Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [29]
He said nothing, but he understood, and it grieved him to know that he was soon to lose her.
It was one night that summer, when the whole extended family sat round the fire they had built on the side of the little hill above the valley entrance, and after they had eaten the sweet-smelling meat of the deer, and gorged themselves with the berries that were so abundant, Hwll ordered silence: and then, with words that had been given him by the wind itself, he completed his life’s work by passing on to them the great treasure of his knowledge.
That night, and many more times, in words that they could memorise easily, so that the past would be preserved when he had died, he told them all he knew: he told them about the wall of ice and the tundra in the north, about the great seas to the west and south, and about the mountains and forests far away in the east. He told them about the gods and about the great causeway across the sea. And then, he told them the story he had heard in the wind, of how the sea had cut them off.
“In the beginning,” he explained, “there were two great gods: the sun, and the moon his wife, who watches over all hunters. And they had two children: the god of the forest, and the god of the sea. And the god of the forest lived in the great forest to the east that was full of game; and the god of the sea lived in the north, near the great wall of ice.
“The sun and the moon loved the forest god, and gave him much land. But he was never satisfied and always asked for more. This made the sea god angry, for he was given no land.
“A year passed, and still the forest god asked for land. And the sea god was more angry still.
“The next year, the forest god asked for more land, saying: ‘My mother the moon likes men to hunt; give us more land for forest, so that they may do so.’
“Now the water god was angry; and he went to his father the sun and said: ‘Father punish my brother who is never satisfied.’
“And so the sun god became a huge white swan, he flew over the ice in the north, again and again, and the ice melted.
“When the ice melted, there arose a sea; and the sea came down from the north in a huge wave and it swept over all the land there and it covered the forest to the east. And the waters remained.”
Then, carried away by the memory of the terrible sight he had seen, and moved to the depths by the thought of the vanished forest, the hunter’s voice rose to a chant.
“So the forest lay under the sea, and the animals too, the birds and the beasts, they are all there still, under the dark waters.
“You can hear their cries in the waves.
“The path to the east is lost, and we are an island, cut off from the rest of the land.
“The waters are rising still; each year they rise, taking more land.
“They will take the shore, they will take the lake, they will take the valley.
“But the high ground will remain, for the waters cannot reach it.
“Here, my children, we are safe, until the world ends.
“Give sacrifice to the gods. Salah.”
His song was ended. The listeners who heard these sobering words, and knowing they came to him from the gods, remained silent for some time.
When Hwll died, three years after Akun, they buried him beside her on the high ground. With him they buried the little stone figure that he had made of her.
And for many generations, at Sarum, it was the time of the hunter.
THE BARROW
Approximately three thousand five hundred years passed, and in the remote northern island of Britain, as far as we can tell, very little happened. To the north, the ice cap retreated to something like its present arctic position, and the sea continued to rise and devour new land, so that the inland lake by the hill became instead a protected harbour, most of the land between