Weald Comics

The Corpse Door! Version 4! “The last” rendition of the tale. There will be a page uploaded every week, with a little bit of commentary too!

This splash page pays homage to the previous covers/title page, all which featured a similar picture stone – showing a warrior, who falls ill, then dies in his house. His wife grieves while his brother and a serf make a hole (“the corpse door”) in the outside-wall and drag his body through it.

The runes at the top of the stone, which were added in ‘The Corpse Door 2′, are not very accurate grammatically speaking. Back-in-the-day the CD2 runes were inspired by an actual picture/rune stone (possible the Berezan’ Runestone). I think they are supposed to say something along the lines of ‘here lies Karl;’ The last word is definitely ‘Karl,’ the middle word is ‘coffin’ (vault – a bit of a stretch) and the first word…well, there may be either a spelling or designated-futhark mistake. There’s a Younger Futhark ‘ᚼ’ and ‘ᚱ’ – but in between is an Old-English-Futhark ‘ᛄ’… unless that should have been written as ‘ᚦ’ or ‘ᚹ’

…this is probably why the draugr comes back. None too happy with the runes on that stone!

Draugar are the undead – whose description and abilities vary in different sagas and folklore (…though the one thing in common is that they’re all dead). They can have great strength, immense weight, shape-shifting powers, future-sight, can come in a variety of colours and stenches, and can kill people/animals in a multitude of different ways – including but not limited to causing death-resulting-insanity and consuming victims whole!

For Version 4 of my tale I gave the draugr the ability to walk through (some) structures (such as his barrow). Draugar can be undeadly-motivated by a longing for the things they once experienced in life, or thinking that they are actually still alive – and at lot of the time this causes draugar to be very jealous and violent. I like this idea – and to try to make an undead creature we have some sympathy for – so I made my draugr have a “need” to return home, to get out of the “cold.”

He dead. He can’t feel cold.

In Versions 1-3, I showed the thralls inside the house as they heard the draugr trying to get in. (Lucky for him, despite his strength and/or magically ability to walk through walls, it didn’t work here!) I decided I didn’t want to show the inside of the house, and kept the setting to the draugr’s restricted environment – outside, cold, and stuck in front of the DOOR.

Also – this time around, I didn’t fill in the draugr’s pupils. I think it adds a little bit of uneasiness to everything about him.