as they moved across the field plying their hoes, they used to sing
songs to keep in time with one another, one singing the verses and the
rest all joining in the chorus. They were fond of singing, whether they
were at work or at play; they had songs and choruses for the different
occupations, marching songs and harvest songs and songs about hunting
the deer; and at the feast-times they sang these songs and the choruses
over and over again.
When the time came to gather in the corn, the people often found their
crops very short, for pigeons and rooks and other birds came and ate
the corn, and the wild deer sometimes broke through the fences and
trampled down even more than they ate.
But for all that, the harvest was always a busy time. The women cut off
the heads of the corn with their flint knives and carried it home in
baskets. They stored it up in the store-houses in the winter village,
and when the last of the crops had been gathered in, the people went
back to the village for the winter. Then for many days they kept the
feast of the harvest. There was plenty to eat and drink, and everybody
ate and drank a great deal; and they sang and danced and offered
sacrifices, and gave thanks to their gods for the crops that they had
gathered in.
The pit-hut, which was Gofa’s store-house for her corn, was near the
hut in which she and Garff lived. Like her neighbours she stored up
the ears of the corn, and only rubbed out the grain when she wanted a
supply for making cakes or porridge.
Besides the harvest of the fields there was the harvest of the woods
to be gathered in. Tig used to enjoy more than anything else the days
when they gathered the acorns. The women used to go in large parties,
with some of the children and some of the young men, all singing and
shouting. Then, if a savage old wild boar was routing about among the
fern, and munching the fallen acorns, he would listen to the noise of
the party coming up, and grunt angrily at being disturbed, and move
away into the deep forest; for he feared men, and never attacked them
unless they chased him and brought him to bay.
It was splendid for Tig and the other boys--climbing into the oak
trees, and getting as far out as they could upon the branches to shake
down the ripe acorns. Sometimes they gathered a handful of fine ones
and threw them at one another or pelted the women who were gathering
underneath; and then Gofa, or some one else’s mother, would look up
and say: “Have done now, little badling! or surely we will leave thee
in the forest here to-night, and Arthas the She-bear will catch thee
and carry thee to her den to make a supper morsel for her little ones!”
And they gathered blackberries and nuts and wild strawberries, and
sat down all together to eat the fruit with the corn-cakes that they
had brought; and those who had not had enough to eat, nibbled at the
acorns. But nobody ate many of these, because they were meant to be
carried home for storing, and not to be eaten raw at any time. They
were to be dried beside the fire in jars, and then pounded up and mixed
with corn-meal to make it go further.
At sunset the people all joined into a company again to go home. Every
one had a load. There were big baskets that took two to carry, and
smaller baskets for one, and little baskets for the children: and some
of the lads and women had wallets made of deer-hide slung over their
shoulders.
[Illustration: The Wild Boar]
And so they carried home the harvest of the woods, day by day until all
the trees were bare--and you may be sure that the squirrels had to be
astir very early in the morning to get a share of acorns and nuts for
their own winter stores.
[Illustration]
_Chapter the Eighth_
_How Crubach became a Sower of Corn_
IN Garff’s village there lived an old man named Crubach. The people
called him Crubach, the Lame One, because when he was a young man he
had had a dreadful fight with a bear, and had been nearly torn in
pieces. The bear clawed his face all down one side and tore his arm,
and would speedily have killed him, but that two or three brave men
dashed in with blazing firebrands and thrust them in the bear’s face;
and among them they killed the bear and saved poor Crubach. In time he
recovered; but he was never able to hunt again, because he was lame and
could not hold either a bow or a spear. But he was strong and clever,
and he did not mean to have to beg his daily bread. So he became a
grower of corn; and in time he was the greatest grower of corn in the
village. He tilled his plot of land more carefully than the women, and
always saved his best corn for seed; and his seed was so much better
than other people’s that they used to go to him at the time of sowing,
and take meat or skins or firewood to exchange for seed-corn.
Then the men began to see that after all Crubach had done well, even
though he was not a hunter; and in course of time, some of them took to
working among the crops and laying up more corn for the winter store.
Besides his crops of barley and wheat, Crubach grew flax, of which
the fibres were dressed and spun into thread. He used to keep a
supply of sticks trimmed and ready for making bows and arrow shafts
and spear-shafts; he also made wooden cups and bowls and wooden tubs.
And he used to gather wild plants of different sorts and use them
for medicine; and it was said in the village that nobody except the
Medicine Men knew more about plants than Crubach.
When Tig grew big enough to run about by himself, he became great
friends with Crubach. The old man was generally to be found working on
his piece of land, or sitting to scare away the birds from his crops.
He used to teach Tig the names of the animals and birds, and tell him
things about them--such as why Broc the badger never walks out except
at night; why Graineag the hedgehog wears a prickly jacket; where
Gobhlan the swallow goes in the cold-time; why Seabhac the kestrel hawk
hangs in the air beating her wings; and who it is that haunts the reedy
marshes, crying: “Boom-boom!” And when Crubach gathered in his harvest,
he bound a little sheaf of corn for Tig, and gave it to him, and said:
“This did I promise thee on the day when we were in the field together
scaring the birds.”
_Chapter the Ninth_
_The Story of the Wolf that hunted alone_
THIS is one of the stories that Crubach told to Tig. No one now could
tell it exactly as Crubach told it, but it was something like this:
Once upon a time there was a wolf that hunted alone. Why did he hunt
alone? Now listen, and I will tell thee.
One night he went out with his brother wolves; and they found the trail
of a stag and hunted him in the forest. And the stag stood at bay in
a rocky place and thrust with his antlers and killed three wolves,
and another he killed by leaping upon it suddenly, with his feet
altogether, and breaking its neck. So this wolf, who was a coward,
said: “I have no mind to be killed. I will not hunt stags.” So he went
home to his den and got no supper that night.
On the next night he went out again with the pack, and they found the
trail of a wild bull and hunted him in the forest. And the wild bull
stood at bay in a thicket, and tossed four wolves and trampled them
underfoot and gored them with his horns. So this wolf said: “I have no
mind to be tossed by a wild bull. I will not hunt wild bulls.” And he
went home to his den and got no supper that night.
So on the next night he went out to hunt alone. By and by he saw
Sinnach, the old fox, trotting home with a wild duck that he had
caught, slung across his shoulders. So he called out:
“Ho, there! Deliver up that duck!”
But Sinnach was not afraid when he saw that the wolf was alone, and he
ran to his den, which was in the rocks close by, and he dropped the
duck inside, and then he came to the door and called out to the wolf:
“Ho, there, friend! Go and catch a duck for thyself!” And then he went
back into his den.
And the wolf went on, and soon he came to the village of the Beavers.
The village of the Beavers was in a pond; but the pond was frozen over,
because it was the cold-time; and the wolf walked on the ice and came
to the hut where the grandfather beaver lived. The grandfather beaver
was at home with his family, all sitting snug in the house; and the
wolf knew that all the beavers were at home because he could smell
them. So he came up close outside, and he called out to the grandfather
beaver and said:
“Let me in! Let me in!”
The grandfather beaver knew the wolf’s voice, and he answered:
“Where are thy manners, friend? Come to the door!”
Now the door of a beaver’s hut is under the water; and the water was
frozen over with thick ice; and the grandfather beaver knew that the
wolf could not dig through the ice, so he laughed, and the other
beavers laughed too.
When the wolf heard the beavers laugh, he was very angry, and he
snapped out and said:
“I am coming in through the roof!”
So he began to scratch and dig with his paws at the roof of the
beavers’ hut. But the roof of the beavers’ hut was made of boughs well
laid in and plastered with mud and gravel, and it was all frozen as
hard as the ice on the pond. So when the wolf scratched, he only hurt
his claws and made his pads very sore; so after a while he had to leave
off and go home, limping on his sore pads. And when the beavers heard
him leave off and go away, they laughed again, down in their snug house.
So the wolf went home to his den, and he got no supper that night.
[Illustration: The Wolf at the Beaver’s Hut]
The next night he went out again and hunted by himself. And he was so
hungry that he sat on his tail and howled at the moon.
Gearrag, the young hare, heard him, and she peeped at him from behind a
tuft of grass; but she was not afraid of a wolf that hunted alone, and
she ran off to feed.
And Mulcha the owl heard him; she perched in the fir tree overhead and
cried out: “_Whoo-whoo-whoo!_ Who heeds a wolf that runs by himself?
_Whoo-whoo-oo!_”
And Broc the badger heard him. He came up out of his burrow at the
roots of a big oak tree to go on his midnight prowl; he went on his
way, grunting to himself: “I always go out without a mate, for that is
the way of us badger-folk, but it is not the way for him; it is not the
way of his folk. No, no!”
By and by the wolf went on again; and he hunted all the night and found
no trail. But towards morning he smelt the scent of dead game. And he
nosed about and presently he found in a thicket the body of a hind that
had been caught in a trap by its foot. A man had set the trap, but he
was at home lame with frost-bite in his feet, and he could not go to
his trap. The hind was dead, and Bran the raven had found it; Bran was
sitting aloft on a bare branch, calling out “_Kroagh, kroagh, kroagh!_”
When the wolf found the dead hind in the trap, he was very glad. He
said to himself: “Now I will have a feast all to myself. It is a good
thing to hunt alone!”
But Arthas the she-bear was near. She too had smelled out the dead
hind, and she meant to make a meal of it. She saw the wolf, but she was
not afraid of a wolf that hunted alone. So she came up very quietly
behind him and said:
“_Humpff!_”
The wolf jumped, for he was very frightened. But he snarled and showed
his teeth. Then he said:
“Go away! This is mine.”
But Arthas said, “Nay, friend, it is mine!”
And the wolf said, “It is mine, for I killed it!”
But Arthas answered: “If thou didst kill it, what is this thing upon
its foot, and what meaneth Bran yonder, crying carrion? Thou art a liar
and I shall cuff thee!”
So Arthas lifted her great paw and cuffed the wolf over the head, and
he fell down dead. And Arthas took the body of the hind and dragged
it home to her den for breakfast for her little ones. But as for the
carcase of the wolf, she saw that it was nothing but skin and bone; so
she left it there in the thicket for Bran the raven, who sat in the
tree crying carrion, and for Feannog the crow, who will eat anything.
And that is the end of the story of the wolf that hunted alone.
_Chapter the Tenth_
_DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: A Talk about Cattle and Crops_
WHEN the chapter was finished, the boys talked about the plan for
making a dug-out hut, if they could all be together in the next winter
holidays. Uncle John said he would not stop them, but he thought they
would find it too hard a task when they came to dig down into the
ground, unless they could find a place where the soil was deep and
sandy.
Dick wanted to know what tools the people of the old time used when
they dug out their winter huts.
Uncle John took down another book, and showed them a picture of an old
pick-axe made out of a deer’s antler. But, he said, he did not know
what the men used to do for shovels; perhaps they scooped up the soil
in their hands, and carried it up to the top of the pit in baskets.
Anyway the boys thought that with their spades they would be able to
dig down fairly deep; and then, if they were to lay the soil around the
top as they dug it out, they would make the walls higher.
Joe said it would be great fun to have a real fire and collect acorns
and roast them to see how they tasted. But Uncle John said they would
not find many acorns in the Christmas holidays: the rooks and the
squirrels would have taken care of that. But David said they could
have some chestnuts from home and pretend they were acorns. He said he
thought they would be nicer to eat than acorns, anyway. “Acorns are so
bitter,” said he, “I wonder anyone could eat them at all.”
“Yes,” said Uncle John. “But if they were pounded up and put into a
vessel with water, the water would take out much of the bitter taste;
and then the water could be poured off and the acorn meal dried and
mixed with corn meal, as we read, for either corn-cakes or porridge.”
Then David asked why the people didn’t keep larger herds of cattle, so
that in the long winter, when there was no other food, they could be
sure of having beef in plenty.
“Well,” said Uncle John, “now that’s a question--who can think of an
answer?”
Dick said that wolves would come and kill the cattle; and Joe said that
enemies would come and steal them.
“Those are both likely answers,” said Uncle John, “for, of course, it
is harder to guard a large herd than a small one--but, can’t some one
think of a better?”
David said he expected it was hard to keep cattle in the winter, if
the people had no byres for them, and no hay to feed them with.
“That is a good notion,” said Uncle John, “the people couldn’t take
a cow down the passage into a pit-hut, though no doubt they built
cowsheds of some sort inside the wall of the village. But cows can’t
live on nothing but fresh air, any more than human beings can; and it
must have been a difficult matter to collect winter forage for even
a small herd in days when nobody made hay. And then, I daresay, it
was not easy to rear large herds, for the cattle which the people had
were only partly tamed; and some would be apt to stray away into the
forests; and the more a man had, the more he would lose, both in this
way and from the attacks of wild animals, as Dick says.
“It is more likely that most men had only a few cattle at first. Then
they naturally tried to keep for use and for breeding those that were
the tamest and the best; and you may be sure that a man would not kill
a cow that was gentle and gave good milk, unless he were driven by
starvation.
“But, of course, as time went on, men became more skilful in rearing
cattle and sheep, just as they became more skilful in growing corn. And
so it came to pass that people had always food at home, without needing
to hunt the wild deer, except for amusement; but that was not for a
very long while after the time we have been reading about.”
Then Dick wanted to know about the corn that Crubach sowed. Where
did it come from? Was it wild corn? Uncle John said that was a hard
question, and one that even learned men had never been able to answer
completely. There is no wild corn in this country, he said, and the
original stock of the corn that Crubach and his neighbours had must
have been brought from some other country a great many years before
Crubach lived.
“What are pig-nuts like?” Dick asked.
“You dig them up in fields, with an old knife,” said Joe, “a white
flower grows up from them, earlier in the summer than this. They don’t
have a shell; they are like little potatoes, and taste like a nut but
are rather tough.”
“Yes,” said Uncle John, “I don’t suppose the people thought much
of pig-nuts, which probably were not very plentiful in times when
there were fewer meadows; and not easy to get, besides being rather
poor things when you get them, as Joe says. But the wild fruit
that they gathered in the autumn--we have read of acorns, nuts and
blackberries--what other kinds can you think of?”
“Wild strawberries,” said Dick.
“And raspberries,” said Joe.
“Cranberries,” said David, “and blaeberries.”
“What are they?” Dick asked.
“You say bilberries, or perhaps ‘whorts’--go on.”
“Hips and haws.”
“Very likely.”
“Rowanberries?” David asked.
“Yes, very likely: but think of something else--not berries at all.”
“Not crab apples?” said Joe, “they didn’t eat crabs surely?”
“I expect they did. Not that we need guess about it, for to a certain
extent we know. A good many years ago, the remains of several villages
of about the period of this story were found beside the shores of some
of the lakes in Switzerland. There was hardly anything of the huts
to be seen, because they had been burned down. But the fire which
had destroyed the huts had preserved some of the things inside. For
instance, jars were dug out of the silt containing what had once been
food, all charred by the fire but whole and perfect in shape. There
were nuts and acorns and corn of different kinds, but also crabs or
wild apples that had evidently been split and dried. Some of these
things are in the British Museum now; and if we could go and see them,
I daresay you would think them very interesting.”
[Illustration: PICKAXE]
_Chapter the Eleventh_
_THE STORY OF TIG: How Tig got his First Bow and Arrows_
WHEN first Tig and his friends played at hunting, they mostly had bows
and arrows of their own making. Tig had made his own bow, but it was
not a good one. He made it of a hazel sapling which was not a very
tough piece of wood, and not well balanced, as one end was thicker than
the other. His bowstring was one that his father had thrown away, and
it was old and frayed.
But one day Garff was sitting outside the hut shaping a shaft for a
spear with his flint knife, and he saw Tig trying to shoot with his
weak little bow. So he called him, and said: “Bring it hither to me,
little son. It is a poor thing, this bow of thine. One of these days we
must make thee a better.”
And Tig said: “Make it now, Dad.”
So Garff laid aside his spear, and he went into the hut and brought
out several lengths of wood from his store, and he looked them over
carefully. He chose one--a piece of a tough ash sapling, about four
feet long. Then he set to work to whittle this with his knife until he
had shaped it to the right form--thickest in the middle and tapering
towards the ends, rounded in front and flattened at the back; and
he scraped it smooth all over. Then he worked some notches at each
end, using for this a little saw made of flint; and he fitted a new
bowstring to it, and gave Tig his first real bow. Of course this was
not done all in a day, but Garff worked at it between whiles when he
had time.
And he made the arrows, too, taking from his stock of arrow-sticks six
of the shorter ones. These he trimmed and scraped, and made a deep
notch at the top of each, to take the bow-string. Then at the tip he
made a deep cut, lengthwise, with the saw, and fitted in a bit of the
leg bone of a deer, shaped and pointed. Then he cut a very fine strip
of fresh hide and bound it around the base of the bone point; and
afterwards laid the arrows one by one in the sun, so that the hide
might dry and shrink, and hold the arrow-head tight in its place.
And Garff took some wing-feathers of a wild goose and split them; and
to each of the arrows he bound three strips of the feathers a little
below the notch, to make them fly straight. And he made a quiver of
birch bark, bound with bands of hide, for Tig to carry his arrows in.
And he cut a mark upon the quiver, and the same mark on each of the
arrows, so that Tig might always know his own; and he told him to be
very careful about his arrows, not to waste them on chance shots, and
always to recover them after shooting, if possible.
None of the boys had a better outfit than Tig’s. Among them they made
a target out of an old skin, stuffed with dry grass, and practised
shooting at it. The men taught them how to aim, standing sideways, on
to the target, with feet well apart, firmly set, and to draw the bow
by hooking the first two fingers of the right hand into the bowstring,
not by pinching the arrow between thumb and finger. Every boy in
the village wanted to practise and become a good marksman. The boys
who could shoot well and run well were always thought much of; and
sometimes they were allowed to go hunting with the men.
_Chapter the Twelfth_
_How Tig visited Goba the Spear-maker_
ONE day, not long after this, Tig was bringing in a faggot of sticks
for his mother, when he saw his father getting ready for a journey. He
had a wallet, with food packed into it, slung over his shoulders; also
his bow and a quiver full of arrows. He carried a spear in his hand and
had his stone axe slung at his side.
Tig had never been away with his father, and he wished very much to go.
He asked his father where he was going, and Garff said:
“I am going away over yonder, to get some arrow-heads from Goba, the
spear-maker; but it is too far for thee to travel. We shall be three
days or more about our journey, and we shall sleep out at night. Thou
art better at home.”
But Tig begged hard; so Garff said he might go, if his mother would let
him; and though his mother said she feared it would be too far for him,
yet he might go, for he was getting a big boy and must learn to march
like a man.
Four or five men of the village were going with Garff, and at last
they set out. They left the open ground where the cattle were feeding,
and made their way into the forest, going downward until they came to
the river. They marched along the river-bank, going up the stream, and
then crossed the water and mounted upward by a track through the thick
forest until they reached the high ground on the other side of the
valley. Here they were on the open moor; and the men began to practise
shooting for a match. One man shot an arrow ahead, and then the others,
each in turn, aimed at the first man’s arrow. Then they walked on, and
as soon as they were near enough to see how the arrows lay, they sent
Tig to pick them up. But Tig did not have to ask whose arrow each one
was, because every man had his own mark on his arrows, and Tig knew the
marks just as well as one of us nowadays knows his own initials on a
pocket-knife.
After sunset they came to a sheltered spot near a clump of oak trees,
and here they camped for the night. Garff and another man then gathered
up dry grass and dead leaves and twigs, and set to work with their
fire-stick to make a fire. This they did by setting the fire-stick
upright, with its end sunk into a hole in a little slab of wood that
they had brought with them. Then one pressed his hand lightly on the
top of the upright stick, while the other brought out a kind of bow
with a loose bow-string, and looped the string around the middle of the
upright stick. Then he worked the bow backward and forward and so made
the fire-stick spin in its socket, which after a while became so hot
that it set fire to the dry leaves and twigs that had been laid around
it.
Meantime the other men had collected dry brushwood and had cut logs,
so that they soon had a good fire. They sat round the fire and ate of
the dried meat and corn-cake that they had with them, and then lay down
to sleep. The men watched by turns to keep the fire up; for so long as
there was a good blaze they need not fear the attack of wild beasts.
Tig lay close beside his father; and when one of the men wakened Garff
to take his turn of the watch, Tig wakened too, and saw the darkness
all about them and the sparks flying upward towards the stars, and he
heard the wind rushing in the tops of the trees around them, and far
away the howling of the wolves hunting through the night.
After three days of such marching and camping, they came to Goba’s
village. Goba’s village was in the hill country and at the top of a
low, rounded hill. There was a wall set with stakes all round the
village, and the huts were mostly larger and better built than any Tig
had seen before. Goba and his sons never went away from their village.
When the people moved off in the summer and went camping with their
cattle, Goba and his sons stayed at home, working at their trade. They
were all busily working when Garff and his party arrived.