Magic Moments

[ND Wederstrandt]

        One of my favorite moments was at the second Maekloth Thing which
Baron Edwin Fitzlloyd and I autocrated in Bryn Gwlad.  Master Ragnor from
Bjornsborg had just mundanely lost his grandfather and we wanted to do
something to make it easier for him to deal with. (They were very close.)
Well, since Ragnor is a viking we decided we were going to have a burial.
The site we used allowed us to have a bonfire on site; so the household and
friends got busy and cleared the site.  We made a dummy and one of the
Bjornborgers (Zarad) carved a face for "Old Snorri" out of a pumpkin.  At
nighfall the entire event gathered and formed a procession.  It was in late
October/November and cold but not bitter.  The sky was totally clear and
since we were out in the country, you could see all the stars.  Duchess
Sieglinde was the Wise Woman, and led the procession with torches, and
women wailing in the background.  I remember walking across the large
field, dry grassy stubble, the torchlight flickering and strange eerie
voices wailing.  When we got to the bonfire pyre we placed Snorri on the
pyre, and they sacrificed a slave girl.  Sieglinde threw the bones to see
what fate had in store.  It was a huge bonfire and we all watched the
"body" burn.
        What made it cool was that it had felt and become something that
Vikings would have done in a new land.  Ragnor felt better and kind of had
closure for his granfather.  What was eerie that as the pumpkin burned It
looked amazingly like a real face.
        Later on some one told that two mundanes had sat in a truck and
watched it for a while then hauled out of there in their truck.

Clare R. St. John