- When Bear asks him about himself, Crispin doesn't know what to say; Bear helps him out by asking about his mother and the rest of his family.
- Crispin has always been told that they all died in the Great Death, which is yet another cheerful name for the Black Death.
- Bear says he escaped the plague by going north to the islands off the coast of Scotland.
- He wonders why Crispin doesn't want to know more about who he is and who his family was, and finally asks how Crispin came to be declared a wolf's head.