Eaters of the Dead

by Michael Crichton

As we conversed, the woman uncovered her pudendum and scratched it, and we saw her doing so. We veiled our faces and said, “I beg God’s pardon.” At this her husband laughed and said to the interpreter, “Tell them we uncover it in your presence so that you may see it and be abashed, but it is not to be attained. This is better than when you cover it up and yet it is attainable.”

Well, that's a rather odd place to scratch while out in public.

No slaves nurtured him, for the Northmen believe that a man must recover from any sickness according to his own strength.

I like this. The hell with doctors.

The custom of the Northmen reveres the life of war. Verily, these huge men fight continually; they are never at peace, neither among themselves nor among different tribes of their kind. They sing songs of their warfare and bravery, and believe that the death of a warrior is the highest honor.

Now this is in line with what we have seen (and know) of the Viking. They sure loved to fight (and found honour in even death as a result). Dying of disease or old age is for the weak and feeble.

I inquired of the interpreter what it was she had done. He replied: “The first time she said, ‘Lo, I see here my father and mother’; the second time, ‘Lo, now I see all my deceased relatives sitting’; the third time, ‘Lo, there is my master, who is sitting in Paradise. Paradise is so beautiful, so green. With him are his men and boys. He calls me, so bring me to him.’

A familiar funerary prayer.

“You Arabs,” he said, “must be a stupid lot. You take your most beloved and revered man and cast him into the ground to be devoured by creeping things and worms. We, on the other hand, burn him in a twinkling, so that instantly, without a moment’s delay, he enters into Paradise.”

Dead is dead but I must admit that what the Northman describes is a bit more alluring.

The Northmen, I learned, do not countenance robbers or killers of their own race, and treat such men harshly.

“If we are attacked, a single warrior may remain inside the house, and with his sword cut off the heads of all who enter. The door is low so that heads will be bent for cutting.”

Brilliant way of defending your home from intruders, I would think.

Also Ecthgow told me that the Northmen know that the monsters attack ships because they desire to mate with the ship, mistaking it for one of their own. For this reason, the Northmen do not build their ships over-large.

No one wants a kraken to make sweet, sweet love to their vessel, their literal lifeline out in the vast ocean. LOL.

There was no head, no arms, and no legs; only the torso with a greatly swollen belly and, above that, two pendulous swollen breasts.

Sounds like that prehistoric fertility figurine, Venus of Willendorf. Crichton later admits this in the factual notes at the end of the book.

During the time Ibn Fadlan was in Scandinavia, other Arab traders were in China, where they recorded that human flesh—referred to as “two-legged mutton”—was openly and legally sold in markets.

That's the worst type of mutton. Fact.

Yet I have discovered that if all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief, and so it was with me.

Yeah, Ibn Fadlan. We have all been there.

I cannot say whether the Northwomen truly believe as Herger spoke, but verily I discovered that they were much amazed at me by virtue of my surgery,* which practice is unknown among them, as they are dirty heathens. Of the manner of trusting, these women are noisy and energetic, and of such odor that I was obliged to stop my breath for the duration; also they are given to bucking and twisting, scratching and biting, so that a man may be thrown from his mount, as the Northmen speak of it. For myself I accounted the whole business more pain than pleasure.

Okay, Northmen were dirty, unwashed heathens. Got it.

Herger said of this: “It is always thus, now and in Valhalla,” which is their idea of heaven. In this heaven, which is to them a great hall, warriors battle from dawn to dusk; then those who are dead are revived, and all share a feast in the night, with endless food and drink; and then upon the day they battle again; and those who die are revived, and there is a feast; and this is the nature of their heaven through all eternity.* Thus they never count it strange to do battle day upon day while on the earth.

Strange idea for heaven.

I saw the truth of his words. “In my society,” I said, “we have a saying which is: ‘Thank Allah, for in his wisdom he put death at the end of life, and not at the beginning.’ ”

It would be terrible if death happened before life. Or wonderful if you just happen to hate your life.

The Islamic injunction against alcohol is literally an injunction against the fermented fruit of the grape; i.e., wine. Fermented drinks of honey are specifically permitted to Muslims.

Wait, what?

Verily I felt in this manner: that I should rather do any action upon the face of the earth, whether to lie with a woman in menses, to drink from a gold cup, to eat the excrement of a pig, to put out my eyes, even to die itself—any or all of these things should I prefer to the climbing of that accursed cliff.

Okay, he really doesn't want to climb down that cliff.

“Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion. We say, fear is fear.”

Not sure if fear really works this way.

“Perhaps in your lands, one god is enough, but not here; here there are many gods and each has his importance, so we shall pray to all of them on your behalf.” I thanked him then, for the prayers of a nonbeliever are as good as they are sincere, and I did not doubt the sincerity of Herger.

I would imagine that this is uncharacteristically tolerant for a 9th century Arab.

Thus, as late as the 1880’s it was possible for educated Europeans to wonder aloud whether Negroes in primitive African societies could be considered human beings at all, or whether they represented some bizarre mating of men and apes.

Well meaning racists?

The physicist Gerhard Robbins observes that “strictly speaking, no hypothesis or theory can ever be proven. It can only be disproven. When we say we believe a theory, what we really mean is that we are unable to show that the theory is wrong—not that we are able to show, beyond doubt, that the theory is right.

Crichton comes clean in the factual notes about all of his references (and bibliography) are fictitious. Didn't think that while reading so good job.

I also added commentary and some extremely pedantic footnotes.

Fake as they may be, I did enjoy reading them. So thanks, I guess Crichton.