The Rape of Winnymuir

Four men crouched around a fire in the hours before dawn. They kept the fire low in case there were any more of the local men about, but no doubt they had all died the evening before. The four were hardened warriors, disciplined enough to keep the fire down even in the moldy chill of these moors. The scattered fires kindled by their shipmates showed only dimly through the fog. The two youngest men bickered good-naturedly.

“I don’t see why you must bring those pups along, Harald. With their mother dead they’ll not last the sea voyage home.”

Harald was feeding sheep’s milk to the four tiny black pups. “I have to try to save them. It's only right, as it was I who killed the bitch.”

“You could hardly do otherwise. Else she'd be underfoot when you slew her master.” Though Atli said this, he himself was holding two of the pups himself to keep them warm. The other two men, older, stared wordlessly into the fire. Atli went on, speaking quietly to his friend. “I do not like this thing we must do next. To me this seems a frightening place, and the Picts a wild people. If we could not find the women yesterday, we should give up --pillage the houses and leave. Our dead are decently buried. I’d sooner be home with my own betrothed, than to have one of the wild creatures that lives in this hellish land.” He shivered.

Harald’s young, handsome face blushed a little in the firelight. “I do not like it either. But we are Northmen and Erik is our captain, and we follow our captain's orders. Still, I feel bad about hurting women.”

One of the older men spoke up. “This is our last stop. Erik will, I think, let us burn them in their houses after we’ve taken what we want. They will not live long enough to mind their shame.”

The fourth man didn’t look up from the fire, but his voice came in a low rumble. “That is true enough, Wolfbein, but only if Erik can find the women. If they are too well hidden he will give up the search. At dawn we may find what small loot there may be, and be on our way home.”

“I wonder where they could be hiding.” Atli looked around, as if expecting a Pictish wildwoman to jump out from behind a tree.

Thorstein, the eldest, tried to lift the sour mood by making conversation. “What will the three of you do when we return to Norway?”

Wolfbein took up the subject gladly enough. “I have done well on this voyage, for myself as well as my captain. I look forward to showering my wife and daughter with fine gifts. I promised them gold and jewels, and those they shall have.”

Thorstein nodded. “You also have gold, the armband Erik awarded for bravery. You won it fairly, my friend. Your woman will hold her head high.” He stirred the fire with a stick. “What of you two young whelps? Will you be off a-viking again?”

“No," said Atli with great certainty, “it is home to the farm for me. I'm betrothed to the fairest girl in my district. Now that I have gained a little money, Father will let me have a little of his land, and there’s more to be cleared for farming nearby. Why should I fight and risk my neck in Britain again, when I can be happily settled and married among my own people?”

“I shall be satisfied with a peaceful life as well,” agreed Harald. “As the youngest son in my family, there will be no land inheritance for me. But I have learned a little reading and writing under Father Paulus, enough that I may spend a few years copying the holy books on my way to the priesthood.”

“There is little enough viking left in me,” said Thorstein. “I grow too old for this. I, too, go back to wife and farm, so that my grandchildren may have my old gray beard to pull at. I have only stayed this long in this business that my sons need not take it up. We all must pay our taxes somehow.”

Harald placed the four sleeping puppies in a basket he had turned into a makeshift bed. “I only hope Erik never finds those women. I know we must use them to set an example in this country, and put the boy children away so that our enemies may never grow into fighting men. But for myself, I take little pleasure in the act.”

“It is not so bad,” said Wolfbein, “though if you are going into the priesthood it is just as well not to care for such pleasures.” He gave Harald a condescending smile, but then became troubled and looked into the fire. “I only hope Erik finds no pregnant ones. The thing we must do to them, that turns my stomach.”

Somewhere in the trees a twig snapped. Atli’s head jerked up. “What was that?"

__________

The women were, in fact, crowded into a cave in the hills. The well-concealed cave had front and back chambers. They only dared light a fire in the back, and because the ventilation was poor even that fire had to remain low. The oldest of them, their witch woman, walked among them issuing instructions, which they followed carefully. They knew the crone had seen some things in her time.

“Come now, wind the grave clothes tight! There must be nothing to catch hold of, by hand or sword, or the whole thing may come loose.” She passed through the crowd, her arthritic hands yanking on strips of cloth here and there. She made her way into the back room “Surely you have the last of the tattoos done by now.”

“We have just finished. Working the tattoo takes time, and so does working the magic that goes with it.”

“True enough. Don’t worry, there is plenty of cloth left to wind your bodies. Hurry, soon the time will be right.” The old one moved further back to check on the ones who would stay behind: the pregnant women, the mothers of young nurslings, the children.

Soon the horde of women stood ready by the mouth of the cave, anxious to depart and complete their night’s work. They’d been restricted to the cave since the Northmen’s ship was sighted, days ago. Late yesterday the boy who acted as their spy had come back to the cave bearing the news that the village had fallen, and that all the men defending it -- their husbands, fathers, and brothers -- had been killed. Now the women felt they had nothing to lose by following the witch’s guidance. And so they had spent their time applying the magical tattoos, blue swirls and patterns, to each other’s skin. These patterns now peeked out from the graveclothes they had wound about their bodies from neck to ankle. Their hair and breasts were bound tight. Each of them carried a cup, and nothing else. Only the witch carried a knife. After she had given the horde a final inspection, they set off for their village.

__________

In the hour before dawn, Erik and his small party returned with the news that the women had not been found, nor any hidden men. “You have done your work well. At dawn we will take whatever meager scraps this village may offer, take on water, and then be gone from this ill-favored place. I look forward as much as you to seeing our own fair country.” Everywhere there was a collective sigh of relief.

_________

The path into the village was as familiar to each of the women in the dark as by day. They found their way through the gloom easily without any torch. Every once in a while someone would stumble over the corpse of one of the Pictish men. Then they would gather round, and the witch would use her knife to make fresh blood flow from the dead man. Whoever was wife, mother, sister, or other relation to that man would take some of the blood into her cup and drink it. Soon each of them had drunk several cupfuls. Any time one of them drank, she would feel a surge of power; her eyes would shine with a mad light, and her muscles bulge under the graveclothes with superhuman power. Their skin became invulnerable. Each knew within herself that she could not be hurt.

Dawn showed its first light as they came upon the village. Silently they skirted open ground and gathered under cover of the trees, closing off both the village and the Northmen’s camp. No one could escape unseen from their circle. All except the witch had drunk blood. The old woman had to keep her wits about her to direct the attack.

When all the women were in place, the witch lifted her knife high above her head and spoke her final incantation, then plunged it into the ground with a skreeling cry. The other women took up the cry and the circle began to move inward.

The men sprang to their feet and reached for their weapons. The spectral creatures emerging from the trees put the Northmen into a panic.

Atli had kept his sword close, and dove into the group that approached his fire. He did not like to hurt the women, but they were grabbing at his arms and legs, biting and ripping off his clothes. He tried to strike the near ones, but his blade only glanced off them. He felt a warm trickle of urine down his leg as someone grabbed his sword arm, someone with the strength of a bear. He screamed, terrified, as the arm was ripped from its socket. His sword fell to the ground, as did his now-naked body. Even writhing with agony, he could see the unearthly gleam in the eyes of the woman who picked up his sword. With a wolfish grin, she used the sharp tip of it to slice off his penis and testicles. She crammed them into his moth, thereby silencing his screams; her knee in his face smashed in his nose as she finished suffocating him.

Thorstein’s sword was long and heavy. He grasped it two-handed and kept moving, turning, to keep the women from closing in. Finally one dove from behind at his ankles, immobilizing him, and soon several others followed. They pierced his clothes with their pointed teeth, ripping it from his body. Though he was outnumbered and overpowered, he tried to keep moving, tried to throw the women off. But after struggling for a minute, two of them pushed him down and held his face in the dirt, while two others spread his legs apart and held his ankles. A middle-aged woman pried the sword out of his hand. Slowly she inserted it into his ass and pushed it slowly in. The old warrior hung on for a long time, allowing him to feel every inch of the sword’s progress, through his bowels, his stomach, past his heart, slitting his throat on the way up to emerge from his mouth. The women left him for dead, but he lay dazed by pain for some time. His tongue, slit in two by the sword, dribbled blood down his grizzled beard.

Wolfbein looked desperately for a gap in the ever-tightening circle. He ran around in circles like a rabid dog, dropping his weapon and shitting his pants as he tried to escape. He dashed into a deserted house and searched frantically for some kitchen knives, anything to use to try to defend himself. Women crawled through the windows and burst through the door, looking for him with a kind of hunger. One of them ripped the gold band from his arm; another wrenched a stone loose from the hearth. “No! Mercy!” Wolfbein howled, as they tackled him and brought him to the floor. “I have a wife and children! How can you leave them without their husband and father?” These desperate words were cut off as a woman bashed his head with the heavy stone. Another beat at him with his armband. Soon his brains spilled out on the floor.

Harald, seeing there was no chance for him, vowed to meet death bravely. As the women closed in around him he lifted his eyes toward heaven and began to pray. Suddenly, he saw one of the women approaching the puppies. “Stop! Don’t hurt the little pups!” The woman was giving each pup a lick from her bloody cup. Harald’s handsome face lit up with righteous anger. “The pups have done no one any harm. Leave them alone!” All his energy went into his words, so that he scarcely heeded the tattooed creature pulling off his clothes. The woman went down on her knees and, pulling his legs apart, reached up her sharp teeth and bit each of his testicles off in turn. Though his face was twisted with agony, still he saw the puppies as they grew. Their black limbs grew long and muscular, and their snarling faces seemed barely able to contain their fangs. Two dogs sprang at Harald and knocked him to the ground. Another had found Atli’s corpse and ripped out the intestines. As one woman tied Harald in his friend’s bowels, another dug her fingernails under his eyeballs and pulled them out. His testicles were then squeezed into his eye sockets. In spite of his excruciating pain, Harald managed to scream for awhile as the dogs ripped off body parts: fingers, feet, penis. But gradually he lost too much blood and suffered blind and in silence.

The women finished their work and gathered to make a huge bonfire, and heaved what was left of the Northmen’s corpses into it. The witch went to her own hut, and brought back a pitcher of some strange brew. First the dogs got a drink, returning them to puppy size. They lay down to sleep by the fire’s warmth. Then the witch took the pitcher to the women in turn, and after each took her sip she lay down and slept deeply. When they awoke they would remember nothing of their violent passion. The witch took none of the potion for herself.

Everyone but the witch was soon asleep or dead. She threw a few more logs on the fire, then sat and watched as the corpses of the Pictish men rose up. The women’s sons, fathers and lovers moved off toward the hills and seeped silently into them. Though no Northman lived to tell the tale of the day, somehow it got about that this part of Scotland was haunted. It was never raided again. Whinnymuir it's called, and the grim spirits who dwell there whinnies.

Finally, the witch went back to the cave. A rainstorm came and washed away the blood; it was time for the remainder of them to return home. One woman had given birth in the cave that morning to a fine, healthy boy. She was a strong one, and walked back to the village under her own power, though friends stood on either side to support her when she had need. The witch carried her son.


_______________

Afterword:

Whinnymuir is mentioned in the Lyke Wake Dirge, written by an anonymous churchman of hte 15th century. In part it goes:

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle
fire and fleete and candle-lighte
And Christe reveive thy soule.

When thou from hence away art past,
Every nighte and alle,
To Whinnymuir thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy soule.

If ever thou gav'st hos'n and shoon
Every nighte and alle,
Sit thee down and put them on;
And Christe receive thy soule.

If hos'n and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane,
Every nighte and alle
The winnies shall prick thee to the bare bane
And Christe receive thy soule.


The Dirge is part of classical composer Benjamin Britten's wonderful "erenade for Tenor, Horns and Strings".