52 pages • 1-hour read
A Curse Carved in Bone
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and sexual violence.
Wolves
Nordeland’s heraldic banner features a white wolf; Fenrir—a wolf figure in Norse mythology—adorns the bows of Harald’s ships and is tattooed on his thralls. Harald has two wolves named Skoll and Hati—also inspired by Norse mythological figures—as his guards and familiars. Harald strongly identifies with wolves, which symbolize strength, cunning, and aggression. When he reveals his true nature in Chapter 32, he takes on a wolf-like appearance: “Harald’s grin was all teeth” (224). This imagery reinforces his symbolic connection to wolves.
In Norse cosmology, Fenrir is a child of Loki and therefore a brother to Harald. Skoll and Hati are children of Fenrir. Their familial relationship to Harald, a child of Loki, contributes to the book’s examination of loyalty. Though Harald’s thralls sport tattoos of Fenrir, their loyalty to him is coerced. Skoll and Hati, too, are only loyal to Harald because of the runes painted on their fur. They abandon him to join Freya, implying that real loyalty must be earned.
The “wolf in sheep’s clothing” idiom serves as an icon—in literature, a description or image that uses a figure of speech to convey meaning. It refers to someone hiding malevolent motives beneath the guise of harmlessness and virtue. Harald embodies this icon, furthering wolves’ symbolic connection to his character and his deceptions.
Prophecy
Prophecy symbolizes The Tension Between Fate and Free Will. For the fated majority, the future is predetermined: Prophecies are visions of the future they can do nothing to change. For unfated children of the gods, prophecies are gifts from Odin, allowing them to know what is slated to occur so they have the opportunity to intervene. These gifts are double-edged swords, however, since it is nearly impossible for them to know the ultimate outcomes of their individual choices, making it extremely difficult to change fate. Prophecy, then, sometimes seems to Bjorn like a means for the gods to toy with the Unfated, to dangle false hope and watch them frantically try to control what is uncontrollable.
Hel’s Voice
Freya sometimes hears a voice in her head that she assigns to Hel, the goddess of the underworld and one of her immortal parents. This voice represents the darker side of Freya’s inner self. Freya says of the voice: “She is covetous. She pushes me to take what I want and fuels my anger when I am denied” (116). By attributing covetousness and anger to an external figure, Freya shows a lack of insight and accountability for her own flaws. Hel’s voice is not external but a symbol of every human’s base nature. Freya must recognize that these traits make her human, not a monster, and that she can learn to control them and apply them for good.
Sauna
The sauna at Saga’s cabin symbolizes emotional cleansing, introspection, and self-awareness. Freya’s mission requires her to find inner truth before she can tackle the truth about others. Ironically, she finds these truths in a setting that is, externally, pure deception, as if the steam cleanses toxins from the body and cleanses deception from Freya’s mind. This cleansing, which helps Freya accept her flaws, demonstrates the freeing power of truth. Saunas are considered a sacred space in Scandinavian traditions. They foster clarity and connection with one’s inner self, a crucial part of Freya’s transformative journey.
Huldra
The huldra, creatures that seduce men, bed them, and kill them, symbolize temptation and sex as a source of power. Their powers suggest that lust can be a weakness for many people. Freya and Bjorn’s encounter with the huldra serves to characterize their relationship. Bjorn’s ability to resist the huldra indicates that his love for Freya is special. As a symbol of temptation in general, the huldra’s seduction represents all the people and situations that will compete with Freya for Bjorn’s time, attention, love, and loyalty, drawing parallels to the challenges of all romantic relationships. In this context, Bjorn’s resistance shows that he prioritizes Freya above everything else and predicts his enduring faithfulness to her, contributing to the theme of The Redemptive Power of Loyalty. This scene portrays Freya and Bjorn’s romance as a source of strength and protection against a world in which powerful enemies—both literal and figurative—abound.
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