Vampires, werewolves and Sami sorcerers

Spectator

a day ago

I have to be honest: I've never been much concerned with what happened in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1387. I suspect that may even be true for many Lithuanians. In Silence of the Gods, Francis Young pinpoints this year – of the conversion of the duchy to Christianity – as the official triumph of Christianity in Europe over paganism and idolatry. But he then goes on to examine the debris – and the survivors of paganism and their traditions in the northern regions of Europe.
The first difficulty is defining and identifying paganism. The book is published by Cambridge University Press, so there is an unmistakably academic, seminar-ready, conference-hardened edge to the text. In a gruelling 60-page introduction, Young lists the problems of illuminating the subject: the meagre sources that exist tend to derive from the victors and subsequent studies suffer from entrenched attitudes. I don't think I've ever read an introduction with such a powerful message of 'it's almost impossible to say anything about this stuff'. Young continues:
This is of course a genuine interpretative problem; it is notoriously difficult to draw the boundaries between religion and magic, to the point that no satisfactory definition of either religion or magic exists that succeeds in excluding the one from the sphere of the other.
It should be mentioned that Young has also written a book on Merlin and 'occult politics' in Britain.
When do witches, diviners, healers, drum-bangers, remote-viewers and weather-adjusters count as exiles from the structure of Christianity? If you're in league with the Devil, aren't you part of the Christian landscape, even if you're formally opposed to Christ and looking for a better deal? It's hard to know how language is being used and what the general attitudes were. My second favourite Hungarian king, 'Fond of Books' Kalman, who died in 1116, is often seen as a ray of enlightenment because he decreed there was no such thing as a striga. A striga, according to Ovid, is a blood-sucking bird fond of infants, often the result of shape-shifting witchcraft. So shape-shifting vampires are right out, complete twaddle; but Kalman also warned that any spell-casting or enchantment would land you in serious trouble.
Then there is perception. One man's shamanism is another man's papist conspiracy. Young writes: 'The work of Siv Rasmussen on early Sami religion has often highlighted the extent of popular Catholicism in Sami culture, which was often demonised as pagan by Lutheran missionaries.' This circumspect introduction is evidently the author preparing for a bit of scholastic bovver, hunkering down to avoid being shanked by some Baltic folklorist or Siberian ethnographer. Fair enough.
He has obviously worked his guts out here, and there are some entertaining gems of erudition. The Sami, who for centuries were widely considered hardcore sorcerers, had a racket selling wind to sailors. This consisted of a bag of threads and knots, and you pulled out a knot if you wanted to go faster. It should be added that the Swedish army's run of military successes was also attributed to their legion of Sami sorcerers, and that in the English Civil War it was alleged (in a satire printed by the Parliamentarians) that Prince Rupert's dog was secretly a witch from Lapland. You can't help wondering if the Sami had such extraordinary powers, why they spent their lives trudging around herding reindeer in the snow.
The werewolves of Livonia will not only kill you, but worse, they will drink your beer. If you find your cellar full of stacked up empty barrels in the centre then you can have no doubt at all that it's the work of binge-drinking werewolves because that's their signature move.
The animists persisted. In the 19th century, the Mari people in the Russian empire came up with a revamped, conciliatory version that the Tsarists had a hard time dealing with. Among their arguments was the existence of an 'Old Bible', which claimed that God, like a generous restaurateur, had approved 77 religions for people to choose from.
Young's rigour and patience are admirable, but the book lacks a clear narrative line and the focus is more on how Christianity spread and evolved than on what it replaced. Silence of the Gods is aimed at university bookshelves rather than the reader for pleasure – unless you're the sort who rejoices in sentences like: