The Stranger House. Reginald Hill
go with it.
She picked up the Guide. It fell open at the last page she’d looked at, the section on the Wolf-Head Cross. She studied a reproduction of the panel showing the god Thor in his boat. It wasn’t a detailed portrait but there was a definite resemblance to Winander. She squinted down at the picture and sipped her beer thoughtfully. It was good stuff, slipping down so easily she’d almost got through the pint without noticing.
As if her thought was a command, another glass was set before her.
She looked up to see not the aged Viking but the superannuated leprechaun who’d warned her against Illthwaite.
‘Good evening, Miss Flood,’ he said, his high clear voice pitched low. ‘I hope you will accept a drink from me in token of apology for any unintentional rudeness I may have shown to you at lunchtime. I should have remembered the scriptures: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’
‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘But I wasn’t offended. And I’m certainly no angel.’
‘Angels come in many guises and for many purposes,’ he said.
He didn’t smile as he said it but spoke with an earnest sincerity which made her recall Mrs Appledore’s warning that he was a snag short of a barbie.
‘I hope you have recovered from your accident in the church,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m good,’ she said, thinking, cracked he may be, but he doesn’t miss much!
His eyes had strayed down to the open book on the table.
‘You are interested in antiquities?’ he said.
‘In a way,’ she said. ‘I was reading about the Wolf-Head Cross.’
‘Ah yes. The Wolf-Head. Our claim to historical significance. But if you want to find out something of the true nature of Illthwaite, you should read about our other Wolf-Head Cross. Try the chapter on Myth and Legend. But never forget you are in a part of the world where they hold an annual competition for telling lies.’
He moved away to what seemed to be his accustomed seat almost out of sight behind the angle of the fireplace.
Her curiosity pricked, she riffled through the pages till she came to a section headed Folklore, Myth, Legend which she began reading at her usual breakneck speed.
After an introduction in which the three topics were defined and carefully differentiated, the writer conceded:
Yet so frequently do these areas overlap and merge, with invented and historical figures becoming confused, and events which properly belong to the timeless world of the fairies receiving the imprimatur of particular dates and locations, that it is almost as dangerous to dismiss any story as wild fancy as it would be to accept all that is related round the crackling fire of the Stranger House on a winter’s night as gospel truth. What more likely than that a pious farmer riding home after a night of wassail and ghost stories should mistake a swirl of snowflakes round the churchyard for the restless spirit of some recently deceased villager? When it comes to sharing real and personal concerns with strangers, Cumbrians are a close and secret people, but in launching flights of fancy dressed as fact they have few equals, as those who had the pleasure of meeting the late Mr Ritson of Wasdale Head can well testify.
As described supra, in the designs on our great Viking cross can be found a fascinating use of ancient fables to underline and illustrate the awful and sacred truths of Christianity. Had Dr Johnson paused on his journey to the Caledonian wildernesses to view our Wolf-Head Cross, he might have modified his strictures on Lycidas.
Yet the great doctor was right in asserting that truth and myth may be combined in a manner both impious and dangerous. So in the story of that other cross, which some in their superstitious folly also called ‘Wolf-Head’, we find fact and fiction close tangled in a knot it would take the mind of Aristotle or the sword of Alexander to dismantle.
Here is that story as it is still recounted in the parish, with slight variation and embellishment, according to the nature of the narrator and the perceived susceptibility of the auditor. Be advised, it is not a tale for the faint-hearted…
Then her view of the book was interrupted by a large plate and Mrs Appledore’s voice said, ‘There we go, dear. Tuck in.’
Sam smiled her thanks at the woman, then lowered her eyes to the plate and felt the full force of the Reverend’s warning. Here was something else definitely not for the faint-hearted. Reminding her of the Wolf-Head Cross carving of Jormungand, the fabled Midgard serpent coiled around the world, on her plate a single monstrous sausage, uninterrupted by twist or crimp, curled around a mountain of chips topped by a fried egg. There had to be enough cholesterol here to give a god or a hero a heart attack. She took a long pull at her beer while she contemplated how to get to grips with it.
Another pint glass was set before her. She looked up to see the old Viking again.
‘Thanks, but I’ve got plenty.’
‘Perhaps. But I think you’ll need a lot more to wash that down,’ he said. ‘As we say round here, best way is to pick an end and press on till tha meets tha own behind.’
This seemed an impossible journey but she was very hungry and after the first visual shock, she found it smelled quite delicious, so she sawed half an inch off the sausage’s tail and put it into her mouth. Fifteen minutes later she was wiping up the last of the egg yolk with the last of the chips. She’d even essayed the merest fork-point of flavouring from a jar of the mordant mustard and found it not displeasing.
She was also nearly at the bottom of her third pint. It really was good beer. It was also beer she hadn’t paid for and by the strict rules of the society she’d grown up in, girls who didn’t stand their round were signifying their willingness to make some other form of payment. She looked towards the shady corner but there was no sign of Mr Melton. Winander was still there between the duplicated grave-diggers.
She emptied her glass, stood up and went to the bar.
‘Ready for pudding?’ said Mrs Appledore.
Shuddering to think how big her puddings might be, Sam said, ‘No. I’m a bit knackered after all that driving so I think I’ll hit the hay. Mr Melton’s gone, has he?’
‘Only to the Gents. Why?’
‘I just wanted to buy him a drink, that’s all. And Mr Winander too. Put one in the till for them both, will you? And stick it on my bill.’
‘Of course, dear,’ said the landlady approvingly. ‘Us girls need to stand our corner these days.’
‘We surely do. Talking of which, don’t us girls come out to drink round here?’
‘Sometimes, but tonight they’ll be sitting with Lorna—that’s the mam of young Billy Knipp that we buried today. The men leave ‘em to it. Sorry if it bothered you, dear.’
‘Men don’t bother me, Mrs Appledore,’ said Sam.
‘That’s all right then,’ said the landlady. ‘I never asked you, did you find anything out at the church? About your family, I mean?’
Was this a good moment to ask about the inscription? No, Sam decided. But it might be a good moment to give everyone here the chance to volunteer information.
She said, ‘No, nothing. Look, as a final fling, would it be all right if I spoke to this lot in the bar, asked them if anyone recalled a family called Flood in these parts?’
Mrs Appledore glanced assessingly at the assembled drinkers then said, ‘Why not? It’ll make a change from the price of sheep.’
She reached up and rang the bell dangling over the end of the bar.
‘Listen in, you lot. Let’s have a bit of order. This young lady from Australia who’s staying with us tonight, she’d like