Infiltration: Mundane Medieval Style [The Devil in a Forest spoiler]

Having considered a cryptic infiltration model to The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972), consider an explicit infiltration model for The Devil in a Forest (1976).

The Devil in a Forest is tricky for being a crypto “lost race” novel, where the race in question is a Norse outpost in Bohemia.

Mark is the main character, a teenager.

The character Wat is a charismatic highwayman, an ambiguous Robin Hood.

Jocellen is Mark’s girlfriend.

The setting is a village that is dwindling due to a chicken-and-egg situation: the trade of visiting pilgrims is fading while banditry and murder increase.

The forest around the village contains the ruins of a town named Grindwalled, a witch named Cloot, a population of charcoal burners who process wood into charcoal, and a prehistoric barrow mound.

In my commentary for chapter Twenty-Two, the final chapter, I discuss the mundane medieval infiltration at work in the background:

The [infiltration] conspiracy was decades in the making. The charcoal burners are presumably descendants of the town Grindwalled, a Viking settlement worshipping the Barrow Man. (I speculate that Grindwalled was smashed by a Christian king, perhaps Charlemagne during his war against the Saxons.) The burners financed Wat through seminary in order that he could take over the religious station of the village. Then as a bandit he whittled down the pilgrims, putting strain on the village, weakening it. When Jocellen was old enough to be a bride to the Barrow Man, the final phase was put into play, with more of the villagers killed. Clearly the charcoal burners were ready to move in as replacement villagers, and they would secretly live under their priest-king Wat, worshipping the Barrow Man. (Gene Wolfe’s First Four Novels: A Chapter Guide, p. 117)

The burners have an idol they claim to be of the Virgin Mary; Wat says it might be of a Norse god; in the end it is revealed to represent the Barrow Man.