ITTHOBAAL'S Study

SOUND OF QUILL.

(Giddy with adventure)

ITTHOBAAL

Dear folio of philosophy and fakery,

It is the year 1041 of the Julian Calendar and today is as unassuming a Tuesday as you will ever come across.

Yet I am excited!

These last months, Arthur and I have found ourselves in the land of the Sami people.

A while back, we met a man here in Elgin who at first seemed to be a regular city-dweller. He works as a stud-herd, looking after the horses, and he speaks the Elgin dialect so perfectly I thought he was a local. Ailo is his name, and when getting to know Ailo better, we learned that he is in fact Sami. He travelled south many years ago and set up a new life for himself in the big city. Elgin does have a pull on many a traveller. Ailo also told us about his sister, Rávdná, whom he had recently heard from. He revealed to us that she was in need of our services.

And so, our journey began! We left Elgin and the Scots and travelled north, further north than I have ever been before. After a strenuous journey across the North Sea, hitching a ride with a band of Vikings on the return from a raid in Yorkshire, we set foot in the land of Odin, Thor, Frey and Loki. From there we had to travel by horse for many months, over mountain ranges and deep forests, before we finally arrived in Sápmi, the Sami lands.

There lived Ailo's siida, or family, whom we were looking for. We arrived incognito as traveling bards, collecting tales from around the world. A lie not so far from the truth.

The Sami's received us generously, sharing their food and letting us reside in their tents. These last few weeks we have grown quite accustomed to being surrounded by reindeer, and we have learned some new tricks for how to protect ourselves from the cold.

I have been convening with the elders, and I find their beliefs and gods fascinating and beautiful. They live in such close harmony with nature, and in their collective experience ancient truths lie buried. You can feel it when you talk to them. They are connected, in a way I rarely see in a large city like Elgin.

However, as much as I admire their culture, there is one aspect of living in close harmony with nature I have now learned I would rather do without. The Sami people's closeness to nature does affect all aspects of life. For someone used to the conveniences of the big cities, like Elgin, used to aqueducts, used to living in warmer parts of the world... I am sorry, dear diary, but there is no polite way to put this: The experience of trying to push one out when your arse-hairs have frozen together... it is... well, it is...

...it is unnecessary.

Perhaps that is why Ailo left. I will have to ask him when I see him again.

Anyhow. It took us some time to get around to the business we came for, which was to fake the death of Ailo's sister, Rávdná. Rávdná was the local guobas, the local shaman. I learned that a guobas is a female shaman, whereas a male shaman is known as a noaidi.

Some of the Sami's started calling me "noaidi from the south" - a title I was much too humble to accept!

Back to our client. Rávdná wanted to travel, explore the world, just like her brother had done. But her community would not allow her to leave. They said she had to uphold her traditional duties, and that she was bound to stay with them. If she died, they would of course be forced to appoint a new guobas or noaidi, and Rávdná would be free to discover new lands with a new identity.

As always, we wanted to create a meaningful death, so we took our time getting to know local customs and traditions. My conversations with the elders were useful in that respect.

Arthur first wanted a death by reindeer sleigh ride. But I said it was too frivolous.

In the end, Arthur and I decided on a death by... guovssahas!

Have you ever seen it? It was my first time and...

(IN AWE) oh. Oh... I was dumbfounded! I could not speak for days! The first time they appeared in the sky... those lights... those magical, dancing lights, those flowing waves of colour across the sky...!

Somehow, they felt like a culmination of truth, yet at the same time the greatest mystery of all! They filled my soul to the brim… yet hollowed me out and left me bereft of speech and logic and thought! They were love and hate, they were passion and distance, they were... they were everything!

Guovssahas is the Sami word for the northern lights, the aurora borealis.

It means “the light you can hear”. But I could not just hear them, as well as see them, I could feel them reverberating through my body!

There are many different Sami peoples, and they have varying explanations for the northern lights. Some think it is the souls of the dead, who will carry you away or cut off your head. Others believe it is the water spumes from whales. Some places women in labour are told not to look at the northern lights as they give birth, for fear that the child would be born cross-eyed.

This particular community, however, tells the story of how the Arctic Fox runs across the sky so fast that when its large, furry tail brushes against the mountains, it creates sparks that light up the sky.

This inspired Arthur... and so we went to work. Procuring a replacement corpse in such a remote community is nigh impossible. So, I had to be cunning. I lured away scraps of meat and bone after dinner. I stole what was left after the slaughter of a reindeer, and caught other wild animals to supply what I needed. In the end, I managed to fashion a decent look alike to Rávdná, our client. It looked mauled... which was exactly what her death required.

You see, the next time the northern lights appeared, we had to be ready. Rávdná was to go into the wilderness to commune with the gods of nature during the guovssahas, to seek answers to some important question plaguing the siida. When the lights faded away, the community would be waiting for her, but she would not return. When the siida went to look for her, all they would find was her corpse, showing all the signs of being mauled by a large fox... some bits of her even charred, as if by sparks of fire...

Foxes do not normally kill people. But this was a mythical fox, large enough to create magical sparks that light up the sky! Was her death a revenge from the gods, had her community done wrong? Perhaps by refusing to let her leave? Now she had been given the freedom of death, the freedom to roam in the next life... That was one interpretation put forward. Others had other explanations. The siida were left to wonder and debate, and the next guobas or noaidi they appointed would have to supply the answer. Who they chose as their shaman would determine the way forward for their community...

Rávdná's death was a mixture of nature and myth, blended together to allow Rávdná to continue on a new life path.

(JUST SO IN AWE) Ever since I first saw it, I have not been able to stop thinking about the guovssahas. What could it be? What could create such a phenomenon? What forces are at play? And what might they be used for?

I wonder if I could capture it... Devise a way to trap its energy into some vessel? Could it light up a house? What a wondrous sight that would be! Imagine what a king or queen would pay to have such a spectacle in their halls!

Or might it have greater powers than just the power of light? Healing powers or hurting powers... Either way, if they could be harnessed...!

We must away. Rávdná's funeral was yesterday, and we have another death to fake in the south, among the Illyrians.

But I will come back. I will study the guovssahas. Rávdná has advised me against it, she says the northern lights hold powers not to be tampered with. But I swear, one day, I will command the fire-fox just like I commanded the- !

No.

Itthobaal, Itthobaal, Itthobaal! Have you not gone down this path one too many times? Will you never learn?

I must not let myself be trapped by obsession. I said never again. I will let it be. I will let the guovssahas be.

(SIGHS) Till next time, dear catalogue of creations... Till next time.

END.