The Norre Fen Murders

Brian Herbert and Marie Landis

“I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.”

Song of Solomon 3:1

Denmark - Norre Fen - 1105 CE.

The one they planned to kill stood at the rear door of the village church. Though night had begun to darken the sky, the moon was full and the keen eyes of the pursuers took in physical details of the girl-woman. She wore a fringed shawl and a coarse woolen garment tied loosely around a long-legged, sturdy body. Her fair hair was braided with a three-strand plait that hung to her waist like a golden chain.

“Wait here,” whispered Rosmus, leader of the small band of men who followed the woman. He signaled them to step behind a stone building. “We’ll seize her when she leaves the church.”

“The priest wastes his seed on that one,” grunted his brother, Sindal.

“That’s his business,” answered Rosmus.

“And now it’s ours.” Sindal, who had coveted the woman called Kristin for many months, grinned.

The men huddled in shadows, seven ruddy-faced unwashed humans enveloped in the stench of their own sweat. Like the girl-woman, they were “common people” who labored with their hands and backs. By this hour they should have been exhausted and snoring in their straw beds, but they had another aim—to save their parish priest, Henrik Graasten.

Their minds were filled with visions implanted by various religious leaders, pious guides who’d attempted to release them from pagan beliefs. This teaching had little effect upon the men behind the stone building. Pagan and Christian icons commingled and gave birth to the sharp-clawed demons occupying their thoughts. At the moment the girl-woman, Kristin, was the bodily evidence of such a demon, one with full breasts and the ability to hypnotize and seduce a priest.

Although they would not completely renounce their pagan gods, the men revered the Christian priest and saw him as the embodiment of everything spiritual. He was present at their births, weddings, and burials. Because of him their crops grew, their babies lived and the village prospered.

The priest, Henrik, almost too young for his position, must be protected. Particularly from the demon Kristin. Or so Rosmus had decreed.

“Some in the village say he has taught her to read,” said one of the gang, a tall man with thick red hair.

“We sent her to cook and clean,” muttered Sindal. “None of us can read, so why should she? Kristin has witched our priest.”

“Are we going to give her a beating?” asked the redheaded man.

“Before this demon sucks the manhood from the rest of us and destroys our crops, we must sacrifice her,” answered Rosmus. “Do you wish to lose your manhood? Your crops?”

“No! Sacrifice her to Ertha.”

“Not only to our goddess, but to the priest’s God, as well,” added Rosmus.

O O O

Black wings flapped through the cold night air, the thrumming of an invisible beast. The Crow perched his large body on the roof edge of the stone building and surveyed the men moving restlessly below. The pungent blood-odor of their rage had attracted Crow. Other men in other times and places had summoned him with similar intensity.

There was always a sacrifice when the blood smell was strong. Humans, he thought, knew no other way to relieve their fears or bad luck. Sometimes they hung their victims, sometimes they slashed them to death. And often, the bodies of those they wished to eliminate were deposited in the great wet peat bog that lay at one end of the village. Its compacted plant debris, accumulated over a millennia, furnished the villagers with heating fuel as well as a burial site for sacrifices or enemies. The brackish, ever-growing peat soon covered the bodies that rested in its depths.

Crow waited.

Time was of no consequence. He had existed for thousands of years, so a few wasted moments were unimportant. He flew to the church roof, where he listened and watched.

O O O

Henrik, the parish priest, opened the rear door of the church, took Kristin’s hands and stared at her with wonder, as if he’d never seen her before and was only now drinking in her beauty.

“Come in,” he said.

When he’d first been sent here, the villagers had selected a woman to clean his house and cook his meals, an aging woman, coarse in speech and habits. He’d declined her help, and the villagers had sent Kristin as a part time replacement, until they could find someone older and more knowledgeable about the needs of men.

In the evenings the priest taught Kristin to read and write. It wasn’t work the Church had intended him to do, but she’d learned quickly and Henrik’s satisfaction was so great that he began to neglect his original mission, to save the souls of the heathens who lived in the village.

Though he and the girl were separated in age by only two or three years, he thought of himself as much older and wiser. He, the teacher, she his immature pupil. A safe enough arrangement, until he began to notice the curvature of her breasts, the shape of her legs and her pretty smile that warmed him and illuminated the cold, dark corners of the church.

Suddenly humbled, he realized he wanted the woman rather than the pupil.

And she wanted him.

Tonight he pulled her against him, and his voice was thick with emotion. “I love you Kristin, more than I love my own God.”

“Don’t say that!” She pulled away. “Such words can only bring punishment.” Yet even as she mouthed the warning, she returned to his arms. “I want your love, but I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“Someone followed me tonight.”

“Who?”

“Rosmus, I think. He told me not to spend so much time with you. It will lead to trouble in the village, he said.”

“He’s an ignorant lout,” said Henrik. “Stay here tonight, and tomorrow we’ll travel to my home in Bocksten. I have money and property. My mother will welcome you.”

Kristin’s blue eyes widened with fright and she shook her head. “You can’t leave your parish. The forest demons will rise against us.”

“There are no demons in the forest, only a human one we already know: Rosmus.”

“I’m his sister’s friend. I don’t think he’ll harm me.”

“I should walk with you. See you safely home.”

“No! That will only make matters worse.”

“At least let me give you this,” Henrik said, as he removed a cross from his neck. He placed it around Kristen’s. “To keep you safe.”

She protested, but he pressed a finger across her lips to silence her. “Think about what I said.”

A while later, Kristin exited the church and became a shadow melting into other shadows.

Henrik watched her go. I shouldn’t have worried her, he thought. Next time, I’ll speak softly and with more care. But I must convince her to leave this place.…

As Kristin proceeded down the rutty road that led to her mud and straw hut, cold air bit her cheeks. She welcomed the pain, for it numbed the thought that her happiness must end. Rosmus was right. She was endangering the entire village by loving a priest. And endangering Henrik as well.

She pulled her shawl close and breathed in the musky smell of the bog. Almost home. The cross that lay across her heart slid back and forth beneath her gown, matching the rhythm of her stride.

Footsteps behind her. Rosmus?

Kristin stopped, turned to look and was seized in muscular arms.

A greasy hand covered her mouth. “Caught you, devil woman!” said a voice that sounded as if it belonged to Rosmus. The hand was removed, but before she could cry out, something was yanked over her head and around her neck. She breathed in the animal smell of it. A strip of hide, she thought. Does Rosmus mean to pull me around like a beast?

The leather thong tightened around her neck, and she was pushed to the ground. Men’s voices.

As she tried hard to free herself, something blunt hit the back of her head again and again, and she slid into a vortex of pain so intense that it blinded her to everything else. For a while she continued to struggle, but to no avail.

Then she lay still in the cold light of the moon.…

The anger Rosmus had felt, his glorious frenzy, had turned to an odd sort of bliss, and he felt curiously relieved. He stared at the body of Kristin and at the bloody, wooden club in his hand.

“It’s done,” Sindal said in a dull voice, his eyes blank of all expression, his bloodied hands hanging at his sides.

“Help me get her in the bog!” Rosmus shouted at the five men who had followed him and his brother.

But the men stood like wooden dolls set upright beside the bog. No one responded to Rosmus’ call, not even his brother.

“Someone coming this way. The priest, I think,” said Sindal in his flat voice.

The other men flew from the scene like disturbed flies rising from rotted meat.

“Cowards!” shouted Rosmus. He turned back to his task. Pulling the thong which still dangled from Kristen’s neck, he dragged the body to the edge of the bog and rolled it into sluggish waters. “Damn your soul, Sindal, help me push her under!”

With the aid of a tree branch, the brothers scuttled Kristen’s sturdy body.

Sindal rose to his feet, his empty eyes staring up the road.

Suddenly the priest was upon them, his face flushed with exertion, his robes flapping. “What have you done?” he screamed. “Where is Kristin?”

“The same place you’re going,” answered Rosmus, his words a growl. He leaped forward and with his fist struck a great blow against the priest’s head. “Hit him with the club!” he said to Sindal.

This time Sindal obeyed his brother’s command.

When they were finished with their grisly task, the body of Henrik floated just beneath the surface of the bog a few meters from Kristin.

Rosmus sat back on his haunches. For a moment he felt as though he’d just had an unusually good sexual romp. Or perhaps it was more than that. Killing was almost a spiritual experience, he thought.

O O O

Crow watched the tragedy unfold, knew all the emotions and thoughts of those who scrabbled across the surface of the earth below. It was precisely as he’d prophesied, the sacrifices were completed. Once more, Man had taken that which was good and destroyed it.

Crow assumed his more familiar shape, an immense androgynous creature that swaggered toward the brothers, blotting out the moonlight as it strode forward. Great talons extended from its feet, and its broad wings expanded over the brothers like a dreadful cloud.

The large beak that almost covered its face opened. “As you feed on death!” it screamed, “so shall I feed on you!”

The humans cowered in the darkness, covering their heads with their arms, praying to the God they had deserted.

O O O

It was morning, and somehow Rosmus found himself in his bed. He awoke wondering if the apparition he’d seen had been reality or deception. A trick of the devil-woman, Kristin, no doubt. It was something he’d have to discuss with Sindal. Fully clothed, he clambered from the rank-smelling bed he shared with his wife and walked to his brother’s house.

“What did you see last night?” Rosmus asked him.

“The Black Avenger. The god Odin come to punish us.”

Rosmus shook his head. “Kristin’s magic is all you saw.”

“We killed a priest, as well as her.”

Rosmus shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, except Henrik’s wealthy relatives.”

“The others will tell what we did.”

Rosmus’ expression darkened. He leaned toward his brother and seized him by the collar of his leather vest. “They won’t tell. I’ll see to that, and you’d better do the same.”

O O O

But Rosmus’ words were wasted. Later that week, when the villagers found out that their priest was dead and their good fortune threatened, they hung Sindal and Rosmus, and laid the bodies out in a field for predators to dine upon.

“We must bury the priest in village earth,” said the tall, redheaded man in their midst, the one who had betrayed the brothers. “Cut him into pieces and bury them in various places, so that each of us will share in the good fortune he brings.”

O O O

Down to the bog marched a contingent of villagers, determined to find the remains of the priest. None were brave or foolish enough to step into the uncertain waters of the bog, but they continued to probe with sticks until they found Henrik’s body. With the use of various tools and ropes, they managed to drag it up to the murky surface.

Crow, invisible to the villagers, whispered in the ear of the redheaded man, a message heard only by him. “Give the others the command I bring to you, or receive my punishment.” The voice was deep and authoritarian, not to be ignored.

The man shook in fear as he spoke to the villagers. “The priest’s wealthy relatives are coming to claim the body. We must return it to the bog, before they discover what we’re up to.”

Henrik Graasten, parish priest, once again was submerged, but this time they put him on the other side of the bog, far from his lover.

O O O

Denmark - Norre Fen - 1972

It was early morning when the peat cutting machinery exposed a shape in the bog, a well-preserved body that appeared to be male. It lay face down in the spongy vegetable matter, shoulders curved forward as though it cradled something.

A great block of peat was cut out to insure that the body was not harmed. The men operating the peat-cutting equipment were reluctant to continue. This find might be a recent murder victim or an ancient one.

Let the police and archeologists take care of things.…

With great care, forensic scientists cleared peat from the back of the body, baring cinnamon-colored skin and dark clothing. The body was shiny as leather and slightly wrinkled like an old glove left too long in rain and wind. Nevertheless, the wet, acidic conditions of the bog had inhibited decay and this male was surprisingly fleshy, with long smooth fingers and fine features. Probably a man of means. His blond hair was plastered to a badly fractured skull, and he wore a robe with a cowl. His death had been violent.

They continued brushing vegetable debris away from the body, so they could pull it forth from its bed of peat. To their surprise they found a second body beneath the first, this one smaller. A female with a long braid of fair hair and a silver cross between her breasts.

The man’s arms held her tightly and the scientists had difficulty separating the two.

The female had also died violently.

Who were these ancient people? Radiocarbon dating indicated they were hundreds of years old, but it told the investigators nothing about their individual lives. Why were they grouped together? A local museum was selected to solve the mystery and to share its answers with the public.…

Crow knew the answers. He’d seen Henrik and Kristin go to their restless graves on opposite sides of the bog. He’d stirred the waters, so they could be joined again. Often, he’d returned to haunt Norre Fen, to watch and ensure the disintegration of the village and its people, to fly over fields that no longer produced, to observe a sickness that touched most of the villagers.

Hidden amongst the laboratory files, Crow observed the scientists who knew so much and so little.

O O O

The stout museum curator, Peder de Kauffmann, was pleased. The bodies were prepared for public viewing, the male in a room filled with ancient Danish icons, the female in a room several doors away. Plenty for everyone to see and sufficient space for people to move about, as they examined the exhibits.

A meticulous man with a well-trimmed beard, Peder checked the “bog people” one more time. There they lay in their separate places, two figures who appeared to be sculpted from leather. Amazing in their macabre beauty, he thought. Tomorrow the museum doors would open at 10:00 AM, and he would make a short speech concerning life in early Denmark.

Then he would reveal the exciting new discoveries.

At eight the following morning, a bleak foggy day, Peder entered the museum and was dismayed to see that someone had moved the bodies during the night. Now, they were together on a stone platform, arms wrapped around one another in a death embrace. What monster had ruined his carefully-laid-out displays? There were no employees here at this hour, so someone must have broken in during the night. It wasn’t the first time. Had the burglar alarm malfunctioned again?

His frustrations rose, and he ran to his office to call the police. Surely they could find the culprit.

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” they told him. “We’ve more important matters to take care of.”

Cursing the police, Peder returned to the bodies to make certain no serious damage had been done to them. Odd, he thought, why hadn’t he noticed how well rounded they were? Had they changed? They scarcely looked mummified. The hands of the male were as full-fleshed as his own, and the lips seemed ready to speak. As for the female, her breast appeared to heave, up and down, up and down, as though she were breathing.

I’m tired, the curator thought. I’ve exhausted myself. A good cup of coffee and a pastry will fix up my nerves.

He locked the museum doors and hurried out into the cold mist, headed for the nearest bakery.

O O O

Crow flew down from the rafters of the museum and whispered to the two he’d watched over for nine hundred years. “I’m here to take away your sadness and give you peace.…”

When the curator returned an hour later, he noticed two people standing outside the museum near a side door. Despite a thick fog that was settling in, he was able to see their faint outlines—one tall and the other small. Both figures wore long coats or robes. Gypsies? He had the vandals in sight, but there were no police to help him.

Screaming, he ran toward the intruders. But upon reaching the place they’d been, no one was there. They’d disappeared into the fog, swallowed as if by magic.

To his great sorrow, when he re-entered the museum he found that the bodies were gone. He sat on a chair, perplexed.

Outside the building a loud sound shattered the thick air. A noisy bird singing some sort of song, Peder surmised. Maybe a greeting to another of its kind or a warning. He wished the damn thing would shut up. But the sound continued, almost triumphantly, reverberating inside the curator’s head like a drum beat. He could not clear his mind of the intrusive noise.

Finally, the song ended and Crow soared on the wind high above the fog bank, searching for another injustice worthy of his attention, always searching.