Turns out when you travel through Eastern Europe researching a book called The Empire of Death, you run into some pretty interesting things:

“It sounded like something from the Brothers Grimm,” he recalls. “But I followed his directions—half thinking this guy was crazy or lying—and sure enough, I found this jeweled skeleton in the woods.”

The church—more of a small chapel, really—was in ruins, but still contained pews and altars, all dilapidated from years of neglect under East German Communist rule. He found the skeleton on a side aisle, peering out at him from behind some boards that had been nailed over its chamber. As he pried off the panels to get a better look, the thing watched him with big, red glass eyes wedged into its gaping sockets. It was propped upright, decked out in robes befitting a king, and holding out a glass vial, which Koudounaris later learned would have been believed to contain the skeleton’s own blood. He was struck by the silent figure’s dark beauty, but ultimately wrote it off as “some sort of one-off freakish thing, some local curiosity.”

But then it happened again. In another German church he visited some time later, hidden in a crypt corner, he found two more resplendent skeletons. “It was then that I realized there’s something much broader and more spectacular going on,” he says.

“IT WAS THEN” OKAY BUDDY

Also, last night a reader sent this to me:

For a Swarm of Bees is an Anglo-Saxon metrical charm that was intended for use in keeping honey bees from swarming. The text was discovered by John Mitchell Kemble in the 19th century.

Despite the ostensibly mundane intent of the magic charm, many scholars have seen the sigewif (‘victory-women’) as metaphors for supernatural beings to be called on for aid in battle, or a direct reference to them. There are similarities between the Anglo-Saxon bee charm and the 9th-century German Lorsch Bee Blessing.

The translation?

Settle down, victory-women, never be wild and fly to the woods. Be as mindful of my welfare, as is each man of border and of home.

And the Lorsch Bee Blessing?

Christ, the bee swarm is out here!

Now fly, you my animals, come.

In the Lord’s peace, in God’s protection,

come home in good health.

Sit, sit bees.

The command to you from the Holy Mary.

You have no vacation;

Don’t fly into the woods;

Neither should you slip away from me.

Nor escape from me.

Sit completely still.

Do God’s will.

“Christ, the bee swarm is out here!” What a marvelous world we have been selected to live in. Have a great weekend.

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