Tim writes…

Dear Michelle,

We have met before (and I've asked you questions before), and this time I would like to ask you yet another very specific question about a scene in COAD. At the start of Spirit Walker, when the sickness is spreading through the Forest and the first members of the Raven Clan fall ill, Saeunn and Renn perform a ritual over Oslak's body to try to get rid of the disease (he's been dead for quite some years now so I feel I'm allowed to say Oslak's name out loud…). I've read the books in Dutch, so I'm not exactly sure how the spell goes in English, but it's something like this:
'Come, disease. Out of the marrow, into the bone. Out of the bone, into the flesh. Out of the flesh, into the skin. Out of the skin, into the arrow. Out of the arrow, into the fire.' After which Saeunn does indeed throw the arrow into the fire.

I have just read a book on the history of the Dutch language, which contains a chapter with – among other things – charms written around the 9th century that were later used by Jacob Grimm to formulate his theory on sound changes in the Germanic languages around that time. The charms are supposed to be remedies against worms, and one of them goes:
'Out, worm, with nine little worms, out of the marrow, into the bone…' and then it goes on exactly like the spell you put in Spirit Walker, right up until the end with the arrow. I'm assuming that can't be a coincidence.

I realise this was a very long time ago, but I wanted to ask if you remember how you came to this. Was it something on which you accidentally stumbled across and decided would fit into the story, or were you actively looking for ancient spells and such in books more often? Are there any other such charms that you took from old sources?

Best wishes,
Tim

Michelle Replies…

Hello again, Tim!  You’re absolutely right, that spell is based on a real source (though I’d not heard of the Jacob Grimm connection till now).  It’s an Old High German charm called Contra Vermes, probably dating to about the early 1oth century, but with pre-Christian roots that may go back to the Rig Veda, the ancient Sanskrit text.  I came across it years before I began Wolf Brother in a translation of an Icelandic grimoire or collection of spells (The Galdrabok, transl. Stephen Flowers, pub’d Samuel Weisner Inc, 1989) – but when researching Torak’s world, I re-read my collection of such books and found it.  Have I used others like it? Definitely.  In creating Torak’s world I drew on the folklore of many cultures such as the Ainu, Native Americans, Indigenous Australians, Inuit, and of course Norse and Germanic.  Mostly I can’t recall the sources, but I do recall that Seshru’s summoning charm in Outcast –“When reed quakes, etc, remember me..” derives from a Malaysian charm that I think I found in The Golden Bough.  (Incidentally, when Ian McKellen read that for the audiobook, it put him in mind of what the ghost says in Hamlet!)  Thanks for asking such a great question, which had me leafing through my old continuity notes… With very best wishes, Michelle