War in an age of innocence: 4

Link to Chapter 1

When Urho had finished his story everyone raised their arms to share it with the Oneness and Vara stepped into the centre. This surprised Kiri, for he had never heard Vara tell one of her stories to the village. Her usual gruff manner had vanished and she seemed rather shy and embarrassed at first as everyone settled in to listen. Regaining her composure, she gave everyone a short glance and started her story:

“A long time ago, the people of this village did not know how to plant grain. The Great Serpent took pity on them and gave them fields where this grain grew wild. After the earth swallowed the snow, the spring rains would come and the new green shoots would appear. The summer sun made them grow tall and the fields would soon show their appreciation by taking on the colour of the sun.

“The sun would become tired from all of that work. Even before the fields showed their thanks, the sun would spend less time in the sky each day. There were some days near the harvest time when the sun became very weak and the clouds would wrap themselves around the sun like a blanket so that the sun could keep itself warm and regain its strength for another day.

“The people of this village often worried at those times, for without the protection of the friendly sun, the fields could easily fall prey to things from the Darkness. What the village feared most was the Great Boar. Every year he would wait until the sun grew weak and then attack the fields and steal the grain. In some years he would be very hungry and he would leave almost nothing for the village, in other years he would take just a little, and then be on his way. If the sun could recover quickly enough he would vanish as soon as the sun cast off its blanket of clouds.

“The Great Boar always roared upon his arrival, and there would be great flashes of bright fire in the sky. Sometimes trees would catch fire, and the sky always tried to protect them with rain so that they would not burn easily. The Boar would rush about the fields, cutting some of the ears of grain from their stalks with his sharp tusks while the brush on his back would destroy even more. He charged around the fields so fast that he created a great wind and this wind would flatten the fields. He would eat his fill of the grain and trample the rest into the ground.

“The people always hid in their houses and they would hear him outside their doors, for he would also attack the village. Nothing was safe from his fury. When he was gone, the people would come out from their houses and set to work to save what they could. This happened more years than not and the people were always hungry. They tried to work faster, but they could not harvest the grain before it was ripe. At that time, they did things differently than we do now: they would walk through the fields with their baskets, collecting every ripe seed from the heads of grain and leaving the others to ripen. The Great Boar could arrive at any time so they tried to get as much as they could while they had a chance.

“The people of this village would wait until the boar had gone, and the next morning they would take their baskets to the fields to collect as much of the grain as they could. They had to eat that grain quickly because it was wet and spoiled easily. The grain that the boar had trampled into the ground would send up new shoots the following spring, but sometimes there was not so much as before.

“Late one year, just before the Great Boar came to raid the fields a hunter arrived in the village just before dawn. The people welcomed him and when they exchanged stories they told him of the Great Boar. He promised them that he would track the Great Boar to his lair and bring them back his head and pelt.

“That very night the Great Boar came, and in the morning when the people went out to gather what was left of the grain, the hunter went with them to search for the tracks and follow them to the lair of the Great boar. The hunter looked everywhere, but the rain had washed away all of the tracks. The hunter never broke a promise and he asked the people if they knew which direction the Great Boar would go after he left the fields, but the people told him that they always hid in their houses and they never saw the Great Boar leave.

“There was a wise woman who lived in the village, and this wise woman told the hunter that he would have to go and see the Great Serpent, for the Great Serpent must have sent the Great Boar to them. The hunter knew about the Great Serpent, and he knew that all the creatures that were sent by the Great Serpent were from the Darkness. Like the Great Boar, they were all dark creatures.

“The hunter walked out of the village determined to follow one of these dark creatures back to the abode of the Great Serpent. Once there, he could ask the great serpent for his help in tracking the Great Boar. The Great Serpent always helped those who sought him out. The hunter first encountered a raven, but as he walked slowly toward it, the raven became alarmed and took to the sky. Now this hunter was very clever, but he could not follow the raven into the sky, and the raven flew too fast for him to follow it on the ground.

“The hunter arrived at the sea and followed the shore until he came to some cliffs. He climbed the cliffs because there was no beach at that spot and the water was deep at the foot of those cliffs. He saw the white sea birds wheeling around. Every once in a while one of them would touch the water and fly up again with a small fish in its beak. Among the white sea birds was a dark bird: a cormorant. He watched the cormorant dive into the darkest part of the water and vanish below the waves. He waited, and after what seemed like a long time, the cormorant came up from the deep with a dark fish in his beak.

“The hunter was pleased: although he knew that he could not fly like the raven, he knew that he could dive like the cormorant. He watched for the bird to dive again, and quickly dived after him into the sea. The light began to fade as the hunter followed the cormorant deeper and deeper. He had started to wonder if he could hold his breath long enough when he saw a dark eel swim into a cave and he saw the cormorant follow after it. The hunter swam into the cave and the darkness surrounded him. He became very scared and could feel the air bubbling out of his mouth and the cold seawater entering, Then a light appeared to him, and around this light he saw the coils of the Great Serpent. He wanted to speak, but he could not. He wanted to be alert, but he felt himself falling into a peaceful sleep.

“When he awoke he found himself lying on a beach where the cliffs went far back from the shore. At the foot of the cliffs was a dark cave and all around the entrance were boar tracks. He took his sling and gathered stones from the beach. He entered the cave. No sooner was he inside when he heard a bellowing and saw the Great Boar charging toward him. He let fly with a large stone and the Great Boar fell dead at his feet.

“He carried the body of the Great Boar on his shoulders and found a way back to the village. The wise woman was waiting for him, and told him that he had been gone for a day and a night. He could not remember anything between seeing the light and the coils of the Great Serpent, and waking up on the beach, but he told the wise woman that the Great Serpent must have directed him there and then taken his memory away.

“The wise woman gathered all of the people and told them that the Great Serpent had visited her in a dream in the night and told them how they should use the body of the Great Boar. They should cook all the meat and give it to the hunter as his reward. They should use the sharp tusks of the Great Boar to cut the ears of grain from the stalks and bring them all back to the village in their baskets. When all the grain was gathered, they should place it on the hide of the boar and beat it with the brush from his back, then they should toss everything in the enormous hide and let the wind carry away all of the waste.

“They should not eat all of the grain, but save some for the next year when the earth had swallowed the snow. Then they should take the shoulder blades of the boar and fashion a tool to scratch lines in the earth. They should scatter the grain that they had saved and gently cover them with earth using the shoulder blade. When this was done they should gently walk over that earth so that the grain would not be as deep as when the Great Boar had trampled it.

“She told them that the Great Serpent had told her that the sun would be able to warm the seeds sooner and make them grow quicker, so if he sent another Great Boar, then the village would already have harvested the grain. The Great Boar would have to find other food. The Great Serpent would send them a sign when it was time to plant the grain, and that sign would be the moon taking the form of the tusk of the Great Boar as soon as the earth had swallowed the snow. They should wait for the grain to ripen, and after, when the moon was full, they should start their harvest.

“The Great Serpent looked kindly on them after that. He changed the winds and the currents of the sea and gave them more time for the grain to ripen. He set an image of the hunter in the sky in stars to protect them through the winter. He sent other Great Boars to their fields just in case they were ungrateful and did not follow his directions, but they never did.

The villagers raised their arms to share Vara’s story with the Oneness, and then the flutes and drums were played and the Danai were given their last feast before they took to their boat again. Urho told Vara how much he had enjoyed her story and she blushed. Kiri thought that she looked younger when she did this, and her usually harsh voice was softer as she thanked Urho for his praise. As Kiri enjoyed the music and the feast that came after, he thought about the two stories. They were both new to him, and there was something about them that put questions in his mind. He must talk to Aunt Vara about these questions, but not now. She was sitting with Urho. They were talking and laughing together.

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