Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [15]
Each night now, as they stood beside the river, or down at the lake, the two men watched the moon, the goddess of all hunters, grow larger and more splendid in the sky. For both men, it was this silver goddess whom they revered above other gods, for the animals altered their behaviour according to her seasons, and was it not by her light that men hunted in the long nights?
The nights passed, then at last the moon became full and they knew the eve of their hunt had arrived; it was time now to prepare themselves and to perform the necessary rituals in honour of the goddess.
On the shore beside the sheltered lake they built a fire. As the moon rose high over the lake in the night sky, its reflection gleamed at them in the waters.
“She comes to drink,” said Tep, and as they watched the silver disc shimmering on the lake, it did indeed seem as though she had dived under its waters to drink.
While their children built up the fire, the two men performed a curious but most important ritual. Over his head, Tep held the antlers of a deer killed the year before, and very slowly, he danced round the fire, imitating exactly the deer’s delicate walk, its pauses, the quick, nervous turn of the head as it looked about for signs of danger. While Tep so perfectly acted the part of the deer, so that the children gazed at him in wonder, Hwll stalked him round the fire, with infinite care, exactly as he would when the hunt began. With meticulous precision, the men rehearsed every detail of the hunt – how the deer would be found, how stalked, and finally how it would be shot and die, while the women and children watched each move intently. This ritual was not only the hunter’s way of instructing the children in the ways of the hunt. It was a rehearsal, a piece of magic performed in the sight of the moon goddess, to ensure that their desires were known to her and that they would be given a kill the next day.
So brilliantly did Tep the hunter act his part, that it seemed as if he had, in truth, become a deer, taking on the animal’s soul, and sacrificing himself to the will of the hunter. When they killed the next day, both men understood that the spirit of the chosen deer would already have been promised to and accepted by the moon, and its body to themselves: nothing was left to chance. After this ceremony was done, the little group fell very quiet, knowing that an important and ancient magic had taken place amongst them, while the fire crackled and the moon continued on her silent way across the sky.
The following morning, a few miles up river, Hwll and Tep, accompanied by Tep’s older son, a wiry boy of ten, found and killed a magnificent stag. They ferried it back to Tep’s camp where the two women carefully skinned it, cut the meat away from the carcass and collected the blood in a leather pouch. They would feast that night, but even so, they would be able to keep back most of the meat, slicing it into strips and drying it in the sun. Meanwhile, shallow trays of seawater that had been left to evaporate now provided salt which they sprinkled over the meat to preserve it. Thanks to their care, the meat would last for weeks.
Before the feast, however, a second and most important ceremony had still to be performed by the men. When the meat had been removed from the carcass, the women handed them the skin. Inside the skin they placed the deer’s heart, and then the men filled the remainder with stones and sewed the skin together again. Together Hwll and Tep lifted the deer across the dugout, and as the moon was rising, they paddled down stream towards the lake.
It was already dark when they reached the lake’s placid waters, and the moon was high. Silently they pushed out to the middle and there they tipped the weighted carcass overboard. At once it sank to the bottom.
“Now the moon may eat as well as drink,” said