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attract a mate. But certain of CL’s jottings lead us to believe that he enjoyed other fungi with other properties. Out of Jukkasjärvi he stayed with a group where he records a conversation with another old woman, whose silver belt with its appendages he described accurately.
A spoon in a case.
A knife in a sheath.
A pipe in a case.
A leather thimble to put
digito inditorio
.
A needlecase with a brass cap to pull out.
Rings, some of them large, in brass.
    The belt itself is decorated with tin or with silver beads.
    He also made careful notes on her vulva, labia, clitoris and buttocks.
    He also described a ceremony in which this person appeared in another costume. This costume corresponds almost exactly to the costume of the prophetess, conjurer, or seer in the saga of Erik the Red. CL records some conversations with this person about
“numen, sive hamr”
in amongst his jottings on ceremonies pertaining to birth, and marriage. Hewas always interested in ceremonies surrounding birth, marriage and death. He records elsewhere that the pastor’s wife in Kemi told him that for a woman to drink a little blood from the severed
funiculus umbilicus
is a good way to avoid
dolores post partum—ipso puerperie multis difficiliores. Hamr
, he records—reconstructing his sketchy notes—was the membrane surrounding the foetus (specifically not the placenta, but the caul, the membrane) which bore, as it were, the shadowed impress, the
double
, of the human creature inside it. There were those whose
hamr
was loosed into the world at the moment of birth and who remained capable of contact with it, of changing shape, of travelling through time and space. I did not see how this could be, wrote the believer in mermaids and “shots” from clear skies. The old woman however told him that he was himself, as she clearly saw—“I have the sight”
—hammramr
.
    He makes mention of a ceremonial dress with a hood of black lamb’s-hide, lined with white catskin, reindeer-skin boots with long hairs, and catskin gloves, also furred. He writes of the
gandr
, or magic rod, with its knob and its brass and stone decorations. His accounts of the ceremonies, like all these private autobiographical fragments, are in the third person, distancing himself. Thus we read:
    â€œThey dance naked, beating their drums, which they say have magic powers, and the wisewomen sing long songs together, and separately, over and over. They drink hydromel and eau-de-vie at these times, and eat special foods. The drums are covered with drawings and signs.” The songs, he was told, are the songs of the creatures that make up the drum, the tree (silver birch,
betula
) and the young reindeer,chosen by Fate. They believe that their souls sing and conduct the practicants
ad infernos acque ad supernos
. The singing is strong and persistent; the room is hot and full of smoke and the drumming of naked feet.
    The markings on the drums represent many things: the rainbow, skis and sledges, the eyes and wings of birds. They are divided into parts which they told him represent the three divisions of
Mundus
—Caelum, Terra et Regiae Infernae. They believe their spirits may travel to these places, whilst their bodies lie torpid.
    Certe est
, he saw one of them fall to earth, a dead man
(pulsa non sentitur)
who lay dead for some hours
(duratio temporis incertissime est)
whilst the others danced about him and sang.
    H E SAW the huge hairpelt behind the smoke leave the place. They say they may travel for hundreds upon hundreds of leagues, in
utrasque formas;
during that time their names may not be mentioned, nor may the names of their
alter egos, sive entes bestiae
, or they may wander lost for ever. This may be what the priests refer to as
raptus
or
alienato mentis
. Those capable of these feats are known as
mjök trollaukinn
—those whose non-human powers,
troll
, are enhanced,
aukinn
.
    He saw also, which gave him courage, but