from molly gloss' Wild Life

People began to say this: that the body of the Bearded Man was made of light. They said he was a vessel some wolf-people had made, a sack of light in which to hold their old stories. In one of those old stories, wild people living under the rocks come out at night to eat children.
......

We were slow to come to this understanding: that the Bearded Man had cut the cord between himself and the world and now stood separate in his victory, like an embryo which has triumphed over its womb.
p. 253-254