The Black Death Was An Old Woman

Night three of Mørketid is out. Norway.

She Carries a Rake...

A craft decision I want to explain...

The draug should have been the finale. He's the better monster by any obvious measure — a drowned fisherman in oilskins with a mass of seaweed where his head should be, sailing half a boat against the wind, screaming out on the water where there is nobody. That's a closing image.

I put him second, and gave the ending to an old woman walking up a path.

Here's why. Everything in these four episodes has a countermeasure. Say the Näkki's name. Turn your coat inside out. Be polite to the Huldra and keep your luck. Stay off the water. Every horror in this series comes with something small and stubborn you can do about it — that's the whole argument the finale makes.

Pesta has nothing. She isn't cruel and she isn't kind and she cannot be bargained with and nothing you did brought her. In 1349 the plague came into Bergen on a ship and Norway lost somewhere between half and two thirds of its people in about eighteen months, and because Norway is a country of valleys reachable by one path each, it didn't sweep. It walked. At the speed of a person, because it was carried by people.

So you knew it was coming. You'd had word. It had been three valleys over, and then two, and then the next one.

And what they made out of that is the most efficient piece of horror I've ever come across. She carries either a rake or a broom. A rake has gaps — things slip between the tines, and some of you live. A broom has none.

And you can see her on the path, a long way down, for about an hour. And the only thing you are doing for that entire hour is trying to work out what's in her hand.

If you want to go deeper...

Theodor Kittelsen painted Pesta over and over in the 1890s and those images are what most Norwegians still picture. Worth looking up before you listen. It's the flatness of her face that does it — she isn't malicious. She's just arriving.

Next Episode...

Sweden. And that one was the hardest of the four to write, so fair warning.

The candle stays lit. 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️