Part One: The Body

If anything about growing up in a Christian society taught me, it was that we all have fundamentally two parts: our bodies and our souls. Your body carries your soul around for X number of years, and then it gives up the ghost, quite literally and ejects your soul, either to the Abrahamic God or the Devil. Sometimes, it gets stuck in between if God can’t make his mind up, in a place called Purgatory, or something. Your body then rots or turns to ash and is no longer important. At least, that’s a rudimental memory of it that I recall from all those assemblies where the local Rev X came to speak to us at school and where we had to sit and sing hymns or ‘Lily the Pink’ whilst the headteacher strummed a guitar.

But, rather than question whether they were right or not, this largely lost relevance to me when I stopped coasting my beliefs based on the religion I’d grown up with and started making my own choices and doing my own research.

And then I found Dungeons and Dragons. And nerdery. And fanciful monster beastiaries the like of which most people would never fathom. Or care to. But amongst the nerdery, amongst the adventures, the bucks that were swashed and the monsters that were slain, there came glimmers, shades of a history that I’m only now able to appreciate in my ripe older age, having thought more deeply than where my next XP dump would be coming from. Some of those monsters had roots. Some of those monsters were born of a time largely unrecorded, when nights were dark and filled with danger, where science had yet to explain how things work sufficiently and where fear of the unknown created behaviours that we all feel in our DNA when traversing unfamiliar territory of all kinds.

And that brings me to the liche. Few monsters could inspire such fear in spotty, body-odour-ridden teenagers than an encounter with such a creature. But to the uninitiated, what even are they? In fiction, these were creatures of the undead, beings with magical powers or sorcerers who had chosen undeath to increase their power yet further and enable a neverending existence. Life beyond death, different from the fabled vampire, still yet different from a zombie or ghoul, these creatures had razor acute senses and a mastery of the dark arts.

So, how did this have anything to do with the Anglo-Saxons? Well, because, dear reader, the name “liche” is derived from the Old English word, “līc”, which means “body, corpse.”

Lich is an archaic English word for “body” or “corpse”; the gate at the lowest end of the cemetery where the coffin and funerary procession usually entered was commonly referred to as the lich gate. This gate was quite often covered by a small roof where part of the funerary service could be carried out.

We get the word “corpse” in English from the Normans, as it is a French word. Interestingly, though, the word līc had a dual meaning in relation to “corpse” because it meant both a body that was alive as well as a body that was dead. Consequently, this shows the importance of the body to the Anglo-Saxons as it held equal relevance. This explains the care given to ensuring the dead were cared for, with appropriate funerary rites and burial or cremation. We can see the importance placed on taking good care of the body because we have evidence of burial goods, the importance of the deceased being placed within burial mounds overlooking settlements and places of import.

In conclusion, the body itself has significant importance. It is not merely a flesh and bone sack to be cast off and forgotten about, it was important enough to try and ensure that it is revered, cared for and remained present to the community, even after death. To this day, people will visit the graves of their loved ones and tend to it. It is important to do so, because these are the people who contributed to our own lives in ways we cannot even know. Their bodies, their ashes, must rest well, because the fear of a “bad” burial would lead to unfinished business, unhappiness or a perceived curse. Revenants were a real concern to our ancient ancestors.

We may think we have moved past this “primitive superstition” nowadays, but to think that we could inadvertently cause suffering by not treating the body well during life and also during death is a prime reason why many modern heathens feel so strongly about it. We care. We love. In life, as in death, because love never dies.