.
The sauna was filled with bodies. After a moment, he realized there were in fact only three others in the small room, with himself a fourth, but it was enough to make him feel trapped and claustrophobic. He felt relieved to see only the human bodies of women. As he stepped in, their eyes fixed on him and he met their gaze, one at a time, with what courage he could summon. Although they didn’t shape shift, their eyes shifted from human eyes to the fierce gaze of a bird from one, the flat slit eyes of a reptile in another, and what was surely the amber gaze of a wolf in the third.
“It’s forbidden to watch the Rusalka dance,” said the one with wolf eyes.
“The Firebird showed me the way,” he replied calmly. “My name is Morfran.”
“You followed the Firebird and now you follow us back here, in spite of what you’ve seen tonight?”
He felt sweat on his face. He sat down heavily on a wooden shelf, feeling the strength suddenly go out of his legs. He was surprised to find himself weeping. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” he said unsteadily. “I’ve never seen anything so real.”
There was silence.
“If the Firebird showed him the way, does Ba…” began one of the others.
“Be silent!” said the wolf-eyed woman. “Morfran, you must leave this place.”
Morfran looked up, ready to protest.
“No,” she said more gently. “I only mean you must eat and rest now. We need time to talk among ourselves, and we’re weary too and want to finish our ritual. It may be you’ll persuade yourself this was a dream or decide you don’t want anything to do, after all, with such mystery and uncanniness.
“No,” said Morfran shaking his head. “I won’t forget. I want to see you… all again. I want to learn from you how to find myself.”
“Treasure…” said the bird-eyed woman quietly, as though to herself. She possessed the round golden eyes of an owl and hair so fair it seemed more silver than blonde. She watched Morfran intently.
“Yes!” he said to her. “To see clearly everything that I am, to accept everything I can be and live from that wholeness — that’s the only treasure for me. You… you know how to do this, how to dance in the different aspects of yourselves. Teach me to know myself! Please!”
The woman with owl eyes smiled but the wolf-eyed woman said sharply, “Morfran, I don’t think you know what you ask! Few are able to accept everything they are. It’s a practice without end, do you understand? We’re guardians of the wild and handmaidens to great power, not teachers! You never should have witnessed our dance. I can’t understand…”
“I’ll take him back across the threshold,” said the owl-eyed woman gently. The situation will become clearer to us after we’ve rested. Come, Morfran.”
Morfran rose to his feet and took her extended hand in his. He walked with her into the room with the plunge pool. He had a confused impression of other figures in and around the pool, including one with tusks and the small vicious eyes of a wild boar. Then he dove after the silver-haired dancer, cold water embracing him, and he watched, in a shower of golden light, her legs become a tail. Effortlessly, he shifted his shape into the skin and scales of the merfolk, and they rose to the surface together. They were alone. Her eyes, human eyes now but still golden, widened with shock. He grinned.
“I, too, wear different shapes. My grandparents were sea people.”
“We’re kin to the sea folk!”
“Then you and I are kin as well.”
They pulled themselves out of the pool.
“There are parts of this I don’t understand,” she said, “but I’m glad you’ve come.” She gestured at the closed door of the sauna. “This is the world you left last night. Rest and eat. I’ll see you again.” She turned in a graceful movement and dove. He saw the flick of a silver and green tail and she was gone.
Outside the sun rose and the longest night was over. Morfran walked wearily and thoughtfully through the woods to Timor’s hut. He found the woodcutter sitting at the table drinking tea. He eyed Morfran silently as he entered. Morfran smiled at him without speaking.
“Sleep,” Timor said briefly, and shrugged into his coat, picked up his axe and left. Morfran devoured half a loaf, chewed on some dried meat, drank a cup of tea and slept.
MIRMIR
“On the firsst short day of the new ssycle, bare branchess and birch trunkss mingle with golden wing beat and a shower of glowing ssparkss,” murmured Mirmir.
“The day after our birthday,” said the Hanged Man, “my brother and I. You’ll tell about our birthday, won’t you?”
Mirmir undulated with amusement. “Yess. In due time. Let otherss have a turn.”
“Very funny,” said the Hanged Man. He gave Mirmir a cold look. “I didn’t say our birthday was the most important.”
“On the firsst short day of the new ssycle, an old one-eyed woodcutter wieldss his axe, hanging his shapeless wolfsskin coat on a branch when the ssun reachess itss low apex and throwss shadowss across the winter foresst floor.”
“On the first short day of the new cycle, a little house on chicken legs stands quietly within a palisade of bones. Two round-topped windows on either side of the door are shaded and dark.”
“On the first short day of the new cycle, Morfran sleeps on a wolfskin, wrapped in a blanket, and in his dreams Creirwy comes to him, laughing, arms filled with glowing flowers of red, orange and yellow, and the flowers became feathers and the Firebird flies up out of her arms in joyful flame. She spins in a circle, laughing, watching it fly up into the sky, and Morfran laughs with her. She turns to give him a shining look, and her arms, flung wide, become jeweled wings, lifting her after the Firebird, her long golden tail feathers sweeping the air, the sound of her laughter still ringing.”
“On the first short day of the new cycle, the dancing guardians of rye, poppies and birch forest eat and drink and rest, comb out their hair, embroider new white linen robes with red thread and talk. Sometimes the conversation is the playful giggling of children, and sometimes it’s the serious, wise talk of women and sometimes it’s the hoarse, bawdy talk of old grandmothers. Sometimes too it’s growl of wolf, night shriek of owl, hiss of snake, or grunt of boar.”
“At the end of the first short day of the new cycle, night returns, spreading its skirts over the birch forest, bringing the dark in which miracles happen. In and out of the long folds of night flies a hideous old woman of primordial power, Baba Yaga, hag, witch, carrion eater, blood drinker, mother of all.”
“Tell more about Morfran,” said the Hanged Man. “I wish I’d known him better. Dar was fond of him. What happens to Morfran?”
MORFRAN
Morfran awakened when Timor returned. Together they mended the fire and prepared an evening meal. After he’d eaten, Morfran put on his coat and departed into the night. The bathhouse door was locked. He turned the key in the lock and as he entered a skull sitting on the bench in the anteroom blazed into golden life.
Carefully, without haste, Morfran prepared for the ritual of cleansing. He fed the stove, adjusting the air so it burned steadily but not too hot. He hung his clothes neatly on a peg over the watching skull. He filled the bucket from the plunge pool, drinking deeply and setting it ready near the stove. He lay down, luxuriating in the heat, stretching his arms over his head, allowing the muscles in his hip to relax. After a time, he rose and splashed the hot stones with water. Steam filled the wooden room. He breathed deeply, feeling moisture on his hair and skin, drawing it into his lungs. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift. He remembered shapes he’d worn. He thought of Bald Tegid, the creature Bluebeard with his terrible emptiness, Dar, Marceau, and Timor, one-eyed and taciturn. He thought of stories he’d heard and told. Members of his family took shape before his mind’s eye as he lay in the steam. In each figure and face was something of himself, looking back at him.
He tensed and his breathing tightened and became shallow. Deliberately, he relaxed again. Yes. Even Bluebeard… filled with such terrible hunger, wouldn’t Morfran long for relief, for food, too? Wouldn’t he hunt for what he needed? Wasn’t he capable of lust and greed? He was a young man. He didn’t know what choices lay ahead, what feelings, what tests of strength and wisdom, what shapes. He didn’t know what he might become.
He’d felt content with a solitary life until he met Juliana. Now his body hungered. He hungered for another, a companion, a mate. Could he offer love to another? Could he offer it to himself? Was he worthy of love — all that he could be? Could a woman love a twisted man who harbored such a solitary soul, who was black crow, fishtailed merman, and who knew what else? He didn’t know. He didn’t know.
He rose, feeling lightheaded. He drank from the bucket and entered the plunge pool. Icy water refreshed his overheated body and cleared his head. He submerged himself, bobbed back up to tread water slowly, letting air bubble through his nose. Another glowing skull watched him from a corner, grinning a golden grin.
He pulled himself out and returned to the sauna. Gradually, he sank below his thoughts into a deeper, stiller place. Twice more he visited the plunge pool.
He was lying in the steam, deeply relaxed and more asleep than awake, when he smelled the fresh astringency of birch oil and felt a touch on his bare hip. He rolled onto his side and saw the dim shape of a woman in the steam. Moisture gleamed along curve of breast and thigh.
She started to massage his hip with strong fingers. “You’ve a twisted hip. Always? Or were you hurt?”
“I was born with it,” he replied.
“Does it pain you?”
“Sometimes.”
“You’re young. You’re not a large man. You’re dark haired and olive-skinned and your hip is twisted. You’re a shapeshifter.” Her fingers pressed deeply into the muscle of his buttock. “What else are you?”
“I’m a crow, a carrion eater.”
“Crows are gossips with harsh tongues.”
He laughed. “They are! But I’m better at seeing than talking.”
She worked on the back of his thigh now, fingers kneading. He tried to relax beneath her touch, but he began to feel the tension of arousal.
“You said you were of the sea.”
“Yes. I was orphaned as an infant and raised by a foster family. I went south to search for my mother’s family and found my grandfather, who is of the merfolk, a King of the Sea. My mother was a mermaid and my father the son of a selchie.”
“Word came to us from your grandfather. He’s a respected elder of that tribe and he asked us to look for you. He calls you a seeker and says the Firebird is your guide.”
“He thought I should search for the bird here.”
“There are many stories behind this. You’ll tell them one day. For this night, what else are you?”
“I’ve killed.”
“Out of necessity, justice or lust?”
“Out of justice, I think. At least, that’s what I call it. Not lust. I didn’t enjoy the act.”
“So now, a harsh-tongued gossip who sees, a man of the sea and a murderer?”
Morfran winced. “Yes. All that.”
“Very well. I’m Sofiya. I’m of the Rusalka, nature spirits who guard field and forest. I’m a solitary huntress. With talons and beak, I rend flesh and spill blood. The Rusalka are kin to the merfolk and water is our threshold between one world and another, one shape and another. In winter, we live in water, but in spring we resume our human shape and come out into the birch forest, guarding fields, gathering seeds of poppy and grain, weaving fine white linen and embroidering it with red thread. We serve Baba Yaga, she of ends and beginnings. Now we know more about each other. Will you come into the pool with me and reveal yourself further?”
For answer he sat up. The smell of birch oil lay heavy in steamy air. He was erect, and his body throbbed where she’d massaged. He followed her, appreciating the delicate landscape of her spine dipping into strong buttocks. Hair flowed over her shoulders, fair and silvery. She dove into the pool, he just behind her so the sound of his splash mingled with hers. They shifted seamlessly into the tails of sea people. Facing one another, they rose and sank with effortless thrusts of their tails. Her hair floated around her head. Her breasts were proud and high and her golden eyes glowed into his.
He reached out and touched the indentation of her waist, feeling the swell where flesh became scales. She laid the palm of her right hand in the hollow beneath his left shoulder, above his heart. Her hand was warm. He shuddered at her touch and shifted into a fish. She smiled as he swam about her, circling her body, exploring with his eyes. She hung in the water, patient under his scrutiny. He shifted back into tailed form, rising behind her. He didn’t touch her but floated, suspended, feeling her close. The back of her neck was slender. Her hair touched his face gently. He was fully aroused and took care not to press himself against her.
He thought suddenly of his grandmother and knew how his grandfather must have felt, seeing her Viking beauty, the green earthy fire of her, and without thought he shifted for the first time into seal shape. Now he did touch Sofiya, rubbing his soft shoulder against her as he circled. They sank together. Her eyes were wide with wonder and she pressed her hands against his body, caressing velvety fur. He looked at her out of melting dark eyes, stiff whiskers scratching as he pressed his muzzle into her palm. He nipped the mound of flesh below her thumb gently and flowed up against her, pressing himself against her breasts and belly, nuzzling her neck and ear. She clasped him with both arms. Slowly, they rose to the pool’s surface.
Morfran shifted back into his own shape, feeling her tail move against his legs. “I’ve never worn that shape before,” he said in wonder.
She let her arms fall but he didn’t move away from her.
“Fly with me one night, Sofiya,” he whispered.
“Yes. But this night, swim with me.” Together, they sank again into the pool’s depths.
(This post was published with this essay.)